How Smart Technology Can Save You Money
Running a house is expensive. From electricity and gas to water and council tax, there are loads of things to shell out for. And if you still live at home you may get a bit of a shock when you move out. There are loads of ways you can save money on running a house, from changing suppliers to investing in some smart technology. When we first moved into our house we shopped around with suppliers and tariffs but realised smart technology can save you money as well.
Energy bills are an area where you can save a lot of money, and not just by being more efficient and using less. Technology has become a part of our everyday lives and being savvy with smart technology can save you money on your bills.
Smart technology can save you money
Smart Meters
Most energy companies can install smart meters, and while getting one installed and changing nothing else won’t help save you money, the data it will provide can. Firstly having a smart meter means that your usage is sent directly to your energy company so you’ll no longer have estimated bills. But as you’ll have the meter in your home you’ll be able to see your usage and expected bills.
We recently had smart meters installed from Octopus and it means we can track our energy usage better. Smart technology can save you money indirectly by changing your habits. Seeing how much you’re spending is the biggest incentive to switch off those lights and limit your microwave use.
Smart technology can save you money- LED smart lighting
LED bulbs are more efficient than standard bulbs and over the course of their life, they can be up to 75% cheaper to run. Plus they last longer before needing replacing. But to make your lighting smart you can use special bulbs or plugs so you can control your lighting via an app or your smart speaker. This means you can turn them off if you forget to switch them off. But if you use a smart bulb you can dim your lighting when at home to use less energy.
Smart technology can save you money, but it doesn’t need to be expensive, to begin with. We invested in a few smart bulbs and plugs and they’re likely going to last for a long time so can save us money over their life.
Smart thermostat
Some smart technology can save you money which will have a huge impact on your overall energy bills. One of the most energy-intensive areas of your home is your boiler. This is especially so if you use the same system to heat both your water and your home. A smart thermostat can help you to control and customise your home’s temperature to be as energy-efficient as possible. But it also means you’ll be more comfortable at home. A lot more of us are working from home now, so our heating is likely to be on for more of the day while we want to stay warm when we’d usually have been out of the house.
A smart thermostat itself costs between £150 and £300, but in the long run, can save you plenty of money. You can change the temperature of your home from an app or from the hub in your home. This means if you’re away from your home or have changing patterns of when you’re at home you can remotely control it and only use the boiler when it’s needed. If your boiler is older than 5 years old you may want to replace it. Installing a new boiler that’s energy efficient is going to save you a lot of money long term.
We’ve had a smart thermostat the whole time we’ve been in our home and have made a few tweaks to see both how our usage changed, but also how the house felt.
Smart technology can save you money at home. Do you have any of this smart technology in your home?
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17 responses to “How Smart Technology Can Save You Money”
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Rhian Westbury
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Smart technology can definitely help us save money. I like being able to monitor and see finances from my phone, what is going in, what is going out… etc. Really useful and helpful!
Yeah just technology and access to apps through our phones can save us so much money x
I have a google home and that feels so smart! We went with a digital panel that tells us how much energy we are using (and allows us to keep a “goal” target to spend) and that’s really helped reduce our use, as if we see the price is high, we turn off lights for the rest of the month!
Smart technology can save money, I have to hold my hands up that my husband is the one who deals with that side of things but I do love how this shows you your spending and saving
Smart tech can be fantastic at helping us save money. It is great that it helps save on energy bills as those can sometimes be very high.
We are hopefully getting a few pieces of smart tech in the near future. They definitely can help you to save money.
I dream of having a smart home, but for now renovations and other home improvement projects are on hold. I do use LED bulbs. They give out better light and last longer too.
LED bulbs are a great place to start x
We have Hive and I was amazed how much that helped save us with heating and I can always keep an eye on it when we are away from home as well.
I really feel so lucky that we have so much technology to help make life easier and also to save money too.
It does amaze me at how much we have to use in such a short space of time x
I am concerned by privacy and how they are using data, who they might share it with, so I wouldn’t install any smart technology in my house. Saving a few pennies is good, but the cost of data is much higher. Of course, each to their own.
That is completely fair and you’re right it’s each to their own. For our smart metre for example the only data that is on there are our metre readings, it can’t access anything else. The same as our thermostat that can only track the temperature in the house and no other data so we are careful x
Great post. I have several smart bulbs which go on and off automatically according to my pre-set schedule. Not only is this a time-saver, it also serves as a burglar deterrent when I’m not here. I have a smart meter too but unfortunately it stopped working after I changed suppliers. Hopefully I can get a new one installed soon, as I did find it beneficial when it was working!
Yeah the burglar deterrent is always a good shout with automated bulbs, we have one in our living room that works like that, but when we go away (whenever that might be) I’d be tempted to do it in the living room too x
My husband loves this kind of stuff so everything is smart in our home, from the thermostat to the doorbell!
That’s so cool! Having a smart doorbell is one of the best things we’ve done x