Kind of a hot-topic for many at the moment I expect..... Whether it be reducing petroleum usage or more likely reducing the use of power across the home more generally, including Gas or more conventional forms of Electricity..... How have you used a Home Automation solution to reduce your expenditure?
I'll add one acknowledgement to my opening statement.... There is obviously a contrast between what is a "1st world problem" of paying more for energy to support a more comfortable lifestyle, versus those facing much more serious implications of price rises in this space, including those in highly "volatile" environments. I am not pretending that we can solve the more challenging situations, but am also not oblivious to the plight of those around the world at the moment.
If you are talking about saving it's on in the rooms where the kids leave their lights on. I think I am using a bit more electricity because now I have whole home "background" lighting that doesn't require me to go room to room to turn on the scenes.
But I do know that it's helped me preserve the look of my outdoor lighting where I have old Edison bulbs by Phillips that have been burning for over 20 years. These lights are on in the morning and evening at about 10 to 15 percent and always ramp up to 80 when they are turned on "full". None of the LED bulbs on the market really have that "warm" glow that we like. The lower brightness level and the ramping prevents the damage to the filaments.
Having the heating only turn on when the whole house average temperature drops below 18C then adding the conditions that it will only turn trigger when: somebody is present, the hub is in day or evening modes (so 06:00 - 21:00), all doors and windows are closed and the outside temperature is below 14C. Only when all conditions are met it will automatically turn on.
The heating can be manually triggered by voice control but similar conditions must be met otherwise Alexa tells you that a condition isn't met (such as a window open etc).
Then when the house reaches average 21.5C the heating turns off.
I have manual TRV's but looking for some zigbee ones at the moment.
Lighting is all LED and will only trigger on motion when it becomes dark enough outside.
Not hub related but, commuting to work, which is about 22 miles each way and mostly motorway, I have limited my speed to 56mph and I'm getting a return of about 10-12 mpg extra which is a bonus, so getting a clear 60mpg on my 10 yo astra diesel this saves me about £8-10 per week.
I have setup all my lights to turn off automatically when there is no motion for a set period in a room. The period will depend on the type of room. That said, with everything being LEDs now, the saving will be minimal.
Where I save more is with my heat. I have setup all baseboard heaters to automatically return to a preset temperature, with my mini-split providing the majority of the heat.
I also setup my bathroom exhaust fans on Inovelli Red switches which will automatically turn on if there is too much humidity and turn back off when the level is back to normal. However, since this will also evacuate the house’s heat in the winter, I have a rule that will first set my air exchanger to turbo mode to get the humidity out. The exchanger is also a heat recovery unit, so my expectation is that I will lose less heat that way.
Finally, I am monitoring and keeping an eye on my energy usage to understand what requires more heat and pay attention to those device. This includes the water heater (which I recently changed to a Heat Pump Water Heater), oven and heaters.
I still have a bit of work to do on all of this, so really looking forward to seeing other comments!
Not directly related to home automation, but another thing that I have done is take advantage of our local government subsidies to put some solar panels up on the roof. The savings will however only be realized once it is paid off, so likely within 10 years. I expect to have a better idea of this after having used it for a full year or two. I also added several inches of blown-in insulation to the attic to bring it from roughly R-30 to R-60. Winter is just starting and we are already seeing a difference in the upstairs comfort level.
Yours's probably to closest to my take on this topic @Sebastien.... Not to say others haven't contributed ideas that I like or agree with, but the idea of automating parts of the home that can be easily and reliably automated while having locations that are monitored and tweaked as required appeals to me.
Whatever approach people take..... Hubitat provides alternatives that open up options to the average user to explore, no matter their preference for managing their home. The choice is yours...
this saves me about £8-10 per week.
