I have one in the kitchen (which is near the laundry), and another one in my office (where I cannot hear the things in the kitchen).
When things beep, the one in the office says "beep beep".
And if things beep for a long time -- I think it's 2 minutes or something -- it also notifies my phone.
This can detect an inductive load like an AC/fridge/freezer compressor or washing machine motor. Something small and purely resistive like a rice cooker might be more challenging, but certainly a Sense does get you a long way.
I'd expect that it would work the same for either resistive or inductive loads -- after all, AC current on a wire is AC current on a wire, however it came to be present.
My understanding of Sense is that it measures the top-level current consumption somewhat blindly and then uses the inductive monitoring and other inference to attribute that consumption to different known devices— like oh here's 4kW of resistive heating going on, I can tell whether that's your dryer or your hot tub based on whether I see the drum or circulation pump running. Whereas if it can't find an inductor then it will basically just assume it's your kettle, toaster, or a fanless space heater, with more emphasis on the device doing unique things as it starts up, see [2].
[1]: https://eng.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Electrical_Engineerin...
[2]: https://blog.sense.com/articles/how-does-sense-detect-my-dev...
The current transformers used by Sense are inductive by their very nature, but that property does not suggest preferential detection of specifically inductive loads.
It can detect inductive loads as being unique, but it can also detect largely-resistive loads as being unique -- as well as many other things that present a particular signature.
The toaster presented in the blog is an excellent example of a largely-resistive thing that still behaves in unique ways.
The Emporia Vue is half the price and has a clamp for each circuit.
In this case though, the wall plug monitoring is definitely the right solution.
Sense, theoretically, can.
- toaster oven on
- rice cooker on
- both on
- both off
I would be extremely surprised if the sense was able to detect a rice cooker accurately.
I thought that the point was a notification when the rice was done cooking, and I provided a mechanism by which this may be accomplished by some here that might not involve any monetary expense at all because the hardware might already be sitting there [spying from there] already.
(But if you want to implement it in some other way, then: By all means, please provide your own suggestion.)
"I don't want my rice-cooker sending all my rice-cooking habits back to the manufacturer - so even more yes."
It is safe to assume that people who don't want their rice cooker to send their cooking habits to the manufacturers would not be willing to send it to Amazon.
I hope you ask people you invite home for permission to record and send your conversation with them to a third party before letting them in. Most people don't.
I hope you ask the people you interact with for permission to record and send your conversations with them to a third party before engaging with them with your own pocket supercomputer in your pocket. Most people don't.
My Echo devices go further, and can even provide a slice of Internet for the Alexa-enabled TVs that my neighbors may think have no network connection.
...and I'm OK with all of this. :)