“Hey Alexa! Turn on the oven to 400 degrees and turn the kitchen lights on!” A phrase like this is becoming more common in households today. Smart devices are taking the world by storm, especially inside homes. Want your oven preheated before you get home? Do you want to double check that you locked your doors? With a click of a button on your phone or a simple voice command, these things can be done from anywhere. Schedules can be set so devices turn on or off during certain times of the day. Some devices even study your living habits and make adjustments accordingly. Just like phones or computers, smart devices are becoming ubiquitous within our society. Not only do they make simple household tasks more convenient, they also save energy by controlling electricity usage.
HISTORY OF SMART DEVICES
Automated tasks throughout a house have not always been the tasks that we think of today. Now we think of our coffee machine brewing coffee automatically in the morning, or our lights automatically turning on. In the early 1900s, groundbreaking technology such as the electric vacuum and automatic washing machine were invented. Later came the dishwasher in 1929 and the dryer in 1938. You would think the dryer would have been invented earlier. In 1950, the first “hub” was established in a home. Created by Emil Mathias, the house had a set of switches and buttons that controlled everything in its six bedrooms.
The first ever smart device was developed in 1966, called the ECHO IV (Electronic Computing Home Operator). It was a 800 pound computer that controlled everything in the house. Air conditioning, the television, parental controls, household finances, and inventory were all tracked and controlled through the computer. After this with the development of the internet, IPv4, and IoT devices, smart technology evolved into what it is today.
Today we have companies such as Amazon, Google, and Apple in the smart home/device market. Amazon and Google have their respective smart speakers (Amazon Echo and Google Home), while Apple has HomeKit, which contains many smart home devices and allows for a homeowner to control the functions in a house via smartphone.
The smartphone is becoming a “hub” for your smart devices. Since many everyday items are becoming Internet of Things (IoT) devices, they can all be controlled from an app. Who would have thought a lightbulb could connect to the internet and be controlled from your phone?
ENERGY EFFICIENCY
While smart homes are correlated more with convenience, what people are not always realizing is that they can be very energy efficient. Smart thermostats, lighting, and plugs all contribute to limiting the amount of energy used in a household. One smart home has the potential to save 30–40% of energy that would be used in a normal house. That percentage would be able to be achieved if the house has the right additions. For example, a poorly insulated house from the 1900’s would waste a lot of heat, so less energy can be saved. Smart homes also come with multiple sensors around a house to accurately track Another example could be with lighting. Less windows in a house? That means more lighting is needed during the day, so less energy is saved. More windows equals more light equals less energy spent on lighting. An example product would be Vivint, which is a company that specializes in home security and smart homes, which supplies many of these energy saving features. They mainly focus on smart LED lighting, and a smart thermostat. Both are programmable through an app but will also automatically adjust heating and lighting in the house.
One addition that smart home developers are pushing is solar panels. Not only are you saving energy with smart devices, but you are also generating your own energy using solar panels. Depending on the type of solar panel you use, on average it can generate between 15%-27% of your needed energy. There are some extreme cases where it can reach 50%, but that would be in perfect (basically lab tested) conditions. This is not the most impactful when it comes to saving energy, but every little bit counts. That percentage range is also related to a regular house. Someone with a smart home would probably get more value out of solar panels due to the way it already preserves as much energy as possible.
ENERGY THROUGH AUTOMATION
Speaking of heating/cooling and lighting, smart homes today can automatically track your activity through machine learning so it will automate when the heat/AC should be turned on or off, along with which lights need to be on or off. Nest Learning Thermostat, owned by Google, is a prime example of this technology. It tracks your data throughout the house and automatically programs schedules using that data. Along with that, it can detect which rooms are occupied or vacant. If the house detects you walk into a bedroom, it will start heating/cooling the room to your liking. Once you leave the room, it turns off the air. This same thing occurs with lighting. You no longer will have to worry about leaving a random light on in the house. Kind of creepy, but also very cool and innovative at the same time. These are both examples of how smart homes are energy efficient.
Another technology that I have always thought is over the top is smart refrigerators. Have you ever stood at the open fridge for a while trying to find something to eat? Fear no more, smart fridges are now see through! You no longer have to deal with the cold air, and that air stays inside the fridge which saves energy. These fridges can even detect if something is blocking the circulation. It will alert you to move the item. Efficiency! Temperatures can be easily adjusted via the screen on the fridge or through an app as well.
With all the problems with energy usage and climate change, smart homes and devices are a step towards limiting our energy consumption. One house may not make a big difference, however if even a fraction of all homes in America were smart homes, it could make a major difference. This technology will only get better as the years go on, which will lead to even more energy efficiency to make our society greener.
