East Anglia's biggest green lifestyle event returns to North Norfolk’s elegant Felbrigg Hall on the 5th and 6th of September. Customised will be exhibiting and giving visitors insight on how technology is being used in homes to manage and monitor energy consumption.

Smart Home products are well known for their entertainment qualities such as displaying big screen action or accessing all the music on earth, but the green side of the Smart Home is often forgotten about.

Homeowners are familiar with motion detection switching our lights on and off but this familiarity usually comes from experiencing it in a commercial environment like an office, school or public building.  The only regular use of motion detection being used at home is the outside lights. Customised regularly use motion sensors in clients’ homes.  They are most often used in hallways, utility rooms, family or ensuite bathrooms and entrance vestibules.  All of these rooms in the home are used less frequently than others but are often the rooms that have their lights left on.  A simple sensor turns off the lights when no one is around to reduce energy consumption. The sensor is also useful in these areas because you may have your hands full with shopping, laundry, pets or kids.  Why do we have to stop and reach for a switch every time we walk into a room?

In our installations we don’t stop at sensors tracking movement; we use multi-functional sensors to monitor variants in humidity, temperature, brightness and air quality in the home. This level of monitoring is the preserve of a true smart home and this intelligence is commonly managed by a home control system. The data from our sensors is utilised by the control system to turn heating on or off, turn lights off if the room is getting a lot of natural light, turn on extractors fans or open vents to maintain air quality. 

Our most commonly used home control system is HDL BusPro and its unique selling point is the union of the light switch and thermostat into one panel. With your thermostat being built into your light switch you can easily roll out a zonal heating control system into your home. Zoned heating is proven to vastly reduce your energy bills; properties with zoned heating could see energy consumption reducing by up to 25%.

We recently had a bit of fun setting up a newly completed smart home project. To encourage the use of less water whilst showering we used the timer feature of the HDL BusPro system to dim the lights down low to give you a heads up that it’s time to turn off and get dried. Subtle additions like this, plus the use of sensors, highlight what the unsung elements of the smart home can bring to your home.

If you would like to discuss your green home options using smart home technology then take advantage of our free home technology surveys. Contact us.