Smart home devices are slowly, but surely, making their way into most homes in America. In fact, most of these products promote features that will inevitably make your day-to-day life much more convenient and even secure.
It’s more than obvious that smart homes are convenient, but the real question everyone wonders about is, just how can smart home technology help save money though?
Smart thermostats have become essential for people who want a smart home. From managing you’re heating and cooling to giving you suggestions on how you can reduce the energy consumption in your home.
Let’s take a closer look at how smart thermostats work and how they ultimately help you achieve those savings you’ve been wanting to make.
Smart Thermostats
First things first, let’s understand how smart thermostats actually work. These smart devices are connected to the internet. They typically have inbuilt Wi-Fi chips, but some also use a different form of communication, such as using a separate Hub that has the ZigBee/Z-wave technology.
This type of functionality allows you to control and manage the smart thermostat through smartphone apps or web interfaces. This is a much easier technology as compared to having to manually program a thermostat.
Since the very first Nest Thermostat that was launched in 2011, it seems to have become obvious that thermostats have the ability to do much more than just setting highly efficient schedules.
They have the ability to incorporate learning algorithms to help you create schedules that will result in reduced energy consumption. Last but not the least, smart thermostats are actively taking advantage of voice assistants like Apple’s Siri, Amazon Alexa, and Google Home, just so you can use the voice command feature to control the smart thermostat.
There are tons of first utility smart thermostats at FirstEnergy for you to choose from.
How Can Smart Thermostats Help You Save Money?
As a matter of fact, smart thermostats don’t exactly have magic tricks up their sleeves. Because when you’re talking about saving costs, you need to look at the fundamentals of how this can be done.
There’s isn’t much science to it, because to heat or cool a space, energy is required. And the amount of energy needed depends on how cold and warm you want your home to be, and how long will is your place going to stay at this temperature.
How does it Work?
Smart thermostats help save money by keeping the temperature of your home as low as possible for the longest time possible. Generally, you’ll have to enter the desired temperature and your daily schedule.
Based on this set of information, the smart thermostat makes sure the room is at a temperature that keeps the people in the home comfortable and also saves as much energy as possible when no one’s home.
Smart thermostats are easier to use as compared to regular programmable thermostats. In other words, you’ll be using it much more often and further adjust with time as your schedules change.
They Learn Your Heating and Cooling Habits
This is the main thing that makes the “smart” in smart thermostats. As mentioned above, you’ll have to start by entering the ideal temperature you want and also program the settings up to your liking.
Then as time goes by, the smart thermostat observes your habits and learns when you’re home and not, also what’s temperature preference at specific times of the day. The technology in it then automatically adjusts the setting and makes sure your home is at the perfect temperature.
In fact, some smart thermostats also make temperature adjustments based on humidity levels.
They Monitor Your Energy Usage
If smart thermostats only had the ability to set schedules, they wouldn’t be that smart would they? Smart thermostats learn your behaviors and help set schedules that save the most amount of energy.
Most, if not all smart thermostats know when you’re home and when you’re not. This is due to the smart thermostat’s geofencing capabilities and third-party integrations. And as you keep using the smart thermostat, it learns your preferences with time.
Conclusion
Smart thermostats have come a long way. Moreover, they work better when you’re away. Smart thermostats switch to eco setting when no one’s home, this means, you’ll automatically save energy by this feature.
Smart thermostats have sensors that tell them when someones entered or left home, or when there’s absolutely no movement in your home.
When you’re away for a long period of time, such as a vacation, you can control your smart thermostat system remotely and prevent emergencies that may result in frozen water pipes.
Ultimately, a smart thermostat will save you money, but it happens with time and how your habits change to reduce energy consumption.
