How to save energy and money with smart home tech and apps

Remember that old Nokia buried in your desk drawer?

Imagine relying on it today.

No Zoom calls on the go, ordering an Uber from the pub, or shopping for clothes on the train.

It’s fair to say smartphones have transformed our lives

Now, the revolution is happening in home energy.

Modern systems use artificial intelligence to manage how much energy you use in your home.

They help you waste less, pay less, and do your bit for the planet.

It won’t be long before your manual thermostat ends up in the desk drawer, alongside the Nokia, a VHS tape, and a Sony Walkman.

Ready to be sold on eBay in a few years’ time as a piece of retro nostalgia.

Smart thermostats

Heating a house or apartment guzzles a lot of juice. In the average home, it’s responsible for half the energy bill.

A wi-fi enabled smart thermostat can help you spend less without compromising comfort.

It lets you control your heating and hot water through an app. You can tweak the temperature, set a timer, and turn heating on and off – all on your phone, wherever you are.

It’s a far cry from fiddling with the awkward timer settings on an old-fashioned thermostat.

More advanced models use AI to learn your daily habits and how warm or cold your house gets at different times of day.

They can, for example…

• Automatically prompt you to turn the heating off when you go out.
• Fire up the heating 15 minutes before you usually get up in the morning.
• Use GPS to tell when you’re on your way home from work, and get the house warmed up ready for your return.

Heat the rooms you need, when you need them

A smart thermostat linked to individual radiators also allows you to schedule heating room by room.

If your teenager is out at a sleepover, turn their room’s heating off until the next day.

Schedule the heating in the kitchen to wind down from 8pm, once you’ve finished the evening chores.

And start warming up your bedroom 15 minutes before you turn in, so it’s nice and toasty for bedtime.

All this with a few swipes on a smartphone app.

Smart appliances

The washing machine. The cooker. Anything with a plug. Lots of appliances and devices can be connected with a smart home energy system too.

It makes for a super-efficient home that only uses the energy it needs.

You can schedule your washing machine to come on in the early hours, so it’s finished first thing.

You can turn on the oven on your way home from the supermarket, ready to pop the pizzas in as soon as you get home.

And you can turn smart plugs on and off remotely, making it easy to shut down all those devices on standby and silently devouring up electricity.

Solar, electric vehicle charging, and home batteries

The examples above show how smart tech and AI can save you time and money without compromising comfort.

Add some solar panels, an EV charger, and a home battery system into the mix, and things really take off.

With solar panels, you have energy coming in as well as going out. It presents lots more opportunities to optimise and save money.

Like giving a chef the finest ingredients to work with, it’s your AI home energy system’s chance to shine.

If it could high-five you, it would.

Imagine this:

You use solar energy to meet your daily needs – with the system automatically optimising how every device and appliance uses it.

When the sun really starts beating, it diverts excess energy to your car and your home battery, without you lifting a finger.

Once they’re full, it starts selling back to the grid and making you a few extra quid.

Then, come sundown, the system recognises the solar energy is waning and switches to home battery juice to see you through the evening.

One system to connect them all

Smart home energy technology is here to stay.

Systems that connect and optimise appliances, devices, and renewable energy are at the heart of modern, energy saving homes.

Unless you’re on a nostalgia trip, you wouldn’t buy that old Nokia in 2023.

The same goes for old-fashioned home energy equipment. Investing in outdated tech is rarely a good move, especially when it costs you more to run and makes it harder to save energy.

About Powerverse

At Powerverse we bring you a new generation of sustainable power. As a one-stop shop, we can connect your home to an ecosystem of smart solutions to help you reduce your energy bills and go green with ease.

Want to know more? Head to our Home Charging solution.