Cool new diagnostic device

RayWohlfarth

I met with the brains behind a new startup in my area and its a pretty cool thing. It uses a simple device to do predictive anayltics of a home furnace and AC condenser. I was a skeptical of this but it seems to work. It is by a company called, Life Where. They contend your tech will know what part is failing before leaving the shop and can take it with you.
lifewhere.com

kalex1114

Just visited the website. Zero information on what they use, how they connect and what equipment it works with. After spending some time trying to get information out of my boiler I don't believe in Unicorns anymore

RayWohlfarth

Kalex wow you are right. I met him in person and never looked at the site. He was hoping for a free promo article.
Thanks

STEVEusaPA

I know some 'techs' who diagnose before they get there...no web site though.

RayWohlfarth

I am sometimes guilty of that especially when we are busy

Leonard

Pair of dice inside the box ????

the_donut

Link to Huffington Post article mentions refrigerant monitoring. Maybe it’s a modular system like security systems. Add sensors and feature where you want them and have auto text alerts at certain thresholds. Doesn’t seem like a bad idea. Already have some of these features for moisture monitoring and gas lines.

My issue is the human side. People don’t listen to warnings.

RayWohlfarth

The system uses a device to monitor the electrical consumption and knows which spike in amperage is what component.

kalex1114

That doesn't look like a measuring device Take a look at energy monitors like TED and few others you will see that its a lot more involved then this ugly looking thing. That also looks like pre-beta product. Label is crooked

Leonard

Suppose it could look at electrical changes in usage and compare them to it's learned patterns of your use. But to monitor other things seems it would need sensors to monitor those things. .........temperature, flow rate, humidity , pressure etc.

Otherwise it might just give you trivial answers. Like your power usage is up.... ok is that because a filter is clogged, or I cranked up the A/C , or it's a heat wave.

Clue to how complicated it is, what's it's cost?

ratio

Ya know, I was just looking at that again, to see if I can figure out exactly what it's doing. Did you read the gloss by the HuffPo contributor?

Do you know how your home furnace works? Could you tell if your air conditioning unit is running efficiently? The answer is obviously, no. Aside from highly skilled HVAC technicians – most people can’t.

The attitude therefore has been to suck it up when bad luck strikes and pay through our noses for whatever the service repairman would charge us.

I'm, I'm... I'm offended!

First off, I'd really like to say that it'd just take an ordinary amount of understanding to tell if the unit was running efficiently. A few ΔT measurements would give you a fairly solid idea of performance. Anyone could do them, even if they needed to be shown how to once or twice—that's pretty average in my book

But the line that really burns is the next one.

• The implication that it's "bad luck" and not lack of maintenance behind many failures: misguided at best.
• The idea that the HO (who, mind you, is sure he's "paying through the nose") is gonna "suck it up": not supported by my experience.
• The implication that we're gouging: offensive to the max!

FriendlyFred

Hey guys, I looked around at the company and took a stab at mapping out "how it works" for your enjoyment.



My tools of the trade are the techniques used behind the scenes in these systems, so I used equal measures of 'reading between the lines' and 'creative interpretation'.

I spent too much time drawing the picture to describe everything in detail - so ask questions if you are interested. In summary, although in its infancy, applications like this will continue to emerge in all industries imaginable.

kalex1114

LMAO. i would like to know more about the dice. Are they rigged?

nicholas bonham-carter

Many times here, people have asked for names of “reasonably priced” service techs in some area or another.
They should be asking instead for names of people who “know what they are doing”, or can give a guarantee backed up by the manufacturer.
There are plenty of trunkslammers with used boilers, (or tankless hot water heaters), offering taillight warenties out there, and you only have to get burned once to realize how important the installer is.
My locksmith has a sign:
“Our prices include using quality parts, highly skilled, and trained labor, and prompt service. If you want a lower price, which part should we leave out?”—NBC

RayWohlfarth

I was dubious of the claims and they sent me one to try out and will let you know. It looks like it measures the amp draws and can tell when something is pulling different amps than normal. They have amp signatures of the equipment and can tell when the igniter, blower, inducer, or the gas valve does not draw the proper amps.
I am relucatntly trying to be open to new technology as my kids are pulling me along kicking and screaming. I felt the same way about the Phyn appliance by Uponor which was installed in my house and it was pretty cool, even told me my toilet was running.

kalex1114

If you can please post review and/or pictures of the device

RayWohlfarth

There is a picture above Kalex

kalex1114

Is that all? there is nothing that goes into the electrical panel? controller etc?

RayWohlfarth

Kalex It monitors the electrical consumption like an ampclamp

Leonard

Could work , but sounds like it won't find much, only some bigger electrical stuff like dry motor bearing drawing more watts. Unlikely to tell you the oil fired heat exchanger needs an ash cleaning. Would guess change in motor wattage/VA from increased back pressure would be too small to notice the difference. Very plugged air filters in duct system might show up.... maybe .... have to try it

Problem with stuff like this is if the change is very little because your not using the right sensor ( pressure) they will have to set the alarm threshold very low and you might false alarm. Sounds like It's only sensing things other than the electricity consumers ( motors,etc) indirectly ( plugged filter, etc)

ratio

IDK, you can tell a lot from voltage/current waveforms, transients, the relationships between them, etc. A high end sensor coupled with remote (aka "cloud") interpretation might be able to do quite a bit within a price point that people'd bite at. Assuming, of course, that you want to send that information to them. <conspiracy>I'm quite sure that it will be mined for all the data that can be whored out about you.</conspiracy>

Leonard

Seems could be done if simple furnace controls, but seems it could get tough picking out the problem if have bunch of relays and controls activating semi-randomly. Would have to have some fancy pattern learning software to reduce the data to something meaningful. I'm just skeptical on AI. Will be interesting to hear the results of actual tests.

If data on heating and A/C is on web use could be interpreted to learn when your likely not home for thieves to break in. Same issues were brought up with RF read utility power meters doing real time monitoring for time of use pricing.

ratio

Yup.

I can't stop them from watching, but I'll be ^%$#ed if I'm going to do it for them.

Mike

Emerson has a system,monitors volts, amps, supply and return air, and liquid and suction temps. They tell us if something is amiss, if a run cap is weak. Biggest problem is communication. Some homes the signal doesn't connect. And they disconnect it from their router. Reduces service and maintenance calls.

kalex1114

RayWohlfarth said:

There is a picture above Kalex

Where does it get plugged in? electrical panel? or an outlet? Can you post screenshots of the app in use?

RayWohlfarth

Let me see what I can find. The company showed me a signature of the consumption and you can see when every component started and the amp draw.