Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

As an engineer, I've been fairly satisfied with the Sense Solar. It gives me great information how much solar power I am generating vs. power consumption, which is the primary reason I bought it. First, the Sense box and solar kit came in a very nice solid package. Maybe a little too much was printed out, but no complaints because it is a good reference guide during installation. Installation was relatively simple. I don't recommend or advise anyone to do this, but I installed it myself and did the entire installation without shutting off the main power panel. Bought a 20A double pole breaker, connected it up to the 3 lines (hot, neutral, and ground) to the Sense box. Then hook up the current transformers to the incoming power lines and the solar power lines in the breaker box, it's good to go. Sense also provided an external WiFi Antenna. Originally I was going to poke a hole in the service panel for the WiFi Antenna because WiFi cannot penetrate a metal box obviously. But after closer examination, I could use the electrical conduit that goes inside the house and it is plastic. I was proven correct after I powered up everything. Strong 90% signal on the 2.4 Ghz even though I am going through walls. I do have some concerns that Sense is only rated for 32°F-122°F since my service panel is outdoor and I can see outdoor temperature easily exceed the rated temperature. But knowing a little bit about electronics give me some assurance that it will continue to work below freezing. But the temperature range seems very restrictive in my opinion for something that can be installed outdoor. Additionally, the warranty is only 1 year which tells me Sense may not have a lot of confidence in their product. The whole device is mostly plastic but well built. Only time will tell. The price is a little high for current sensing smart devices, but the ability to detect and track appliance usage intrigued me and I was willing to pay a little more to test it. 1 week after installing the Sense, my Sense was still waiting for signal check, but I was getting basic usage reading for both Solar and consumption. Then I got an email from Sense tech support for permission to review my usage data due to a possible issue with my Sense install. I gave them permission and Sense told me that I connected my current transformers (clamp) to the same power line. I checked my panel and even sent a picture telling them I clamped one to the left, one to the right. I am not stupid, you know? Tech support got back to me within 24 hours and told me some panels with bus bars would switch lines as they run through the breakers. Sure enough, they were right when I hooked up my multi-meter. I changed the clamp to connect to the correct power line and also reset data of my Sense. Within 1 day, signal check was complete and now I am getting two steams of data (2 power lines) instead of a single line. My experience with tech support is Sense really had good email support and my questions were answered usually within 24 hours. They also monitor your data to make sure you didn't mess up on your setup. I give them kudos for being proactive. Next comes the device detection. Being an engineer, I didn't have high confidence that it will work that well. Within a day or 2, it discovered a couple of devices like my electric dryer (duh), frig, etc. Then things started to slow down and become less and less accurate. At the time of this review, which is about a month after Sense was first installed correctly at my house, it has detected 14 devices, some very questionable in my opinion. But I am still fairly happy with the Sense as it met most of my goals, so when it discovers new devices just become exciting events for me. It seems to discover about 1-2 new devices a week most likely because the detection happens in the cloud (my guess). As mentioned, detection seems to be hit and miss and some devices may be detected sometimes but not consistently. I haven't had a full billing cycle yet but seem to be a 2-5% difference between my solar inverter report of power generation and Sense. Given there might be some small losses from the inverter to the breaker, 2-5% still translate to a report of 38 kWh vs 40 kWh which can be significant for some people. I also want to point out that they have both an app and Web site that you can access your consumption information. I hope detection will continue to improve overtime because of cloud learning, but I understand how hard it is to separate the noise because there are so many different things that can affect detection. But that's where Sense stands out against similar products and I hope they will continue to offer new features. I think if you manage your expectation, you should be satisfied with Sense. ********** New update December 2019 - I have been using the the Sense Solar for about 6 months. I am disappointed that detection did not improve and only 1 device was detected as heat. about 50% of my usage are still listed as other, so I am not as happy with Sense as I did before. Also, it seems to get confused and mix devices with similar usage pattern up. It's not ready for prime time when it comes to detection. But it does provide me very accurate usage and solar generation information, that's where this thing shines. Also, it's 15 degrees Fahrenheit outside at night and the Sense is working just fine in a protective electronically enclosure. So it's operating outside of the manufacturer's rated environment. I also don't see how I save any money since owning Sense. As a result of my recent experience with detection, I am lowering my rating from 4 stars to 3 stars. I will update if it is improved. **** New update December 2020 Sense unit still works fine outdoor behind my electrical panel, so it can operate outside of the manufacture's recommended operating temperature range. Detection is still a gimmick at best with 47% of my annual usage categorized as other and 15.3% as Always on after second year of usage. So overall, 62% of my electric usage is unknown to Sense, that defeats the purpose of sensing. I kept my rating as 3 star because it is not able to do what it was advertised to do, and I can't say I save any money as a result. ***** Updated April 2021 I now downgraded my Sense review to 2 Star. While it works well to estimate between how much power I use vs how much solar I generate, it fails at its promise for Sensing and saving power. over 50% of my power usage is either always on or Other, plus sometimes the app displays something that's clearly not on, it clearly has not lived up to its name and I would have paid far less with other solutions. ****** Sept 2022 update Sense still works but detection has gotten worse instead of improving. With utilities moving to smart meter that gives you daily usage vs production as well as statistics about possible usage pattern similar to what Sense gives us, there's less and less reason to get Sense. I only use it for near real time usage and production information to track my usage. Of course Sense gives more data, but utility's smart meter can accomplish the same for many people for "free". this is still a 2 star product after 4 years of usage.