Home and Garden Expo Guide Home & Garden Expo Guide 2020 | Page 26

GO GREEN, REDUCE ENERGY
BILLS WITH SMART TECHNOLOGY
COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF HOME BUILDERS
From “learning” thermostats
to energy saving smartphone
apps, it has never been easier
to monitor and control your
home’s energy use. While we all
love doing our part to help the
environment, the real draw here
is how these simple solutions will
help you save money by keeping
those monthly energy bills low.
Here are just some of many easy
home energy-monitoring tools
that can help your home run as
efficiently as possible.
Smart Thermostats
With the dog days of summer fast
approaching, many homeowners worry
they won’t be able to keep their homes
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Home & Garden Expo Guide 2020
comfortable without their energy
bills going through the roof. Luckily,
innovations in smart thermostat
technology can help you keep your
house cool and refreshing without
breaking the bank.
Nest Labs offers the Nest Learning
Thermostat. This sleek, minimally
designed wall thermostat can be
adjusted manually in your home or
wirelessly from any location through
your computer or smartphone. Each
time you adjust the thermostat,
Nest learns about your temperature
preferences and daily life. It then uses
this information to help you keep your
home at a consistently comfortable
temperature while simultaneously saving
money on energy costs. For example,
it learns to automatically adjust the
temperature when you’re away at work,
asleep at night, or when the weather
unexpectedly changes.
Other similar programmable
thermostats include the Ecobee Smart
Thermostat, the Honeywell Wi-Fi
Smart Thermostat, and the Venstar
ColorTouch Thermostat.
Smartphone Apps
Nowadays it seems like there is an
app for everything, and home energy
management is no exception. Among
the many smartphone apps that monitor
your home’s energy use is the highly
rated Kill-Ur-Watts. It’s a free app that
comprehensively monitors your home’s
electric energy use by gathering data
from your energy provider and relaying
that information back to you through
user-friendly, easy-to-understand graphs
and charts.
Although this information has always
been available to the inquisitive consumer
through your energy provider, apps like
Kill-Ur-Watts make it instantly accessible
and easily digestible so you can actually
put it to use. For example, it can help you
identify what time of day it is cheapest to
do your laundry or what appliances are
INSITE February 2020