Sustainable smart homes
With a new government has come a renewed focus on the climate crisis, and both businesses and homeowners are looking for effective ways to reduce their carbon footprint. Achieving a more sustainable home may seem challenging, but there’s an unsung hero in the efficiency revolution: smart home automation.
According to the British Institute of Interior Design, small yet thoughtful changes can have a bigger impact than we expect. Not only can automating things like heating and lighting help to avoid energy wastage, they can also bring down the cost of living a little, giving us more financial flexibility.
Monitoring with smart meters
At-home smart meters have become commonplace over the past five years, providing more transparency around how much we’re spending on electricity and gas each day. While a glance at the meter may remind us to switch off lights in rooms we aren’t using, or turn the heating down a touch, it’s also possible to access more in-depth analytics. These can tell us what our most energy intensive appliances are, and even alert us to potential issues such as faulty appliances or leaks.
By understanding our energy usage we can then work to reduce it. Installing a smart home heating system, for example, enables homeowners to have a more precise heating schedule, turning it down or off while they are out of the house, then setting it to switch back on at the time they typically return from work. More sophisticated systems even allow you to switch off the heating in certain rooms so that only those being used are heated.
Similarly, home lighting automation enables you to dim lights or switch them off with either the touch of a button or a voice command, ensuring electricity is not used unnecessarily.
Smart home integration
While individual devices with corresponding apps are a great first step, choosing integrated smart home automation delivers even better results. Sustainable homes with Control4, for example, utilise AI to optimise energy usage depending on the time of day. With such systems, lighting, heating and blinds can be integrated to optimise the indoor environment while saving energy. The blinds can raise and lower, with electric lighting supplementing the natural light as required depending on the time of day and the weather.
Products such as Lutron lighting and Control4 work well together to create these intelligent responses to external conditions, not only optimising your living experience but also reducing energy consumption and saving you money. Investing in systems provided by experts offers a greater chance of creating a more sustainable home, giving you a multitude of options to lower your emissions.
Smart home installations
Here at New Wave AV, we are a certified Control4 installer, and have been associated with this cutting-edge brand since 2004. As such, we’re ideally placed to help you create a more energy efficient home that brings you comfort and convenience. Contact our Control4 specialists to discuss your requirements. We serve residential and commercial properties in Kent, Surrey, Essex, London and Sussex.
