Sense.com

[carjunki153]

Has anyone seen this gadget? https://sense.com/product

I'd like something like this or similar to truly see my energy usage.

 

[gnubie]

I have no experience with that one but I have seen similar concepts elsewhere. It might seem like a good idea but actually working out what devices are turning on and off just from watching the total power through a circuit is next to impossible. Given a couple of things on the circuit they usually get it right. With a complex set of things going on they typically report all sorts of things going on that bear no relationship with reality.

 

[Thor]

I had a sense installed a couple of months ago along with a new electrical panel on my house in Florida. It does struggle to identify devices, but so far has automatically found the major ones. If you have any tplink/wemo smart plugs it can also locate those and you can specify exactly what they power. I have quite a few of these. One other thing I like is that it also has optional clamps for a grid tie solar system so that it can track that as well. I just added these a week ago as my grid tie system was just turned on last week.

Personally, I like it, but then I'm a numbers guy and like to know specifics if at all possible. Here are a couple of screen shots from the web interface, but you can also monitor with ios/android.

Couple of interesting observations that I found was that my ac was 56% of my power usage, followed by my pool pump at 21% and water heater at 9%. So this accounts for 56 + 21 + 9 = 86% of all my electric usage. Since I installed a new ac system last year, my next focus is to look at a new pool pump or start running my current one less often. After that I'll probably look into a tankless water heater.