A smart home can mean many things to many people - comfort, convenience or just having the coolest house in the cul-de-sac. But there is one smart home benefit that everyone can get on-board with: saving money.
Here are some clever ways you can save money with a smart home:
Home heating
At this time of year, home heating is the last thing on most of our minds. However, according to the SEAI, the average Irish household devoted about 60% of their total energy spend to heating their home during 2018 and almost 20% to heating their water. Smart home heating systems offer maximum control over your heating. Depending on the system, you can heat different parts of your home at different times, make sure your heating is off while you’re away or plan complex schedules to get the most from every single kW/h.
Smart thermostats can also learn your preferences and adjust the temperature for you, so your home is always heated efficiently and you never have to think about it.
Then there’s the immersion. Ireland’s most-feared heating appliance can also be controlled remotely with an immersion controller, giving you even more control over your heating spend. And the kind of peace of mind your parents never had.
Tripping the lights. Fantastic.
Lighting your home with smart tech will save you money by default. All smart bulbs and lamps use low-energy LED technology for incredible durability and efficiency. LED bulbs are even more efficient than the already cost-effective CFL bulbs you probably have around your home.
You can save even more money with the extra control brought by smart lighting – you can schedule your lighting to come on only when you need and make sure all of your lights are off, from anywhere via mobile apps.
You can even have the lights switch off automatically when you leave the house or even exit a specific room.
Save on food waste, Cut your shopping bill
A Smart Refrigerator can work wonders streamlining your kitchen. For instance, many contain cameras that you can use to peek inside your fridge and see what you need while still in the supermarket. Others use radio or a barcode scanner to detect what has been placed into and then removed from the fridge or freezer. This will save you quite a few trips back to the shop.
Telling your Smart Fridge when items are due to expire will allow the appliance’s artificial intelligence to plan meals and avoid wasting food too.
Switch Everything Off Properly
One of the most common sources of energy waste is devices left on standby. Cutting the power to many appliances is the only way to truly stop them from nibbling away at electricity until you power them on. Every single standby light you see when you go to bed or leave the house costs you money but a Smart Plug and a multi-adaptor can stop this constant trickle.
Smart plugs can be scheduled to switch off and on at certain times or operated away from the home so wondering whether you left the TV on will be a thing of the past.
Monitor Your Energy Use
Keeping an eye on your electricity spend is an obvious way to make changes to your habits and cut back on waste. Using smart plugs or other energy monitoring devices, you can check how much it will cost to have certain appliances running and limit how many hours you run your most power-hungry devices. Changing your habits is the best way to save money on your energy bills, and the best way to do that is by understanding how and where you can save money.
So there you have it; with easy savings to be made at every turn, a smart home will pay for itself in no time and continue to save you money in the long run. Smart appliances, by their very nature offer more control over your energy use so the savings will stack up the smarter your home gets.
