ecobee SmartThermostat with Voice Control

The Ecobee Smart Wi-Fi Thermostat is a great way to help take control over the heating and cooling of your home while saving an average of 20 to 25 percent on energy bills. This ENERGY STAR certified device works with several smart devices such as the Apple Home Kit, Amazon Alexa, and Google Assistant. In addition, with the Whole Home Voice technology, this product allows you to speak to one of the above-mentioned smart devices to control the thermostat in your home. For example, by simply saying to your smart home assistant, “I´m Away,” your Ecobee Smart Thermostat will automatically lower the temperature in your home to save on energy.  The ecobee SmartThermostat with Voice Control is currently selling for $199 and comes with built-in Amazon Alexa voice service as well as a room sensor, which pairs with your smart thermostat to help regulate the temperature in hot spots or cold spots in the corners of your home. 

FLIR Thermal Imaging Camera

Anyone who has seen an infrared thermal imaging camera knows how fun it can be. You can find your cats outside. You can see that people’s noses are colder than their cheeks and foreheads. That’s fun, but it can be useful too. For a home, you can easily see where any air and water leaks are a problem, so you can fix them properly. For example, since insulation is typically installed behind drywall, you don’t know if the installer missed an area—and often areas are missed: around outlet plugs, in corners, near crawl spaces, you name it. And the FLIR camera can find it. The older cameras are very expensive and bulky; the newer version is compatible with mobile phones (and is still pretty pricey, at $269.99 on Amazon, but it’s a lot less than older models). If you want to know where insulation is missing and are not a DIY-er, get your home an energy audit.

Sense Energy Monitor

If you take a look at your electric bill, the only thing it will tell you is how much electricity you consume and how much you owe over a one month period. It won’t tell you anything about how you use electricity. Sure, you know that lighting, appliances, and electronics take some electricity to run, but how much, and when? How do you know how to prioritize your efforts in being more energy efficient? The Sense Energy Monitor helps solve this problem by providing insight into how and where energy is being used in your home.  To get started, a licensed electrician will need to install this device onto your electrical panel. You then download the app for iOS or Android and connect the monitor to your home Wi-Fi signal. Over the coming days and weeks, the Sense Monitor will send updates to your phone, letting you know which devices are pulling power in your home as well as revealing trends in your home power use. Besides allowing you to have more control over how energy is being used in your home, this device will send you updates if your oven is still turned on or if the drain pump has been running for several hours. This Energy Tracker Monitor currently costs $299 and will quickly begin to deliver savings by helping you to cut back on your home energy use. 

Looking for something less expensive but along those same lines? The Kill-a-Watt electricity usage monitor, which sells for $15.99, will tell you how much wattage any one appliance uses simply by plugging the appliance into it (and plugging it into an outlet).

SodaStream Fizzi Sparkling Water Machine

Drinking your own filtered water from your tap is one of the best things you can do for your home: it will save money on purchasing drinks that contain water, reduce packaging waste, and keep you healthier. But what about bubbly water? It’s refreshing and can be mixed with so many tasty flavors like orange juice and grape juice. Kids who are not too psyched to drink regular water might happily drink bubbly water, which is much healthier than sugary and diet sodas. With Soda Stream, you can make it at home with your own water, using no electricity, no extra bottles to throw out or recycle, and at a greatly reduced cost per bottle. The Soda Stream Fizzi Sparkling Water Maker Bundle on Amazon (in a pretty icy blue color) sells for $109.99 with free shipping. You get the soda stream maker, two carbonating cylinders, three bottles, and zero-calorie natural orange and lime flavor essences as a bonus! Let’s compare the variable costs to a 24-pack of San Pellegrino mineral water (0.5 liters each), which sells for $13.98 on Amazon. Each Soda Stream 60L-carbonating cylinder makes about 60 liters of bubbly water, and each cylinder costs $30, which equals about 50 cents per liter. This compares to $1.16 per liter of San Pellegrino (or a much higher price for the flavored ones)! And, according to Soda Stream’s website, “one SodaStream bottle can help the average family reduce more than 3,700 bottles and cans from our planet.” On top of that, the CO2 cylinders can be recycled.