For some time I’ve tried to make more and more of our appliances “smart” at home. I’ll try to specify cost (savings), what appliances we’ve chosen and why here.
I think the short summary of making it smart by trying new things as they reach the market and plug them in to your existing ecosystem are:
- You will miss the functions if they break or you freak out on them
- It takes both time and money upfront to install, calibrate and make each new part a part of your existing system.
- We have managed to reduce our electricity bill
End result: It’s worth it.
Let’s start high-level looking at what we achieved.
Setting: We live in a 49 sqm apartment in Stockholm built 4 years ago but with fairly large tripple glazing windows.
August 2017 our electricity bill (that is excluding the network fees) was SEK 401 for 30 days with Electricity from Wind and Water sources. Bill attached.
November – January 2016/2017 our bill was for SEK 1,116 for the three months. Roughly SEK 372 per month.
We were away for two weeks mid-December as well. By this time my electricity supplier estimated I consume 2921-3678 kWh per year. 
A year earlier I had been in the US on a business trip (February 2016) and bought my Amazon Echo 1st gen (SEK 1 400) and three Philips Hue (SEK 1 700). That meant our electricity consumption increased to the levels attached.
Then right about here – August 2017 – I told my friend Thomas all the exciting things Alexa could do and he mentioned I should check out Tibber a spot-price algorithmic driven electricity provider. So I did and was surprised with the efficiency, simplicity and accuracy of the team and one of the founders Daniel there.
Tibber suggested appliances to become more aware of how we’re using electricity at home. So here we go.
I’ve since bought a Futurehome (SEK 2 700) hub, a thermostat for our electrically heated bathroom floor from Heatit (SEK 1 400) from a recommendation from my older brother and three Fibaro smart plugs (SEK 1 500 in total).
With the smart plugs and the thermostat connected to the Futurehome home hub and four sets of timers in the Futurehome hub the result is a reduction of 20-40% of electricity consumption.
That being said we’ve also bought and now ride a Vässla to and from work at least 3 out of 5 days a week. All powered from our output in the wardrobe. We charge it at night to reduce the cost of charging with electricity being cheaper at night. So in theory our electricity usage should’ve increased but with the smart appliances, timers and features we’ve managed to reduce cost.
September 2018 we consumed 228 kWh for SEK 168. Putting us on a yearly consumption of 2 700 kWh or spend of SEK 2 000 per year compared to the roughly 3300 kWh and SEK 4 000 per year in 2016/2017.
As you can see a reduction all except one month for 2018 compared to 2017 as we trim our system.
Green columns represent 2017 and blue columns 2018.
Worth mentioning is that we control most lights and music now with Google Home instead of Amazon Echo. We have three Google home mini and three chromecast connected speakers to give a smooth sound wherever you are in the apartment. I suppose it’s a given they’re all connected through a Google Wi-fi WLAN.
So all in all with investments of SEK 5800 in smart appliances it will take us: 5800/(1127/10*12)=4,28 years to start saving money on our investments and efforts. I think we’ll be able to trim the system further so our reduction is reduced even further. Next up is limiting times for Washing machine and tumble dryer.
Please share your thoughts and thank you everyone involved assisting in finding all these products making us living smarter and reducing our environmental footprint.
