Not only do Connected Home products make your life easier and provide peace of mind, they provide additional environmental benefits, turning your smart home into a sustainable one. Automating your home’s temperature, lighting and other appliances reduces wasted energy when you are not home and saves you money in the process. Going one step further, you can monitor and start conserving water when irrigating your lawn.
Smart Thermostats
They save energy and money by not heating or cooling an empty house. As this technology matures, there are many smart thermostats to choose from, each offering additional energy-saving features:
- Nest: This thermostat learns your habits and patterns to accommodate your lifestyle. Forget to turn the thermostat down before you head out of town? No problem – Nest lets you do it through your smartphone for energy saving on the go.
- Honeywell Lyric: This thermostat is equipped with geofencing technology that enables your thermostat to turn off when you leave your home and turn back on once you’re within a five-mile radius.
- Ecobee: This thermostat makes temperature and comfort adjustments based on multiple sensors in different rooms, instead of only where the thermostat is located.
Smart Lighting
LED light bulbs are more energy-efficient, contain no hazardous chemicals and last longer than a traditional bulb. Smart lighting systems provide even more power reduction options.
- Philips Hue: This system is equipped with a timer function and remote access to further reduce power consumption.
- LIFX Bulbs: By teaming up with the Nest Thermostat, these bulbs are able to switch themselves into an away mode if you forget to turn them off when you leave home.
Smart Irrigation
Rachio, a Wi-Fi enabled irrigation control, uses real-time weather data and analytics to use less water while maintaining a healthy yard. The device adjusts your sprinkler schedule according to cloud data, turning it off when rain is forecasted. Further analytics adjust the amount of water for the type of soil in your yard. The recently EPA WaterSense-certified system conserves between 15-40 percent of water, that’s thousands of gallons of water per year per household. This is especially relevant in parts of the U.S. where water scarcity is becoming an issue.
Energy Tracking
Belkin’s WeMo Insight switch helps monitor your energy consumption. Want to know if that new space heater is causing a spike in your energy? Monitor the energy use real-time from your smartphone and nip it in the bud before you get the bill.
For more information, visit your local Best Buy Connected Home department or the online Connected Home experience at bestbuy.com/connectedhome.