Smart plugs are a great and affordable way to smarten up your regular home devices so that you can access and monitor them remotely from your smartphone. For each device you need smartened up, you need a smart plug to connect to it. When buying a smart plug, there are two major aspects.
One is the convenience that comes from automating your home, devices and the control you have over them, and secondly, the energy saving aspect. The first aspect is straightforward as it is the main functionality of smart plugs.
The energy saving aspect is where many home owners have trouble understanding. Thing with smart plugs is that they will only save energy if used properly. Before we look at how this is done, we’ll look at a few things you can do with a smart plug.
Benefits of a smart plug
A smart plug is a power adapter that you connect into a socket and connect home device to for smart purposes. By plugging in the appliance you wish to become smart, you will be able to control it using voice commands.
At the most basic level, it is able to turn things on or off. But when connected to your phone, you will have a lot more functionalities. Smart plugs are considered smart devices because they let you control the appliances connected from your phone from anywhere provided there is internet connection.
Some smart plugs provide information on how the energy consumption of the connected appliances. This goes a long way in helping the consumer conserve electricity and energy.
The following ways are the uses of a smart plug in your house.
Smart Plugs improve your home network connectivity
Today, there are a lot of appliances that come with built-in systems for connecting to wireless networks such as WiFi.
While this is a great step, a smart plus will help you turn any of you existing non-smart appliances to a smart device. This allows the non-smart device to communicate with other smart devices in the house and more importantly, it enables you to communicate, control and monitor your appliances.
Smart Plugs allow turning on/off appliances with the click of a button
Whether it’s your TV or refrigerator, a smart plug allows you to turn on or off any of these devices. Smart plugs come with in-built apps that connect to your phone so that you are able to turn on your TV.
You will also be able to check whether you left any devices or appliances running after you have left the house. Whether you are unsure about your iron box or hair blower, a smart plug will allow you to check and confirm if they are actually on. This peace of mind is what you buy with a smart plug
Smart Plugs let homeowners monitor their energy usage from anywhere in the world
Most smart plugs come with a built in functionality that allows the home owner to monitor their energy consumption remotely from anywhere in the world provided there is internet connection on both ends.
The smart plugs are built to inform the home owner where an appliance is suddenly consuming too much energy. All this is done through your smartphone
Smart Plugs allow the home owner to manage their energy usage through scheduling
Using the Routine setting in smart plugs, the home owner is able to schedule when their appliances should shut down or power on. This allows the home owner to manage energy consumption for all connected devices and control their general electricity use. For instance, you can use the smart plug smart home routine to control when the game console and television should be on or off.
Smart Plugs helps eliminate vampire draw
Vampire draw is the term used to describe the amount of energy wasted when devices are on but not in use. Through this, the home owner is able to conserve energy in their home
Smart Plugs allow you to appear like you’re home when you’re away
If you travel a lot and do not like leaving your home looking empty and unoccupied, a smart plug is a great way to make it appear like you are home when you’re not.
Burglars love to steal from empty homes and it’s quite a risk when you’re home seems unoccupied.
Using a smart plug, you will be able to improve home security by setting routines. For instance, you can set the lights to always come on at 8pm. You can alternatively turn them on at any point while you’re away.
Smart Plugs allows the home owner to control devices and appliances using voice command
By now, you have probably seen in movies how cool it is to control home appliances by the command of your voice. Well, with a smart plug, this is possible. Once you link the smart plug to your home assistant (Siri, Alexa or Google Assistant), you can activate, power on and control various aspects of your home devices.
Smart Plugs allow for temperature control
If you have any safety concerns in regard to overheating, a smart plug is a great way to control this. You can set the smart plug to shut off devices in case there is a power surge that may cause overheating.
Some smart plugs are even able to send you an alert notification when a device or appliance overheats. This is a great way to keep you house safe as well as conserve energy.
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Conclusion
A smart plug does not conserve energy directly. Most devices are already built with power consumption capabilities. A smart plug will help you conserve energy notifying you of when devices are on but not in use.
This way, you are able to save energy as well as a save you electricity bill.
