Using Smart Plugs for an Energy-Efficient Holiday Season
Using Smart Plugs for an Energy-Efficient Holiday Season
Using Your IoT and Smart Home Devices with your Holiday Decorations is a great way to not only simplify your life, but also to save energy this year –whether it be seeing where you may need to upgrade to a more efficient light or simply due to the fact that you can accurately schedule your holiday lights for when they are seen and wanted the most.
Whether your home is filled with Department 56 Villages, Christmas Trees, or String Lights – you can measure the impact of a device on your bill with an energy monitoring plug from Kasa.
You may be surprised to find that the simplest of decorations can use the same amount of power as your entire string of outdoor lights, or you may find that the inflatable decoration on your roof isn’t quite worth the cost of running all night and should really be turned off at 11.
⚡Reduce Your Power Consumption
Once you're aware of the energy hogs in your holiday decor, you can act smartly by switching to energy-efficient LED lights or setting schedules that align with peak viewing times to reduce unnecessary energy consumption.
As the Kasa app now supports using your phone’s location as a trigger, you can now even set an automation to turn your lights on as you arrive home or ‘X’ minutes after you leave your workplace, adding a personalized touch to energy efficiency.
⚠️ Safety First! Avoid Overloading Your Plugs
We know that during the holiday season, it can be extremely easy to go overboard, so make sure that you are always checking that your lights, decorations, or appliances do not exceed the maximum load of a smart plug or device. If you want to learn more about what our Smart Plugs are capable of handling, especially in regards to your outdoor lighting, check out our latest article:
Have You Been Surprised by the Energy Consumption of a Decoration or Device? Leave a Comment Below!
[[EDIT: I have personally already found a few ways to use these features to check my decorations and consumption. In my case, I upgraded the lighting system behind one of my holiday villages away from lights and power cables that came with the decorations. By doing so, I discovered that my new setup uses only 6W of power, while my older lighting setup uses nearly 50W to power the same number of lights.
Across the entire holiday season, this is a dramatic difference and has resulted in me scheduling the higher-consumption lights to turn on before the others. Even if the lights appear to be the same brightness or quality, try measuring the power consumption of and comparing; you may be surprised at what you discover.]]