Are your energy bills higher than they were last year? Many of us have seen spikes in our home energy bills as a side-effect of staying home—and that was before the summer weather arrived.
The solution is to apply some energy-saving measures at home—which isn’t easy when your family are coming and going 24/7 and your kids have learned how to adjust the AC. However, there’s a way to tackle the problem without becoming a security guard for your household thermostat.
Alarm.com technology makes it easy to save energy and money by automating your home’s cooling, heating, lighting and more. Here’s how a smart home system with Alarm.com’s ENERGY STAR® certified smart thermostat can cut your energy bills down to size.
1: Save energy automatically when you leave home
One of the biggest wastes of energy is cooling your home to perfection when you’re not there. Our smart thermostat prevents this by setting itself back when your house is empty. It can do this because it works with your security system and a technology called Geo-Services that understands when you’re leaving and when you’re on your way home.
Geo-services uses your phone, with its Alarm.com app, as a trigger to automatically adjust your thermostat (and other devices) based on your location and direction relative to your home. Your thermostat will use it to save energy whenever your family goes out, then dial the comfort back up as you arrive home again.
2: Stop cooling the neighborhood
Another benefit of a thermostat that’s connected to your security system is that it knows when a door or window is left open.
When your kids forget to close the back door, letting summer heat inside, Alarm.com’s smart thermostat can pause your AC automatically by setting back a couple of degrees. You can get an alert when this happens so that you can close the door yourself… or yell for your kids to do it. As soon as it’s closed, your AC returns to normal. No more cooling the neighborhood!
3: Automate your lights
Lightbulbs have come a long way in terms of energy efficiency but you can still cut down on waste by automating them.
Alarm.com-powered smart lights—also connected to your security system—can turn on and off automatically according to the time of day, or when it gets dark, or whether you’re home. They’re also easy to control with Scenes: our quick, multi-device commands that make controlling your home easy.
Smart lights can be a great crime deterrent too. Click here to find out more.
4: Take control of energy-wasting devices
A hidden source of energy waste in your home is devices that use energy when you think they’re turned off. This “standby waste” or “phantom load” could be responsible for up to 10 percent of your electricity bill. The worst offenders include TVs, game consoles, DVRs, cable boxes and coffee machines.
Alarm.com-powered smart plugs let you eliminate this waste by cutting the power supply to these devices when you don’t need them. You can control your smart plugs with your Alarm.com app or a voice-activated Scene, or simply schedule them to turn off at night.
5: Join our Give Back, Get Back energy program
You’re not the only one concerned about your home’s energy use. More and more power companies are offering opt-in demand response programs, which use automation to adjust thermostats up to four degrees during periods of very high energy demand—typically 6-10 times a season. In return for helping your power company manage its energy grid and prevent power outages, you get extra savings, rebates or incentives.
Alarm.com’s smart thermostat is compatible with most demand response programs, and our Give Back, Get Back program makes it easy to enroll from your Alarm.com web dashboard. To find out if you’re eligible, contact your power company or your Alarm.com service provider.
