How Much Home Energy Can Smart Devices Save?

Add up all the promised savings and you shave off one-fourth of the annual average for the whole house. 

As you talk to homeowners about the many “smart” products now available for homes, they’re likely to have questions. If a smart thermostat will save 20 percent on heating and cooling, does that savings stack with an “intelligent” water heater timer and app-controlled lighting?

The short answer is “yes.” But how much? To estimate this, I crunched the numbers. Starting with energy costs of about $2,300 per year for an “average” new home. I looked at some popular brands of smart devices, as shown in the table below.

With Energy Costs, Behavior Matters

Totaling the possible energy savings from installing all of these gadgets and using them well, I arrived at a total of $427 to $640 in potential savings per year, dependent upon the home’s location, region and occupant behavior.

• Heating and Cooling: $131-$145
• Water Heating: $30-$40
• Electricity Monitoring: $96-$120
• Lighting: $20-$25
• Phantom Loads: $20-$50
• Water Use: $130-$260

That total savings equals about 27 percent of the $2,300 annual average energy cost for a home. The largest savings from smart tech happens in the Heating and Cooling and Water Use categories. 

Other applications such as Electricity Monitoring depend heavily on user behavior. Does the homeowner fix leaks quickly? Does the family reduce use/replace energy-guzzling items such as pool pumps and large-screen TVs?

A Stackable Approach

In “above code” or net zero homes, the energy saved with smart devices takes on greater significance, because they knock out a bigger piece of the overall pie. The combination of smart sensors and thermostats with high SEER heat pumps and upgraded insulation, for example, might create enough “slack” in the home’s energy budget to allow for an electric vehicle charger without upgrading electrical panels or wiring.