Emily VelascoMay 30, 2025

My electrical utility says I used 124 kilowatt-hours for the last pay period of 32 days. That means I used an average of 3.875 kilowatt-hours per day, or about 161 watts per hour.

Most of that is probably the refrigerator, but I would have to buy those little plugs that let you monitor appliance power usage to find out for sure.

Show threadEmily VelascoMay 30, 2025
It would be kind of neat to see how low I could get it without massive changes in lifestyle.
Show threadAdam RoachMay 30, 2025
@MLE_online I’ve had mixed success using Sense to detect devices and separate out usage; but I’ve added a lot of plugs to precisely measure specific devices, and have occasionally tried to reduce usage as much as possible. It’s kinda tricky with several people in the house, though.
Show threadEmily VelascoMay 30, 2025
@abr I see they monitor from the smart electrical meter. How does it know which appliance is which?
Show threadAdam RoachMay 30, 2025
@MLE_online they basically “fingerprint” devices based on some combination of power factor, power draw, and presumably some other details of use. It works okay for some things (it’s pretty good about detecting the car charging and the tea kettle) but not others (it never detected our microwave). I also had to get separate clamps to distinguish between our two identical HVAC systems.
Show threadEmily Velasco
@abr Interesting! I'm reluctant to put apps on my phone, but I might see if my utility's smart meters work with this and give it a try
May 30, 2025 at 3:37pmWeb
Show threadAdam RoachMay 30, 2025
@MLE_online oh, that’s neat! I didn’t know they had added that. I bought one of the home energy monitors that goes inside the breaker box a while back.
Show threadAdam RoachMay 30, 2025
@MLE_online I just remembered: you probably don’t need the phone app; most of the functionality is available from https://home.sense.com/
Sense