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This is where smart home technologies come in: by harnessing the power of connection, automation and design, smart home systems promise to use energy far more efficiently. What’s more, smart home technologies are not just a way for households to save on their energy bills, they are also at the leading edge of the broader movement towards environmental sustainability.
This article sheds light on how smart technology influences houses and explains how smart home innovation is creating the path to a future of significant energy saving, helping to preserve our planet by minimising carbon footprints. Smart homes rely on gadgets, from smart thermostats with self-regulating temperature control depending on occupancy to smart lighting systems that automatically dim when people are not in a room or are automatically switched off when nobody is present. These gadgets and the innovative tech that lies behind them illustrate a number of ways we can achieve a greener and a more sustainable world filled with smart homes.
Smart home technology had early predecessors in the home automation work of the late 20th century. Early systems were crude, with the primary focus on home security and control of home functions such as lights and appliances with timers and remote controls. They were a precursor to the connected, smart spaces of today.
There is a real inflection point that occurred with smart homes when the internet and wireless evolved. Wi-Fi became a thing and broadband became available, as did short range connectivity alternatives such as Zigbee and Z-Wave. All these developments allowed devices to talk to others, not just within the home, but beyond it.
The availability of user-friendly smartphone interfaces and mobile applications also helped transform users’ interactions with their home environments. Much of the data provided by smart home control systems could be monitored by the homeowners remotely, regardless of their location, in nearreal-time.
As environmental worries increased, the smart home began to focus on energy usage. New products such as smart thermostats that learn owners’ habits and automatically adjust heating and cooling depending on energy use, and smart lighting systems that use low-energy LED bulbs with automated control began to dominate the smart home discourse. Such solutions offered convenience while at the same time significantly reducing energy usage and associated costs.
As smart home technology begins its next phase of mass adoption, driven by energy savings, home security and household convenience, the market is flooded with an array of smart devices, ranging from energy monitors to automated blinds, and including smart appliances that can learn from their users’ energy specifications to make more energy saving adjustments, while utilising better energy efficiency along the way. The addition of artificial intelligence and machine learning to smart energy systems has significantly improved their ability to learn and then adjust their energy savings based on a home’s needs.
As consumers become increasingly aware of the importance of living a life that doesn’t hurt the planet, a demand for smart home technology has also materialised; energy efficiency is achievable and cost-effective, ultimately helping to conserve and utilise an energy supply that does not harm the environment. In other words, companies now have reason to innovate.
And in the future, as smart home technology advances to increase efficiency, we will see a wave of new smart homes that will truly define sustainable living, bringing us one step closer to global environmental targets.
Energy efficiency in the context of the smart home addresses the use of energy to perform different household functions in an optimal way, minimising the overall energy consumption used to support those functions, without foregoing comfort or convenience. In other words, energy efficiency is not simply about using less energy, it relates to the smart application of technology to ensure that energy is used in an optimal and efficient way. One of the most pressing contemporary challenges of our planet is the appraisal of how current modes of energy production and usage are affecting the environment, the concept of energy efficiency holds an immense global significance and relevance. Energy efficiency in smart homes represents the usage of advanced technologies to monitor, control and manage the energy consumption of appliances and systems in order to provide a sustainable living environment.
Energy use is further reduced through automation, monitoring and control systems intended to work together in smart homes, which can also use information technology – such as being able to access your home’s control system from your phone – to reduce consumption. Here are some ways this is achieved:
Thanks to the Internet of Things (IoT), smart homes are becoming more energy efficient. IoT – or Internet of Things – refers to devices that are connected to each other and to the internet; when they work together, they can offer levels of interactivity and control never before possible. The IoT is comprised of various devices – smart meters, smart thermostats and energy-saving smart appliances – that can communicate with and control each other and integrate with other devices in the home and beyond.
Building a smart eco-home involves harnessing a number of components designed to work together to minimise energy consumption and maximise sustainability, both saving homeowners money on their energy bills and leaving a lighter carbon footprint. Let’s examine the key components and how they operate within the ecosystem of the smart home.
The smart thermostat and the connected home are inextricably linked to energy efficiency in the home. These devices control the heating and cooling equipment, which boast a high fuel propensity. Sitting in the sweet spot between precision and comfort, smart thermostats ensure that a home is neither overly heated nor too cool, saving energy and money. These thermostats learn the habits of a household and its occupants, and accordingly adjust heating and cooling accordingly, for example, reducing it when no one’s home and bringing it back to a comfortable level by the time people return home. Optimising heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) operations delivers the lion’s share of energy savings in homes.
Without a doubt, LED lighting is one of the pillars of energy-reducing lighting technologies. If compared with a conventional incandescent bulb, LED bulbs utilise at least 75% less energy. While the introduction of LED lights already saves a significant amount of energy, when combined with smart light controls, such as automated dimmers, motion sensors and programmable schedules, these products contribute to even greater energy savings. Dimmers reduce light usage at times when lighting may not be needed; motion sensors turn lights on when people are present and turn them off when spaces are empty; and programmable schedules ensure lights are automatically shut off at times when no one is using the space.
According to global technology intelligence firm ABI Research, 138 million smart light components, which include luminaires, sensors, controllers, and switches, will be shipped in 2030 and installed in smart buildings.
Energy-monitoring systems are allowing owners to get a big picture of their home’s energy use. In real-time, they show where energy is being consumed and when it is being wasted. They can even show whether an appliance is using a large amount of energy. This means people can make informed choices over how they use energy and what steps to take in order to waste less.
Smart fridges, washing machines and dishwashers provide the best energy use possible without impacting performance. They can be controlled by a user to run at off-peak times when energy rates are low or when there are times when there is a high presence of renewable energy in the grid. Similar opportunities exist for non-smart appliances through smart plugs that provide remote control and scheduling ability to turn off appliances when not in use, thus saving power.
Adding renewable energy sources to a smart home improves its efficiency and sustainability greatly. The use of solar panels produces clean, green electricity that can be used to run the home. In some cases it might be possible to swap the electricity generated back into the grid and receive money for it. It is also possible to have batteries that can receive the energy being generated by the solar panels. This allows you to have a steady stream of green energy coming into the house, rather than using other forms of energy that aren’t renewable like fossil fuels. The use of energy can be managed by the smart system and use the best electricity types available at the time, which in the examples mentioned earlier – would be the electricity generated by the solar system and recycled back from the batteries.
These components, when combined, constitute the building blocks of a smart, energy-efficient home. As smart home technology improves, energy savings and environmental benefits will only increase exponentially. And we will have set ourselves on the path for a greener world.
Despite the number of specific case studies with the relevant figures always increasing, some of them certainly highlight the impact of smart home technologies on energy efficiency and, consequently, on sustainability in a way that is both quantifiable and exemplary.
One of the most often held up as a certifiable smart home energy efficiency triumph is the adoption of smart thermostats by Nest, which has written in its whitepaper that early users were cutting 10-12% off heating, and 15% off cooling, per year – estimated average savings of about US$131 to US$145 per home. That cuts energy use in half; heating and cooling account for about half of a home’s energy use.
Another example is a survey on energy efficiency in smart homes that highlights how Europe’s adoption of smart grids, integrating novel information and communication technologies like sensors and high-performance digital communication systems, has redefined energy distribution. These technologies enable precise, real-time measurement and monitoring of energy parameters and facilitate remote operation and optimisation of distribution. The transformation to smart grids has introduced the concept of prosumers—users who both produce and consume energy. By using big data with advanced analytics and semantic technologies, these smart environments aim to enhance energy efficiency significantly. Challenges such as information security remain, but the push towards microgrids and data-driven solutions promises a future where smart homes can efficiently manage and reduce energy consumption.
Adopting smart home technology brings numerous benefits in terms of energy efficiency and convenience, yet it also introduces several challenges and considerations for homeowners:
Depending on the user’s resources and determination, these challenges might not be enough to outweigh the benefits of integrating smart home technology, especially if one researches the system well, buys from brands with a good reputation for security and privacy, and lays a foundation for a scalable system. While tackling the impediments which come with integrating smart home technology and the gadgets that are tied to the system might seem daunting at first, in the long run the advantages of creating an energy-efficient, convenient and well-connected home environment can outweigh the initial challenges of installing and maintaining smart appliances.
When it comes to climate change and sustainability, a crucial step towards using less energy without making our everyday lives less comfortable is enabling smart homes. Starting from the early experiments with home automation, the idea of smart technological homes is becoming more and more elaborate nowadays. Smart homes pair the energy saving possibilities of smart thermostats, LED lights and IoT devices to adjust home energy use properly, reducing electricity consumption and recommending the most energy-efficient appliances. While the adoption of a smart home might be challenging for some in terms of cost and data privacy, the goal of creating a more sustainable planet with smart homes brings many benefits, including energy efficiency, lower emissions, smaller carbon footprint, and better control over a home environment. Smart technology, as it develops and becomes more common, is poised to become an important step towards achieving global environmental targets.