From Guest Blogger Lana Hawkins: Are there Environmental Benefits of Home Automation?
We live in the age when consumerism has reached its peak and everyone uses plenty of energy which can harm both our pockets and the environment. Luckily, technology, too, is reaching its highest levels, which can help us reduce the damage to our planet and lower our bills. That is why our homes can use a bit of automation.
Lighting Controls
Lighting controls on our walls or even in our smartphones can greatly reduce the energy consumption in our homes. If you install these, you can easily dim or turn off the lights from the distance and save some energy. Also, by installing occupancy and motion sensors the lights can turn themselves off when the room is not in use. Moreover, these sensors can control smaller appliances and turn them off when they are not used. Additionally, with a simple tap on your phone you can increase safety of your home when you are away and you will never have to worry about leaving the stove on.
Smart Thermostats
Way too often, we leave our homes without adjusting our thermostats to the daily requirements. This can result in coming back home into a too cold or too warm temperature. In order to prevent such discomfort and waste of energy, you should rely on smart thermostats. What is great about these simple gadgets is that they can “learn” to adjust to our temperature preferences. Smart thermostat can program itself to meet our daily routines and keep the house at the pleasant temperature. Also, you can easily access the thermostat from afar and adjust the desired atmosphere before even entering your house. This new technology benefits both the energy usage and the bills, which represents one step closer to healthier living.
Automatic Gates and Doors
Having a home with a big gate or garage is a great benefit for safe parking of your car. However, you can get tired of constantly having to get out of the car to open the gate. Plus, the materials you used might not be as sustainable as you thought. Eco-friendly materials such as steel and fiber glass can help preserve our environment and you can add some of the finest US Automatic openers on your gate and garage doors. Not only are you doing a favor to the planet, but you are saving plenty of time on manual opening and closing of the doors.
Security Systems
As humans, we simply cannot be in two places at once. However, if you upgrade your home and introduce automation you can be at more than two places at once. New age security systems allow connection to our smartphones and easy access from the distance. You can program all the locks and cameras via your phone and have the recordings available at any time. Also, you can control their energy usage and time when they should be on, which contributes to controlled energy consumption.
Smart Power Strips
Smart power strips are useful when it comes to tracking the energy usage patterns. You can automate these through the occupancy sensors and control the usage of energy in your home easily. Also, these smart strips will help you avoid peak usage periods and save plenty of energy and money each day. All of the devices you decide to plug into these strips will use phantom energy which can only be beneficial.
With consumption of all resources on our planet being extremely high, we need new ways of preserving energy and saving the environment. That is why it is a good idea to modernize your home and bring automation. Plus, you will contribute to your country’s economy and you are using the resources only when they are needed.
These electronic gadgets do fail from time to time. When one has a large number of electronic gadgets, failures occur more often thereby requiring spending more and more time maintaining and replacing them.
Unfortunately, many appliances are not designed to make repairing them possible. I had to replace a washing machine because of two failed contacts in the timer. The timer was designed so that the contacts could not be repaired or replaced and a replacement timer would have cost $350! It made more sense to replace the washing machine. So, because a tiny pair of contacts in the timer failed, the entire washing machine was scrapped. That is irresponsible design.
An argument could be made for having as few electrical devices as possible.
Nice concepts Lana , seems we are on a pathway to the much discussed and theorized smart Home perhaps?
As Frank commented, some of these gadgets fail early is the downside so savings get eroded. The manufactures need to improve quality control on the major appliances and the inter connectivity must be simple and functional.
Question do the so called smart power strips really reduce Phantom power and the costs related to plug in loads ?
I have wondered about that? anyone know for sure.
Thanks
Silent,
Regarding “phantom” power, I bought a watt meter to check that out. What I found was that appliances typically consume only about one watt or less when in standby mode. Even my I-Mac computer uses very little power when it goes into idle mode. Thus, it would seem that it is not worth the inconvenience to disconnect these devices when they are not in use. That is especially true of TV sets which have a clock with no battery support.
This has not always been the case. I remember vacuum tube (valve, for the British) TV sets which, in standby mode, kept the filaments warm so that the set would be operational within about one second of being turned on. I don’t know how much power they actually used in standby mode, but I’d guess that it was at least five watts, probably more.
It is easy enough for one to test one’s appliances for power consumption in all operational modes, so there is no need to guess. In the U.S., Home Depot sells watt meters which are easy to use. Perhaps watt meters are also available in other countries.
Regarding durability of devices, there are electric clocks made in the early 1930s which are still running. Probably it would be difficult or impossible to find a recently manufactured analogue electric clock which would last for even a fraction of that time. Electric electronic digital clocks also seem to have a rather limited life. Battery operated clocks can have a shockingly short life. Fortunately it is easy to replace the movement; movements can be ordered from http://www.klockit.com; the skill required to replace the movement is minimal.
Some homes made 100 years ago still have their original steam or hot water furnaces. Of course modern ones are much more efficient, but one can just about guarantee that they will not last even half as long.
Frank thank you for the informative information and clearing things up.
I had heard from associates that the trend with standby power in appliances was really getting minimal. You confirmed that.
You are so right about the new devices failing so soon. I have a 50 yr old electric clock and a 38 yr old Westinghouse Freezer that runs real good. A power hog tho ! They made em good back in 1970’s it seems.
enjoy the good rains we are getting