Smart devices give you more control to run things as efficiently as possible. You can set schedules for air conditioners and sprinklers, as well as turn off those devices remotely if you don’t need to run them. This is how much energy I used in my house in the month of July: I use an Ecobee SmartThermostat in my home, and features like vacation mode have made my life easier. I’m not sure if it’s a feature or an annoyance, but my thermostat also tells me when it would be more efficient to run the air conditioning. Like most folks in August, I start to feel a little warm in the afternoon, and when I turn up my air conditioning, my Ecobee tells me that I could save money by waiting until the evening to run my air conditioning. I usually ignore the suggestion, but it’s good to know when money gets tight. You can easily get decision paralysis when it comes to smart light bulbs, so here’s an overview of our favorite options: For example, I built a souped-up PC during the pandemic that can suck up power. Since I use a smart outlet, I can remotely power off and power on my PC from my phone. Not to get too nerdy, but since I remote into my computer to play games on my phone, the ability to turn on and off my computer from anywhere makes a big difference. Whatever energy-sucking device you have in your house can easily get turned off remotely with a smart plug. You can find smart plugs just about anywhere, but four options in particular stand out for being budget-friendly with easy smart-home integration:
