Making your home energy-efficient is an eco-friendly effort that also saves you money. Fortunately, energy saving is an attainable goal. There are lots of small changes you can make in your daily life to help. Better yet, you can take advantage of smart home technology to optimize your home’s lighting and temperature control to reduce electricity usage.
At All Systems Integrated Northwest, we use cutting-edge solutions to make life simpler. Two of the key players in your home automation system for energy saving are a smart thermostat and smart blinds. Let’s explore how you can use these devices to lower your electricity bill, and some DIY tips for energy efficiency.
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How Smart Home Technology Helps with Energy Saving
The benefits of smart home automation can be summarized as convenience, efficiency, and security. Features like voice control, integration, and an all-in-one-app make it simple to juggle all the elements of your dailiy routine. Automatic features improve your home’s efficiency, using less energy when it’s not needed and boosting productivity when it is. Integrating alarms, cameras, and sensors with your automation system significantly enhances home security.
When it comes to energy efficiency, smart home technology offers better control and convenient automation to reduce unnecessary expenditure. You don’t need all the lights and the perfect temperature when you’re away from home for hours. Smart home automation adjusts these elements based on your daily routine to optimize usage and comfort. Lots of smart home devices can contribute to these energy savings, but smart thermostats and smart blinds are especially beneficial.
Cost-Effective Comfort with a Smart Thermostat
A smart thermostat controls temperature throughout the house for comfort and efficiency. It offers immediate convenience benefits–forgot to turn down the thermostat before leaving for a trip? Comfortable in bed but need to adjust the temperature? You can do it from your phone or use voice commands.
The biggest benefit of a smart thermostat goes being convenience, however. Smart thermostats can lower your utility bills by 8%-26%. That makes them an investment that quickly pay for themselves.
How Smart Thermostats Save Money
When you first get a smart thermostat, you’ll want to program it with presets that optimize energy usage based on your schedule. When you’re away from home, you can have it change the temperature to save on heating or cooling. If your smart thermostat has room sensors, you can have it keep certain parts of the house warmer or cooler as needed, without needing to expend the energy on the entire house.
Over time, your smart thermostat learns and adapts to your routines to fully optimize your home’s temperature control. Depending on the settings and features, it can sense occupancy and pair with your schedule to best meet your needs.
While a smart thermostat can be beneficial for anyone, it’s particularly helpful for those who are away from home most of the day or travel frequently. You may also be able to integrate your thermostat with an energy monitoring app or have it alert you of potential issues with the heating or AC systems.
Hunter Douglas Blinds: Natural Lighting at its Best
Lighting is a big part of your electricity bill. The best way to avoid unnecessary lighting costs is to only have the lights on when needed and to use natural lighting as much as possible. Natural lighting is also beneficial for your mental and emotional well-being.
In the Puget Sound area, natural lighting can be hard to come by this time of year. We see long spells of gray, rainy days during the winter. That makes it even more important to take advantage of the sun whenever it peeks through, and Hunter Douglas blinds can help you do just that!
Optimizing Natural Lighting with Smart Blinds
Smart blinds can be set to open or close at certain times of day based on the lighting. As with your smart thermostat, you can control it all from your phone, even when you’re not at home. Hunter Douglas blinds and shades make it easy to let in as much sun as possible for a warmer, brighter home during winter, and to keep the house cool and shaded during the summer.
DIY Energy Saving Tips Around the House
Aside from using smart home automation, there are several small habits and efforts you can make around the house to use less energy for a more efficient, environmentally friendly home.
- Use energy-efficient LED light bulbs.
- Only leave lights on when needed, and use timers or light sensors for outdoor lights.
- Use ceiling fans and turn the AC down.
- Wash clothes in cold water.
- Turn off computers, printers, and other devices when not in use.
- Don’t leave devices plugged in longer than necessary.
- Clean and replace filters regularly in your dryer, refrigerator, AC system, etc.
- Defrost the freezer regularly.
- Don’t open the oven while baking.
Partner with ASI for Simplicity, Security, and Savings!
Interested in installing a smart home system, or upgrading your current one? All Systems Integrated offers the most advanced products and comprehensive service you need for a system tailored to you. Contact us today to learn more about smart thermostats, Hunter Douglas blinds, and more to start saving energy!