The best smart home devices not only provide convenience, but they can also save you a lot of money in the long run, whether that’s through lower utility bills or warning you of impending disasters.
Here are five smart home devices that can help you reduce your electricity, gas, and water bills.
Smart Thermostat
After lighting, heating and cooling costs make up the largest portion of your monthly utility bill, but the latest smart thermostats and smart air conditioners can help you save here too. First, you can often get a smart thermostat for free or very cheaply from your local utility company. These companies often offer sales and deep discounts on the devices, some of which can cost as much as $250.
The best smart thermostats, like the Nest Learning Thermostat and Ecobee SmartThermostat Premium, have the ability to learn your habits and automatically adjust heating and cooling. This is because they have sensors that can detect whether you’re home or not, so they don’t use electricity or gas while you’re away. They can also link with your smartphone and use your location to make sure your home is a comfortable temperature when you get home. Ecobee connects with your local utility company to determine when energy costs are lower and optimizes heating and cooling for those times, helping you save money.
Smart Air Conditioner
If you don’t have central air conditioning, you’ll likely have to rely on a window air conditioner to keep your home cool in the summer. Although smart air conditioners aren’t as smart as thermostats, they do have some features that can help you save money. First, many newer models use inverters rather than compressor technology to cool the air. Inverters inherently use much less energy than compressors, so they’re more efficient and can immediately save you money. Smart air conditioners can also be linked to other smart home devices and services, so they only turn on when you need them to. For example, you can create a smart home routine that turns your air conditioner on when you arrive home and turns it off when you leave.
Smart lights and smart light switches
Incandescent light bulbs are being phased out in the United States in favor of LED lighting, which uses much less energy. How much? A typical LED light bulb uses about 9 watts of energy, compared to 60 watts for an old-fashioned incandescent bulb.
For the sake of argument, let’s say you keep the lights on for 6 hours per day. That’s 2,190 hours per year. For a 60-watt bulb, that’s 131.4 kilowatt-hours, compared to 19.7 kWh for an LED bulb.
Based on the average US electricity price from March 2024 ($0.174 kWh), Bureau of Labor StatisticsThe annual cost of an LED bulb is $3.43 compared to $22.86 for an incandescent. Now, when you think about how many bulbs you have in your home, the costs can add up quickly.
Smart LED bulbs may cost more up front, but they can save you more in the long run. First, if you forget to turn off your lights when you leave the house, you can remotely turn them off using your smartphone or connect them to another smart home device to turn them off automatically. Additionally, you can use motion sensors or set schedules to turn your lights on and off when not in use.
Smart Light Switch
Alternatively, in rooms with lots of overhead lighting, a smart light switch can be more economical than buying a bunch of smart LED bulbs. Installation requires some know-how, as you’ll need to replace a traditional light switch. It’s relatively easy to do, but you’ll need to know if your home has a neutral wire.
Smart Plug
Smart plugs can also be used to turn appliances on and off based on a schedule or when you’re at home or away. This is useful if you have a table or floor lamp, for example, or a fan that you want to turn on when the room gets too hot. Even better, smart plugs are cheap. Some of the best smart plugs are just $20 apiece, making them a relatively small investment to add to your home.
Smart Blinds
If your home isn’t hot, you don’t need to cool it as much. Even something as small as smart blinds can help. They can automatically raise and lower depending on the time of day, and if connected to a smart home device with a built-in temperature sensor, like an Echo Dot, they can lower the room if it gets too hot.
Traditionally, smart blinds like Lutron have been fairly pricey because they have to be custom-made to fit your windows, but IKEA has recently entered the space, offering pre-measured blinds for under $200. Admittedly, this is still a lot more expensive than non-smart blinds and has a more limited color selection, but it’s more affordable than it used to be.
Water Leak Detector
There’s nothing worse than coming home from vacation to find your basement flooded because your water heater or pipes have burst. Not only will it be a mess, but it could cost you thousands of dollars in damages to repair everything and make sure it’s mold-free. A smart leak detector can let you know when something catastrophic is happening, and some models can even automatically shut off the water to your home to prevent a major leak from becoming a major leak.
Even if it’s not as drastic as a burst pipe, some of the more advanced smart leak detectors can warn you of potential conditions (like freezing temperatures) or find smaller sources of water waste (like a running toilet) before they become a lasting problem.
Most smart leak detectors cost around $40 to $60 each and can be installed anywhere there’s a potential leak. However, if you want one that can also shut off the water to your home, you’ll have to pay around $400, not including the plumber needed to install it. Still, this initial cost can add up to big savings in the long run.
