Over the past few years, there has been a large public push to become more conscious about our impact on the environment. Green ideas and tools have been pushed as well as tips on how to live in a sustainable manner.
It’s up to all of us as individuals to do our part in minimising energy efficiency to be more environmentally friendly and reducing your footprint starts at home. So, what are some fancy gadgets that you can use at home to make your home more efficient and environmentally friendly?
LED Smart Bulbs
Traditional light bulbs aren’t very energy efficient, we’ve known this for a while and worked to produce more energy efficient bulbs over the years. But even bulbs that would be considered efficient 10 years ago are now seen as wasteful, as they end up generating more heat from your electricity than they do light!
Luckily, we have reached almost peak efficiency with LED bulbs, as LEDs use a lot less energy to generate light compared to all other types of bulbs, making them the most efficient type of bulb on the market. You can take this a step further with LED smart bulbs, which can be remotely controlled, put onto timers and turn themselves off automatically to ensure they’re only using electricity when thy’re needed!
Solar Powered Blinds
As smart home gadgets become more common, we’re seeing that our electricity usage at home is growing as we have all of these smart devices that constantly need energy to be ready for you to use them in your home. While we’re happy with the functionality smart gadgets bring, the increased yuse of electricity can be concerning.
So, you should look for gadgets that can be powered ‘off the grid’, one of these gadgets would be solar powered electric blinds, these blinds work like any other electric blinds, but rather than being powered by mains electricity, they come with a solar charger that keeps the blinds charged up using only the power from the Sun, meaning you’re saving money and powering your blinds with 100% clean, green energy.
Smart Power Strips
Even when you turn your home’s electronic devices off, they can still use electricity to keep them in their standby mode. Even when you think all your devices are turned off, they’ll still consume some electricity in the background which isn’t ideal for either your utility bills or the environment. The only way you can be 100% sure an electric device isn’t using electricity is to unplug it from the outlet, which can be more hassle than it’s worth.
You can counter these ‘energy vampires’ at home, by investing in a smart plug or a smart power strip, these are outlet plugs that can be remotely controlled, meaning that with just a single click of a button, you can fully turn off any electronic device in your home to stop them passively using your electricity.
SodaStream
Every single minute, around 1,000,000 plastic bottles of water are purchased across the globe, this works out to over 500 billion plastic bottles of water being sold every year worldwide. Data shows that less than half of the plastic bottles sold each year are collected for recycling and just 7% of the bottles that do get collected end up being recycled. So, cutting down on plastic bottles of water can help you lower your impact on the environment as you move away from single use plastics.
A great way to cut down on single use plastics is to have a long term sustainable solution, like a soda stream bottle, which is a reusable bottle for any drinks, but it can be used with a soda stream to carbonate water at home, so with this device you can make your own carbonated water and sodas at home, without needing to purchase a new plastic bottle