- My name's Aaron Massey from Mr.FixItDIY.com,
and welcome back to another episode of Home School'd.
For today's project, I'm gonna show you
how to keep track of how much power
your home is using by installing
a smart monitoring device that you
can access right from your phone.
One of the things I'm very passionate about
is finding ways to make my home more energy efficient,
and less impactful on the environment.
So a few months ago,
I learned about a product called Sense.
Sense is an energy monitoring device
that installs into your breaker panel
that allows you to see how much power
each device in your home is using.
Once you have that information,
you can use it to make more energy
efficient improvements to your home,
which is what I've been doing over the last couple months.
Once I found out about the device,
I reached out to Sense and they sent me
one of the devices to try out in my home,
and today, I'm gonna show you how to install it,
how it works, and what I've learned from it.
I rate these projects by how many f-bombs
you're likely to drop while tackling the project.
This one is a little on the (beep) difficult side
because it requires you to work directly inside
your breaker panel which can be a little
dangerous if you don't know what you're doing.
I'd like to remind you that I am not a licensed electrician,
so if at any point you are not comfortable
tackling this project on your own,
please reach out to an electrician
that can help you with this installation.
This video is designed to be a guide
to show you how it can be done,
but does not replace the expertise
or knowledge of a licensed electrician.
So don't kill yourself by being unsafe,
because then you can watch my videos,
and that's no good for me.
So the first step to install this device
is unpacking the box and taking
a look at all of the components.
The package contains a device monitor,
an antenna, two sensor clips,
a power cable, and an optional mounting bracket.
Next, you'll have to access your breaker panel
and shut off the power.
Remove the cover panel and have
a look at your breaker setup.
This device requires that it'd be wired
into a dual-pole 220 volt breaker,
which is not included in the kit,
so if you don't have one available that you can tap into,
you'll have to buy one that matches your panel.
If you do need tot purchase a breaker,
you'll also have to verify that your breaker panel
has enough space available to install it.
Once you verified you have space available for the install,
remove a knockout from the panel box,
and install the antenna into the hole.
From there, you can connect the antenna
to the device monitor itself.
If you don't have room inside the panel,
you can use the optional monitor
bracket to install it outside the panel,
but I didn't do that.
Install your new breaker if you need to,
or connect the wiring to your existing breaker.
The black and red wires connect tot the breaker itself,
the white wire attaches to the neutral bar in your panel.
Now, this is where things get dangerous
if you're not familiar with how your panel box works.
You'll need to connect the current sensor clips
around the service legs coming into your panel.
These two wires are always live,
even if your panel box is shut off,
so do not, under any circumstances,
touch these wires.
In my case, the service wires
are hidden underneath the meter,
which is secured from the power company with a lock
which I don't have a key for.
So I called my local power company,
and asked them to come out and shut off the power,
and remove the lock so that I could access those wires.
Since they shut off the power to the house,
there was no danger of me being
shocked when I connected the clips.
Once I had the clips installed,
they replaced the meter and turned the power back on.
Once I had the wiring all connected,
I removed the necessary knockouts
on the cover of my breaker panel,
reinstalled it, and turned the main
power back on at the breaker.
Next, I downloaded the Sense app on my phone,
and began the setup process.
It connects via wifi and prompt you to set up your device.
Once it's logged in,
it takes a couple days to calibrate,
and then it starts the process
of identifying devices around your home.
What's cool about this device is that it starts
to show you your exact energy usage in real time and watts,
and starts to identify different
devices around your home automatically.
It has a smart learning algorithm that can determine
which devices are which
and starts to label them around your home automatically,
which you can then verify or change
the name of right on the app.
As more homes connect to the app,
it continues to learn and define new devices.
You can go around and flip devices on and off,
and see the effect on your emery usage in real time.
And you can set goals with notifications
to keep your energy consumption down,
see which devices are using the highest percentage of power,
and get pretty accurate estimates on your energy
bills by imputing your typical cost.
They also offer a solar option,
which will tell you how much energy
your solar panels are producing,
and how much they are offsetting
your energy bill if you have solar panels.
Overall, this is a really cool device.
It's helped me realize how inefficient my home
is when it comes to air conditioning,
something that I already kind of knew,
but I didn't realize how many hours
those devices were on on a daily basis,
which drastically affects my utility bill.
Moving froward, I'll be taking that information
to continue to invest in ways to offset that energy use.
The Sense device doesn't make the corrections for you,
but having the knowledge of where your energy,
and thus where your money is going,
can help you prioritize where you focus
your remodel efforts and help save you
a substantial amount of money over time.
I hope you guys enjoyed this project.
I'd like to thank the Sense team for sending over
this device and allowing me to test it out,
and if you'd like more information on the Sense device,
I'll leave a link in the description down below,
where you can find it.
And I'd like to thank you guys for watching,
and if it's your first time visiting the channel,
please hit that Subscribe button,
and also hit that notification bell
so you never miss out on any of the new content I put out.
And as always, I encourage you
to leave me a comment down below,
and let me know what you thought of this project,
and what type of project you'd like to see me tackle next.
Thank you guys so much for watching.
I'll see you next time.
(upbeat music)