We’ve learned how to save money on your electricity bill with solar power, now lets dive into how smart home automation can bring down your energy bills.
It was once a futuristic concept, but smart home automation is well and truly a part of modern lives. We’re installing smart home features and appliances in properties all across Brisbane and South East Queensland. It’s making people’s lives easier and more convenient – but there’s another big plus too:
Smart home automation can save you money every month.
By automating your heating, cooling and use of appliances, you take control of your energy usage and keep your hard-earned money where it belongs – in your bank! Let’s take a look at how the right residential electrician can make smart home automation work for you.
Understanding Smart Home Automation
Let’s look at a basic definition of smart home automation for those who haven’t stumbled across it before. It refers to the use of internet-connected devices that allow you to remotely monitor and controls different things in your home. For example, setting the lighting to come on as it gets dark. Or automated window shades that open to let the sun in.
What smart home automation does is allow your property to adjust itself, under your control, to the time of day, the weather, the occupants and your daily routines. When you optimise the automation correctly, it’s a powerful way to cut down your energy bill. Here’s how.
How Smart Home Automation Reduces Energy Costs
1. Optimised Heating and Cooling with Smart Thermostats
Heating and cooling account for an average of 40% of the electricity bill of an Australian household. That’s a massive chunk of monthly expenses going into keeping your home cool in summer or warm in winter.
A smart thermostat will help bring that down. These wi-fi-enabled thermostats allow you to control your home’s heating and cooling directly from your smartphone. They also learn your heating and cooling needs and automatically create a schedule to suit. They’ll adjust to energy saving temperatures when you’re asleep or not home.
Smart thermostats will also provide strong insights into your energy usage, so you can make informed decisions about your usage. For example, if you always shower in peak tariff times, you can adjust the thermostat to only kick in and heat your water up at lower tariff times.
Depending on how well you optimise your smart thermostat, it’s claimed you can save up to 20% off your electricity bill!
2. Smart Lighting to Stop Energy Wastage
Getting the kids to turn off the lights behind them is a constant battle! Little things like that all add up and cost money. With smart lighting systems, leaving lights on in empty rooms becomes a thing of the past. You can have motion sensors turning lights on when you enter a room, and turning them off when you leave.
You can also set your lights on a schedule, which is handy if you’re not home one evening but would like some lights on for security purposes. Or all lights can be set to be off during the day when the household is at work.
Smart lighting uses LED bulbs, which are far more energy-efficient than traditional incandescent bulbs. If you make the switch to smart LED lighting, you could reduce energy consumption related to lighting by up to 75%!
3. Smart Blinds to Regulate Temperatures
Smart blinds are a practical, simple and effective device in your smart home portfolio. They can allow you to harness the power of natural lighting to make your home more comfortable and help save on your electricity bills. In summer, they can close during the day to keep the sun out and reduce your reliance on aircon. Then in winter, open them up to let the sun heat the home. It’s a simple automation, but it can lead to a significant reduction in your heating and cooling usage.
4. Smart Plugs Help Manage Appliance Usage
Control your non-smart appliances remotely with smart plugs. These allow you to turn off energy-draining devices such as coffee makers, TVs, and fans via a mobile app, preventing unnecessary power usage. You can even get smart plugs with energy-monitoring features, showing which appliances are guzzling the most energy. Then you can adjust your household usage and times accordingly!
5. In-Home Energy Display Provide Insights
An in-home energy display, or IHD, tells you how much energy you’re using and what its costing. These are super handy, because nobody wants to be taking regular trips to the energy meter to monitor usage! These devices break down how much power each appliance uses, so you can identify energy-hungry devices and make smarter decisions about upgrading appliances or managing their usage.
Additional Benefits Beyond Savings
Everybody will agree that reducing energy costs is an awesome perk. But there are a few other advantages that smart home automation brings too:
- Convenience: The ability to control appliances and systems remotely from your smartphone will change your life for the better. Think you forgot to lock your doors? Double-check that and lock them from your phone. Get your home nice and warm on a cool evening before you arrive. Comfort levels will be through the roof!
- Security: This is a big one, and the development of smart homes has been closely linked to advances in security systems. Turn your home alarm on and off remotely, monitor your CCTV cameras from your desk at work, automate all your door and window locks – there’s an endless range of security features to give you peace of mind.
- Personalised Living Experience: This is your life, done your way. You can design your home to support your tastes and needs. Set timers for your tech, adjust the lights to your desired ambience, monitor the temperature, humidity and air quality. Smart home automation brings endless customisation to your life.
Getting Started with Smart Home Automation
If you’re new to smart home technology, it might seem a bit overwhelming. The Brisbane electricians at Voltora always recommend a few easy steps to get you started. Follow these, and you’re bound to see a positive impact on your electricity bill!
- Install a smart thermostat to manage heating and cooling efficiently.
- Replace traditional bulbs with smart LED lighting that you can control remotely.
- Use smart plugs for high-energy appliances to cut down on unnecessary usage.
- Consider smart blinds if you live in an area with extreme temperatures.
- Get a home energy monitor to track your consumption and make adjustments accordingly.
Contact the Brisbane Smart Home Experts
If you have any questions about reducing your energy bill with smart home automation, we’re ways here to help. We get pretty excited about this actually, and have been doing some automation installs on new builds in South East Queensland we’d love to tell you about! Get in touch today with all your electrical services requests today!
Lets get started
