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How Home Automation Can Cut Down Energy Consumption
May 16th, 2022
While being a homeowner has many benefits, it also comes with many responsibilities, including paying for energy usage. In recent times, rising energy costs have been a constant in the headlines and as a result, we are searching for ways to reduce our energy bills whilst still enjoying the same lifestyle. Introducing smart home technology helps to make life more comfortable and convenient in many ways, but it also helps us to monitor and cut down our energy consumption.
Whilst home automation technology is increasingly popular, many people still aren’t aware of all of the ways that a well designed smart home system can lower your carbon footprint and reduce your energy costs each month.
Smart Climate Control
A smart thermostat can learn your habits in order to automatically adjust the temperature in your home to suit your lifestyle. For example, if you leave the house in the day to go to work, then a smart thermostat can automatically reduce the temperature, before increasing it to achieve the optimal comfortable temperature in time for you to get home. In the warmer months, smart climate control technology may reduce the levels on cooling systems, before boosting the air con to ensure your home is cool when you return.
Climate control technology can even be automated from room to room. For rooms such as bedrooms that may not be in use during the day, heating systems can be automatically adjusted. You may set your thermostat so that it is triggered by the use of other appliances in a room, so it knows to adjust the temperature to the preferred temperature.
Reduce Unneeded Energy Use
Even when appliances are in energy friendly or idle modes, you’ll be surprised just how much power they may continue to use. Whilst appliances such as televisions, computers and even your washing machine are not actually serving any purpose whilst in standby mode, they are still drawing unnecessary power.
You may think that the only solution is to unplug appliances when they are not in use, but smart devices can help nullify these standby modes in a much more convenient way.
Automated Blinds
Automated blinds allow you to control shade in your home at the touch of a button, but integrating motorised blinds into your smart home control system and combining them with your thermostat can also allow for improved energy efficiency.
To ensure you get more natural light and warmth, you can programme blinds to open at the sunniest points of the day to warm the house naturally, before closing in the evening to help keep in the heat that has built up over the day, meaning that heating systems will use less power to achieve the ideal temperature.
Smart Lighting Systems
It’s easy to leave a room, or even leave the house, forgetting you have left a light on. With intelligent control systems, lighting can be controlled in a range of different ways to ensure that it is turned on and off as needed.
Many people take advantage of smart lighting to programme lights to turn on at certain times even when they are not home, providing an extra security measure, however, if your main concern is to save energy, then lighting can be programmed to a range of modes or scenarios to suit your needs, ensuring only certain light fixtures are turned on at a particular time.
You may wish to use home automation in a way that sensors register when a room is not in use and lights are turned off automatically. If you set lighting for movie night, lights in the cinema room can be dimmed at the touch of a button to achieve the right ambience, and lights elsewhere can be turned off as they are not needed.
Remote control and monitoring
Another key benefit of smart technology integration and control is that all energy usage can be controlled and monitored remotely via an app. Control systems such as Control4 allow you to keep track of how much gas and electricity you are using, wherever you are. Whilst automation allows for technology and appliances to be turned on and off automatically to suit your lifestyle, it’s useful to be able to monitor usage from afar.
In some cases, your plans may change, and therefore your energy needs may also need to be altered. For example, if you will now return home earlier or later than planned, remote control means that you can trigger changes to lighting, climate control, or any other appliance as necessary.
West Midlands Home Automation
If you are looking to improve the energy efficiency in your home, or are ready to install smart control systems to allow you to do so, Veritais are here to help. Based in Tamworth, we regularly install and programme smart home automation systems for homes and businesses throughout the West Midlands, including Sutton Coldfield, Four Oaks, Birmingham, Solihull and further afield.
To discuss your needs, call us on 01827 64688.
