Did Home Automation Save You Money ?

[ymtknm]

According to a customer of this houston company (in their press release) they seem to save quiet a few dollars

http://www.primenewswire.com/newsroom/news.html?d=122983

What are your thougts ? Does it really work ?

 

[sloop]

“Home Media Pro’s installed INSTEON dimmers and timers linked to our computer. Then configured our
whole facility to work in tune with our activities” says Marina Amos, Vice President of Operations in Multi
National Community Center of Houston. “We saved about 18 percent from previous month bill, a savings of approximately $320 dollars. It is consistent now for several months”.


By installing the INSTEON-enabled lighting automation controls from SmartLabs that replace current
switches and outlets, customers are able to instruct the system to only turn on necessary lights and outlets that are in tune with family’s current activity. Once the system is implemented our customers report significant decrease in their electricity consumption. Same methodology applied to other appliances such as Air Conditioning, Sprinkler System, Outside Lights and Pool Equipment. All combined saves hundreds of dollars in energy costs.

can you imagine insteon in a commercial environment?

as far as i know, there are no insteon outlets

18% of my power bill is far less than $320 - the investment i have in insteon is probably $3,000 - it would take a lotta time to recoup that - especially when you add in the replacement cost of failed devices - so obviously, automating my lighting was not to save money

the answer is no for me - especially when you consider that when i had my lighting automated (x10), i had most of my lights ramp up to about 30% at sunset, most off at 22:00 with the remaining off at sunrise - now that i have insteon, it does not work - so i turn on one kitchen light and one bedroom light the old fashioned way

hey - it does save money - invest 3k in insteon and you can't turn on your lights! seems to work in a backdoor kinda way

 

[The Pod]

According to a customer of this houston company (in their press release) they seem to save quiet a few dollars

http://www.homemediapros.com/pdf/homeautom...ressrelease.pdf.

What are your thougts ? Does it really work ?

Well when I was using Insteon devices in my house (like stated in the press release), and I had a failure rate of over 50% of my switches (which happened) B) , I would would have expect my energy usage to have dropped also since I wasn't able to turn on the lights to use electricity. :lol:

Over all, just installing HA types of devices and turning the switches on full 100% really shouldn't make a difference in energy usage. Now if you programmed the switched to only turn on to 50%-75% vs 100%, yes you would see a savings but you could get the same effect with standard dimmers. Now if you add some sort of timer control logic to automatically turn off lights when not is use then you'll see even more savings. What you really need to look at is return on investment. You could save a lot of money on your energy bill just by replacing your lights with CFL's, and for a lot less money than a whole bunch of HA switches, modules and controllers. But to us HA enthusiast, it's not the savings as much as the coolness factor. Who else would spend $50 and up on a single light switch when a .39 cent switch and a $2.50 CFL would probably pay for itself in the first months energy bill.

The Pod

 

[IVB]

Given that I do business cases for work constantly, this is an easy one to answer:

On the cost incurred side:
- Due to technology in general i've now spent ~$15K and ~$180/month in increased utility bills. (not total - incrementally more, but that counts office PC, file server, HTPC, etc).
- I incur ongoing costs of $100-$400/month for new toys, lets say an avg of $250.

On the money saved/cost avoidance side:
- I used to spend $1000/month in bars, probably another $1000/month on expensive dinners with me/wife. Granted having kids did away with the expensive dinners, but the bar tab to forget the whining would be much higher without a solid hobby to escape the girlie girliness.
- I put in 25 more security sensors at an avg of $40/each. Getting ADT would have been $125/each, so that's $2125.

Looking at it that way, I'd say it took me 6 months for a 100% ROI, and from hereon out, HA will actually be SAVING me $1,570 EVERY SINGLE MONTH! ($2000/month on old bad habits minus $430/month currently), which is also $19K/year. With a 5 year/20% per year depreciation rate on goods, that's an NPV of positive $47.5K!

 

[Ranger Digital]

Pod, and therein lies the problems for the Home Automation industry. Its the same fight with builders, designers and architects. We recoginize that home automation is not for everyone. And for many its only for the cool factor, while for others its convienience and the rest it may be intimidation, cost, no desire, etc. Its a job to SELL the installations. The market is NOT for everyone. But thats fine, I may have to talk to ten to get the one job, but thats the game. If its one in ten, fine, I will find the one. So be it.

however, as time progresses and the younger generation buys homes, it will not be a luxury, nor coolness, nor convienience but a EXPECTATION. As generations get older that grew up on computers, the HA industry will explode and it will not be such a strugle to convince the market that home automation is a viable, profitable and sellable. Granted, its not just the younger market that wants or buys home automation. Good thing! Hopefully the day will come when HA is indeed for everyone.

Thats my hopes anyways, LOL

Thoughts?

 

[Ranger Digital]

IV, how do you spend 180 more amonth on utility bills? I got lost there.

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

IV, how do you spend 180 more amonth on utility bills? I got lost there.

I was wondering the same thing. Hopefully he meant "annual" and not month in his time frame...

 

[IVB]

IV, how do you spend 180 more amonth on utility bills? I got lost there.

I was wondering the same thing. Hopefully he meant "annual" and not month in his time frame...

Nope, per month. But it isn't "HA", it's "technology".

I pay around $320/month now, probably $280 of which is electric. By comparison, when we first bought the house 6yrs ago and had almost no electronic equipment to speak of, our bills were <$150. Basic stuff like lights, refrigerators, dryer, 1 alarm clock, microwave, 1 27" TV that we rarely watched, and 1 cordless phone were all that we had.

Now we've got 1 plasma, 2 TVs, dishwasher (that works), 6 computers, 3 stereos, maglocks, switches (55W, damnit), MediaMVP, etc. Hence, the introduction of advanced technology has directly increased our electric bill. I can't isolate just HA/WHA/WHV/HTA (whole house audio/video, home theater automation) because it is now integrated into our lives, and I wouldn't know how to allocate electricity usage from shared equipment to "HA" or not. It's all based on your def'n on HA...

 

[damage]

IV, how do you spend 180 more amonth on utility bills? I got lost there.

I was wondering the same thing. Hopefully he meant "annual" and not month in his time frame...

Nope, per month. But it isn't "HA", it's "technology".

I pay around $320/month now, probably $280 of which is electric. By comparison, when we first bought the house 6yrs ago and had almost no electronic equipment to speak of, our bills were <$150. Basic stuff like lights, refrigerators, dryer, 1 alarm clock, microwave, 1 27" TV that we rarely watched, and 1 cordless phone were all that we had.

Now we've got 1 plasma, 2 TVs, dishwasher (that works), 6 computers, 3 stereos, maglocks, switches (55W, damnit), MediaMVP, etc. Hence, the introduction of advanced technology has directly increased our electric bill. I can't isolate just HA/WHA/WHV/HTA (whole house audio/video, home theater automation) because it is now integrated into our lives, and I wouldn't know how to allocate electricity usage from shared equipment to "HA" or not. It's all based on your def'n on HA...

part of your increase in cost is due to the increase in the cost of electricity after the industry was deregulated in CA. i figure i'm paying somewhere between 30-50% more per kwh than in 2000.

i did a quick look @ my electricity bill spreadsheet and right up until 6/2001 we were paying about 11 cents/kwh. after that, it spiked up to about 15 cents/kwh and, for the most part, has stayed that way since.

 

[ano]

Ignoring the cost to install all the HA equipment $$$$$, I'd guess the amount of electricity I save by controlling lights, and controlling the HVAC saves maybe enough to power all the PCs it takes to run all the HA equipment in the first place.

 

[CollinR]

This is VERY possible however installing Insteon dimmers will not be doing it.

You need to build a better building to start off with...


Think of how much they would save if they had just converted to florescent lighting!

If they saved $320/mo they probably spend $10k/mo and bought $100k in Insteon switches and another $100k to install them, thats just silly.

Sounds like marketing crapola to me...


Now if they had said something more like.

In a joint effort we have built an ultra efficient structure.

The major players being decreased exterior surface area by making the exterior spherical or what about, its underground!
Geothermal technologies utilized
Light tubes throughout making lights during daytime no longer needed

Basically a building has to be designed to be efficient, otherwise it's almost a waste of your time.


We build stuff like idiots, gotta look good is #1. Eventually someone will produce a home that pays you to live in it. Unfortunately that means we still need to build like idiots or the energy price will fall. Still it's 90% obvious crap that needs to change.

 

[deranged]

The only thing my HA installation has saved me so far is the trouble of going around and turning everything off that my family leaves on hourly.

StevenE

 

[Digger]

According to a customer of this houston company (in their press release) they seem to save quiet a few dollars

http://www.homemediapros.com/pdf/homeautom...ressrelease.pdf.

What are your thougts ? Does it really work ?

Well when I was using Insteon devices in my house (like stated in the press release), and I had a failure rate of over 50% of my switches (which happened) :angry: , I would would have expect my energy usage to have dropped also since I wasn't able to turn on the lights to use electricity. :lol:

Over all, just installing HA types of devices and turning the switches on full 100% really shouldn't make a difference in energy usage. Now if you programmed the switched to only turn on to 50%-75% vs 100%, yes you would see a savings but you could get the same effect with standard dimmers. Now if you add some sort of timer control logic to automatically turn off lights when not is use then you'll see even more savings. What you really need to look at is return on investment. You could save a lot of money on your energy bill just by replacing your lights with CFL's, and for a lot less money than a whole bunch of HA switches, modules and controllers. But to us HA enthusiast, it's not the savings as much as the coolness factor. Who else would spend $50 and up on a single light switch when a .39 cent switch and a $2.50 CFL would probably pay for itself in the first months energy bill.

The Pod

I only had a 20% or so failure rate (I didnt wait for it to get any higher since WAF was in negative numbers). But there was energy savings from automation the lighting in certian rooms etc. Was there monetary savings enough to offset the Insteon costs over a reasonable amount of time? No way. But I was ok with the energy savings.

I am using limited X-10 temporarily until I can come up with money for something better. X-10 off eBay has an acceptable ROI

 

[hult]

Over all, just installing HA types of devices and turning the switches on full 100% really shouldn't make a difference in energy usage. Now if you programmed the switched to only turn on to 50%-75% vs 100%, yes you would see a savings but you could get the same effect with standard dimmers.

It's worth noting that replacing a plain ol' mechanical switch with a TRIAC-based dimmer will *reduce* energy efficiency about 2% owing to the voltage drop across the TRIAC.

And dimming a standard tungsten lamp is extremely wasteful compared to reducing light output by fully switching to a lamp _designed_ for lower output.

See www.ECOntrol.org/dimmers/TRIACDimmerCalcs_MFHult.pdf

Extrapolating from these graphs and tables one can estimate that dimming a (eg) 100 watt tungsten lamp to 1/10th the light output (10 watts) only reduces the required RMS voltage by 1/2. Far better to switch to a 10 watt lamp and actually use 1/10th the electricity.

 

[HomeMediaPros]

According to a customer of this houston company (in their press release) they seem to save quiet a few dollars

http://www.primenewswire.com/newsroom/news.html?d=122983

What are your thougts ? Does it really work ?

First of all I am from HomeMediaPros, www.homemediapros.com company mentioned in release. I came across the post via google searching on press release. Some of you raised some good points. If you care to read let me try to give our position on it:

1. Reliability - yes if you have noise on power line you will have reliability issues. You need to take the noise out and have quite a few devices in the home to act as repeater. We do not do installs on less than 6 devices per 1000sq/ft. Ony then it functions about right. Filters are a must on all of your power surge protectors or else even the number of devices will not help. Feel free to email if you have issues I will try to answer with real experience in large installs.
2. Regarding press release; The facility had over 30 light switches and caters to elders. More specifically they are adult day care. The challenge there was getting the system to match to their routine of activities and keep the two story building with the minimal lights on needed for that activity. Now here is some more data: The project cost was about $3,000K. They were already using fluorescent lights. They also have 4 HVAC units that now linked to motion and activity sensors. Which means the room with no activity increases temperature by few degrees and whet activity is scheduled it cools down right before.

We are very honest company and before sending out a press release placed watt meters on each of the circuits for 10 days before and after the project. We do it for free for all of our customers to help us understand how they use their energy. (We are Energy Star Certified Partner). Once we learned what are the top consumers we try to automate for reduction in use.

Ok before I get to far; to the person who started this thread: Yes you can save money if you have honest and reliable system designer. It will take about a year to pay for itself sometimes more. Make sure you hire a licensed electrician to do your work, and make sure they are Energy Star Partner. this will ensure that the design process they adhere to has been tested by others.

Please feel free to send us an email [email protected]

Last note on Cortexa.... I am not sure its prime time yet. We have done a few now and seem to get call out to go and work on them. I dont want to put down or market any brand here in forum. But feel free to email us.

Thanks for your feedback guys and support