How Smart Homes Can Save on Heating Bills

The air is crisp. The leaves are falling. Fall is here in full force. For many of us up north, that means facing a noticeable uptick in energy bills for the next few months as we crank up the heat in our homes.

According to the Department of Energy, heating and cooling account for nearly half of the average household’s monthly energy bill. Luckily, there are a few ways you can use your smart home to make that bill a little easier on the eyes, and your wallet:

  • Install a smart thermostat: If you don’t have one already, now is the perfect time to buy a smart thermostat like the Carrier Côr. With Côr, you can set smart schedules so the heat isn’t on when you’re not home. It has a smart setback feature which lets the thermostat intelligently adapt beyond manual programming for greater efficiency, while still meeting ideal comfort levels. It even uses your home address to gather local weather data so it can make even smarter, energy-saving decisions!
  • Check the settings on your water heater: Fun fact: most water heaters run 24/7 and at a scalding / unnecessarily high temperature. Adjusting the settings is easy and can go a long way to saving energy. If you’re in the market, pick up a Rheem EcoNet which can be adjusted from afar through the Wink app to lower your monthly bill even further.
  • Create an ‘Energy Saving’ Shortcut or Robot: By bringing together your lightbulbs, Carrier Côr thermostat, and other smart products within a Wink Shortcut, it becomes much easier to turn off or adjust everything. With one tap in the app, you can lower the temperature and turn off the lights for bedtime. Or you can connect products together in a Wink Robot so that when you leave the house in the morning, your HVAC system knows to lower the temperature.

Hopefully this helps keep the wallet a bit fuller this winter!