Connected home, smart home… under these umbrella words hide a rich offer of products, many of which have the same goal: to reduce energy costs by controlling costs. The first building block, in addition to building insulation, includes consumption control. An essential point to respond to the call for energy cost control undertaken by EDF, TotalEnergies and Engie.
In the summer, instead of using an air conditioner that consumes more electricity, why not try air-conditioning your home to cool it down? So, the manufacturer of Velux roof windows offers a range of electric motors that allow you to program automatic opening during the coldest hours of the night and close them when it is warmer. All have a solution to automatically close the blinds. This solution is installed on an existing device.
Somfy even offers a window motor to automate opening and closing. The French manufacturer is the only one that has it in its catalog. But this time it should be installed as soon as windows are installed. Automating the closing of shutters and shutters is also a way to reduce the sun exposure of rooms depending on brightness.
But if air conditioning is really important to you, connected models at least have the advantage of offering improved control with optimized settings for the desired indoor temperature and the times during which the unit should run.
Smart heaters
The heating, although little used this season, is also in sight. Using a connected thermostat can reduce your heating bill by 15 to 20%, according to Adema. In the case of these devices, the main task is to avoid unnecessary heating periods by adjusting them in relation to the presence of residents in the apartment, but also to their lifestyle.
Engie even goes so far as to offer the installation of connected thermostats with its Mon Pilotage Elec offer, available to all consumers regardless of their supplier. With this solution, Engie is primarily targeting the owners of “toasters”, old models of electric heaters that consume the most energy and whose profitability is quite low. Utilities have in-house solutions, but there are also independent brands. Netatmo or Somfy also offer connected valves for electric radiators designed to control each of its devices.
There are other solutions from both Engie and EDF that are suitable for all types of heating. It is also possible to install or equip your own boiler with a connected thermostat. Several brands offer this type of product, such as Netatmo or Delta Dore. Before starting, it is better to check that it is possible to connect your boiler to such a thermostat. Heat pumps are also included, and the goal is always the same: to optimize usage.
For renovation or new construction projects, it’s best to choose connected devices from the start: boilers, radiators, hot water tanks… all these devices can be controlled remotely. The main advantage of these solutions is their ease of use. It is much easier to program the heating time of your electric radiators room by room from a smartphone app than from the radiators themselves. Almost all manufacturers offer this type of solution. And the French should not excel in the field, particularly Muller, Thermore or even Acova.
Bulbs and, more broadly, connected lighting are part of the smart home arsenal. Whether they come with a motion detector or not, the main advantage of connected lighting is that it can be controlled remotely. This allows, for example, to turn off the lamps from your smartphone that you would have inadvertently left on…
Source: Le Figaro
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.