The Home Energy Manager from Control4 combines the company’s standard controller with new features, including one called My Portal. Through the portal, homeowners can see their energy use on their televisions or PCs. They can monitor how much energy they’re using at the moment, in the hour, hour by hour, or by the day or month. They can break it down by device to see energy usage for a particular appliance used at a certain time of day.
Heavy-duty appliance modules measure power usage of key devices such as air conditioners, water heaters, or refrigerators and feed that data to the Control4 system. “You can look at your own bill history and see that you’re using a lot more heat than you were last month,” Nagel explains.
Homeowners without a customized system such as Control4’s, on the other hand, are at the mercy of the utility during peak usage times. The Control4 solution gives homeowners the option to establish rules for energy use during those times. “When the utility demands a response from the smart meter, that can initiate an emergency message through the smart grid, and the homeowner would have made the preselected option of how to automate the response,” Nagel continues. “I might want to turn the thermostat back 6 degrees, or cycle the thermostat 30 percent on and 70 percent off and let it wind up and coast. I may want to have one of those heavy-duty appliance modules shut my water heater off.”
The Control4 system will become more sophisticated over time. Soon, Mella says, consumers will be able to see the consequences of their choices. “You’ll be able to get a view of what your monthly bill would be under certain modes,” he says, describing the example of high-, medium-, and low-conservation modes. In medium mode a monthly bill might be $200, versus $150 in high-conservation mode.
“As custom builders look to add value and show off the energy-saving capabilities of their homes, having devices that can be monitored and controlled through energy managers—along with even a small amount of automation—can have benefits,” Mella argues. The Control4 energy manager can let you know how much energy your home is using just by sitting idle—something you can change when you’re gone for an extended period.
“When you go on vacation, the Home Energy Manager can turn off power automatically to the rack of audio equipment that’s typically in standby mode, set back thermostats, and make sure all of the TVs are off,” he continues, noting that positive feedback is always appreciated. “When you see a message saying, ‘Congratulations! By going into vacation mode you saved $20 on your energy bill for this past week,’ that has an effect.”
Rebecca Day specializes in writing about home electronics. She can be reached at customhomerd@aol.com.
