Smart Home Hour tonight will focus on:
#SmartHome‘s making homes greener.

“How can a Smart Home make a home more efficient?”

In the quest to make a modern home a “Smart Home” we have to consider power usage.
Using energy efficient systems to ensure that we use less electricity, and also monitoring this usage to determine how we can better use this power.

First step would be to use an energy management system to track usage.

Once we have a good understanding where we use energy in the home we can work to make our home more efficient.

• The use of discreet presence detectors can auto switch: (on/off)
  • Lights
  • Heating
  • Cooling
• This avoids wasted energy from lights/heating/cooling being left on unnecessarily.
• Temperature is an important factor. We all know heat and light are the biggest consumption of energy in the home.
• We can also schedule the lights, thermostat, etc to adjust accordingly when home or away.
• Modern systems can cater for all tastes, some like to have a simple button to touch on the wall, some like phone or tablet.
• Even though the idea of a Smart Home is still fairly young. Some people have even implemented advanced energy control and prefer to have no interaction at all, leaving the detectors to fully automate the functions of any room.

Solar energy:

Solar power generation is a far easier process than what it was previously. Billy Black has demonstrated this to us recently and two points that I found particularly relevant were:

• We can monitor – consumption, demand and generation, and divert surplus to heating, appliances and storage.
• For a stand alone option to remotely monitor a Solar PV installation;
  The comms device can cost less than £100, and can be set up in less than 10mins!

Blinds automation is an option to conserve energy:

In winter when up you don’t need to jack the thermostat.
In summer when down, less need for AC.

Good blinds and shading can also cut down on lighting energy.
A simple observation: Fitting reflective backed window blinds could save you a minimum of £100 per year.
It is estimated that with blinds and shutters you can reduce heat loss through your windows by up to 40%

This means blinds & curtains can be used for passive heating or shading.

This goes to show that a Smart Home is not only about entertainment:

“A #smarthome is not just about speakers and big TV’s or CCTV cameras and cinema rooms. A #smarthome can be a big part of any green #ecohome“

As you can see efficient homes are easier to implement now than ever before.
Two products that TecHome has highlighted on their website
(Energy Savings Enters the Cool Zone) which caught my attention are:

• Schneider Electric’s: Wiser Home Management System
  “The Wiser Home Management system allows homeowners to reduce or shift energy use during peak times and helps electricity providers improve grid efficiency and network reliability.”

• BlueBolt Energy Management: My Blue Bolt
  “Users can monitor the energy use and control devices on a web-based platform.
  The BlueBolt technology is also in a line of power conditioner and UPS (uninterruptible power supply) products.
  The products have IP-addressable outlets, meaning each outlet on the power conditioner or UPS can be turned on and off and have its energy use monitored via the Internet independently. A big advantage of these systems is the ability for a technology integration company to remotely reboot or power-cycle components like Internet routers when needed, saving expensive and time-consuming service calls.”

This Smart Home Hour was a great showcase of the technologies available to make our homes more energy efficient.
This has been a hot topic of conversation in our office recently! Which has caused us to investigate offering these technologies to our clients to increase our service offering to you.

Please Contact Us if you would like to discuss any of the items in this post with us.