We’ve all been told, “Don’t forget to turn out the lights when you leave the room.” A Smart Home is smart enough to do that, and more, on its own.
Of course, turning off the lights when you walk out the door saves you energy, which is why smart homes could be the next big thing in home electrical systems and smart appliances. Canadian company Energy Aware has created the Neurio appliance, which can turn your ordinary home into a smart home, just by monitoring the electrical feedback from the devices you already have in your home. If you happen to have smart appliances, it can communicate with these as well.
Neurio is mounted on the electrical box, and unlike some other smart home appliances, does not require that you put a sensor on every single electrical and electronic device you have in the home. Instead, it monitors the feedback in the electrical system in your home. Once you teach it that, for example, you just turned on the washing machine, it’ll recognize it the next time around. Energy Aware says that, in Neurio beta tests, some homeowners were able to save up to 44% on their home energy costs.
Step One: Smart Homeowner. The first part of the process that Neurio helps homeowners with is simply knowing where their energy consumption is coming from, resulting in something like an itemized list of power consumption in the home. The more you know, the better you can act when it comes to your electrical devices.
Step Two: Smart Home. The second thing that Neurio does is upload consumption data to the cloud, so that the homeowner can keep track of energy consumption amounts and patterns anytime and anywhere, via a smartphone app, aptly named Wattson. For example, it can keep track of your daily patterns, when you wake up and when you go out, or when you use certain appliances. So, if you use the washing machine and usually do your drying afterward, Neurio can send you a friendly reminder to put your laundry in the dryer. If you only watch television on Thursday nights, Neurio might be able to tell your smart television and home theater system to shut down or disconnect completely the rest of the time.
Image © Energy Aware
