Ting Smart Sensor
pros and cons
- On sale for $84.
- Monitors your home’s wiring in the background.
- Weekly reports show appliance cycles and household power usage trends.
- Outage maps are limited compared to utility and PowerOutage.us.
on Google.
How do you review a product that does absolutely nothing except sit there with a little green indicator light on?
As background, I should tell you about the pitch I got. Product vendors often employ press representatives who reach out to journalists, writers, bloggers, and influencers, whatever you want to call us, to try to convince us to cover their products.
Last summer, I had just published an article about finding electrical circuits in my Fab Lab when I got a pitch from a PR person saying, “Given the Fab Lab has electronics with high electricity demand, Ting
When the Ting device arrived, I opened it up, set it up, and plugged it in. Setting it up involves loading an app and connecting that app to my wireless network and to the device. That process works just about the same as connecting any other smart home device.
Notice, in particular, how quiet things are between about 3 a.m. and noon. The bigger spikes are generally indicative of major appliances drawing power or our HVAC system turning on, etc.
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Now, here’s one from mid-August. There’s a lot more activity in the middle of the night because we were running the AC during the height of the summer heat. You can see the various systems cycling on and off.
App features
The connected app has some other monitoring features that are… well, they could be better. One feature is real-time monitoring. Here you can see two charts.
The one on the left was captured for a baseline of house usage. The one on the right was captured while one of the 3D printers was active. As you can see, there’s not much to see here.
Obviously, there’s a whole lot less information on the Ting map than on the one from the power company. I also don’t like the dark gray on black style of the Ting map, because it’s hard to see the location information.
I think the idea that Ting is doing nationwide power monitoring is interesting. However, until there are a large number of these devices available and more information is presented than is currently evident, it’s more a stunt feature than anything particularly useful for emergency management.
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Right now, if I wanted to see nationwide power outage information, I’d probably look at PowerOutage.us, which has some pretty good data. I just looked at its Oregon data and it matched that of my power company quite closely.
ZDNET’s buying advice
The Ting electrical fire prevention sensor, the Ting sparkling Jamaican grapefruit drink, the Ting Ting Jahe ginger candy. Because those are different.
Look, the Ting sensor is interesting. There do appear to be some battle-tested examples of the value of the device.
According to WashPo, Ting devices helped public officials identify the cause of an outbreak of wildfires in Hawaii. NBC News reported (buried way down in the article) that Whisker Labs (the makers of Ting) provided county-level outage data during Hurricane Milton. In July, Bloomberg reported that Ting sensors provided indicators of a major blackout in Spain hours before the crisis hit.
So, there is potential here. Personally, I like knowing that the sensor hasn’t reported any problems. But is the Ting a substitute for hiring an electrician to evaluate your circuits, breaker panel, and wiring? Absolutely not.
If you don’t mind spending a hundred bucks for a bit more peace of mind and some possible protection, go for it. If not, both the Ting ginger candies and the Ting Jamaican grapefruit juice look good, and both are considerably less expensive. But they don’t come with peace of mind, which is kind of priceless.
Ting specs
- Requires grounded receptacle
- Provides real-time 24/7 alerts
- Connects via Wi-Fi (2.4 GHz or 5 GHz)
- Requires smart phone (recent Android or iPhone)
- Weight: 5 oz
- Dimensions: 1.34″D x 2.51″W x 3.96″H
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