How to save money and electricity with a smart home
Today, it is more urgent than ever to reduce electricity consumption and many households are doing everything they can to save electricity and money. In most cases, it involves identifying the major electrical thieves in the home and strangling or reducing electricity consumption to them. If you are interested in how you can further reduce your electricity consumption, then you have come to the right place!
We review and list the most important things you can do in your home with the help of a Smart Home to save even more electricity and money.
The article contains affiliate links.
What is a smart home?
A smart home is a home whose gadgets are connected to the internet. In this way, you can, for example, control your lighting and heating with your mobile phone. To make matters even better, you can usually automate how your gadgets behave. For example, you can turn off the lights and lower the heating when you leave home. The possibilities become endless.
How can a “smart home” help lower my electricity consumption?
The smart home market is relatively new. It is not until now, autumn 2022 that it begins to take real momentum with the new standard Matters. A couple of years ago it was quite complicated and required a lot of time and dedication. Today, most households own connected gadgets without even knowing about it or thinking about it.
With so-called home automation, your home can control itself. In this way, it is possible to optimize electricity consumption by, for example, choosing which lamps should be switched on and when.
In this guide we go over the different categories that you can use and how they in turn can help you save electricity.
Heat
We live in a cold country, especially in winter of course. That's why about 65% of our electricity consumption comes from heating our houses. This is also where we can save the most electricity. So what can be done in the smart home to lower its heating costs?
- Lower the temperature
Lowering the temperature by only one degree can reduce your consumption by as much as 5%. Use a sensor that lets you read the temperature in your phone and automate your heating accordingly. One of the best places to start is in the bedroom. There are many studies that we even sleep better when it is a little cooler.
Examples of products that have a temperature sensor:
Fibaro Z-Wave Smoke Detector
Aeotec Multisensor 7
- Lower the temperature further when no one is home
Use your family members' cell phones to keep track of who's home and who's not. This way, you can easily lower the temperature in the home some degree when no one is at home. You can set this up in e.g. HomeKit, Google Home or any of the others hubs for home automation.
Take the opportunity to turn off the bathroom floor too, here you can save a lot of electricity. A bathroom floor that is well insulated under the heating loops and does not have carpets on it is much better. In addition, if you have an internal sensor that regulates the rest of the heating of the house, which in turn is affected by the heat from the underfloor heating, it is even better. Underfloor heating should be seen as a comfort feature in the first place.
Heatit thermostat — Control your underfloor heating with Z-Wave.
Aqara E1 Smart Thermostat Control your elements with ZigBee
- Automate engine heaters and compartment heaters
If you own a car and usually use an engine heater and interior heater during the winter, it might be smart to automate these. In addition, a car consumes less fuel if it is hot when started. With an outdoor temperature gauge, you can easily set rules for when to use the engine heater or not. For example, if you have a Homey at home, you can easily set up an automation for this with a smart plug connected to your engine heater. If it is warmer than 10°C outdoors, the engine heater does not need to be turned on. If it is between 0°C and 10°C, the engine heater only needs to run for an hour. If it is between -15°C and 0°C, the engine heater needs to run for about 1.5 hours. The outside temperature you can use Homey download from various apps without a physical temperature gauge.
- Automate your curtains
Something that can help save a lot on the electricity bill are curtains, especially blackout curtains. Create an automation for your motorized curtains that pulls for your windows when the sun disappears. This of course varies from house to house so be sure to check when the sun disappears in your house. In this way, you isolate the heat that the sun has built up in your house during the day.
Examples of products that can help you with this:
Various appendage to automate your curtains
Somfy - Interior sun protection
IKEA - Smart and electric roller blinds
Tibber
With Tibber, you can plug in your heat pump, thermostat or element and activate smart heating. This way Tibber keeps track of the electricity price and adjusts your heating. You can also keep track of the current temperature and adjust it. If you own a Homey, you can also download Tibber's app and create feeds. If you're out of town, you can turn on vacation mode, so Tibber saves you energy when you're away and makes sure it's warm and comfortable until you get home.
Read more about Tibber here
Smart lighting
Since we also live in a dark country, we use far more lights. Think about which lamps you use and what these draw in electricity consumption. Then change the lamps that are not LED, here you can save a lot of dollars a year. On The Consumer Guide can you figure out how much.
So what can you do with a smart home to optimize your lighting?
- Automate the power of your lights
Different times of day require different amounts of light. By testing your way, you can let your lights at home dim at the same rate as it gets darker outdoors. This way you don't have to adjust the light yourself and you save a lot of electricity.
Some products that can help you with this are:
Homey Pro
Homey Bridge
Aeotec SmartThings
- Turn off all lights when no one is home
Sometimes you forget to turn off. So take the opportunity to automate your lighting. As we mentioned above, for example, you can do this by making your home know whose mobile phone is in or near your home. Here you can sometimes set up a so-called geofence zone. Thus, a virtual zone around your home, if you are before this, it is considered that you are at home. When all mobile phones in the home are outside the virtual zone, all lights go out. Then, of course, you can also choose to lower the temperature and that the underfloor heating should be turned off, thus saving even more energy.
You can also connect this automation to a switch in the hall. If you press this button, the house will be in the “No Home” mode.
- Use Smart Plugs
If you have lights at home that are not connected, you can buy a so-called smart plug. You connect this between the lamp cord and the wall outlet. Many smart plugs can also measure the energy consumption so go through it. This way you can determine how much one of your lights actually consumes.
Another clever way to use these is to put them between your branch socket and the wall outlet. Then you can easily turn off everything connected to the branch line with an automation. Today electricity consumption is much lower for appliances in standby mode than in the past but if you have many appliances connected to a branch node then it may be worth testing, many streams small.
If you want to automate your decorative Christmas lights, you can easily do it with a smart plug. Take a look at how much electricity the decorative lighting draws first. Most of the time, it's so little that it's almost not worth putting out considering what it costs to buy a smart plug.
Here are some smart plugs that we like:
Shelly Plug S - Wifi
Fibaro Wall Plug - Z-Wave
Aqara Smart Plug - ZigBee
Food
A smart refrigerator adds a lot of features that allow you to keep better track of your refrigerator and its contents. You can monitor the temperature in the fridge and freezer to keep the optimum temperature for your groceries but also not to waste unnecessary energy. In some smart refrigerators, you can also see with a camera what groceries you have at home and thus avoid buying too much of anything and keeping food waste down. Another great feature is you can turn on an ECO mode when traveling away to save additional electricity.
Read more about smart refrigerators here.
Frequently Asked Questions on How to Save Energy with a Smart Home
How can a smart home help me save electricity?
By optimizing energy consumption with features such as scheduling, automatic shutdown and energy monitoring, a smart home can reduce unnecessary electricity consumption and thus save money on the electricity bill.
What are the most energy-efficient smart devices?
LED lights, smart thermostats, energy-efficient smart appliances and energy meters are some of the most energy-efficient devices that can help you save electricity and money.
Can a smart home really reduce my electricity costs?
Yes, while the investment in smart devices may be initially higher, the long-term savings on electricity consumption can help you balance costs and save money over time.
Which places in my home can benefit from smart energy solutions?
Rooms with high electricity consumption, such as kitchens and living rooms, are good candidates for smart energy solutions. In addition, the heating and cooling of your home can be optimized with smart thermostats.
Do smart home devices work even when I'm not at home?
Yes, most smart devices can be controlled remotely via mobile apps, so you can monitor and control your home's electricity consumption even when you're away, helping you save money.
