Smart home technology has changed the way we live, offering not just convenience but significant energy savings. At Estevez Electric LLC, we’ve helped many homeowners in Allentown and nearby areas set up energy-efficient smart home solutions. This guide explores the best smart home devices that can help reduce your energy use while making your home more comfortable and functional.

1. Smart LED Lighting Systems

LED lighting is one of the most accessible and effective ways to reduce your home’s energy use. From our work with homeowners in Allentown, switching to LED lighting can reduce your lighting energy consumption by up to 75% compared to regular incandescent bulbs. When you add smart controls to these already efficient lights, the savings get even bigger. Our professional installations have shown that well-placed LED lighting with the right color temperature can improve efficiency while creating better lighting for different rooms and activities in your home.

Smart LED systems let you schedule lights to turn on and off automatically, dim lights to use only the energy you need, control lighting remotely to avoid wasting electricity when rooms are empty, and create settings that optimize lighting for different activities and times of day. While smart LED lighting costs more upfront than regular options, the long-term savings are big. LEDs not only use much less energy, but they also last up to 25 times longer than incandescent bulbs, saving on replacement costs and reducing waste. Many smart LED systems now include sensors that automatically adjust brightness based on natural light and when people are in the room, saving even more energy without you having to do anything.

2. Smart Thermostats

Smart thermostats are one of the most effective energy-saving technologies for most homes. By intelligently managing your heating and cooling systems, these devices can greatly reduce energy use while keeping you comfortable. ENERGY STAR certified smart thermostats save about 8% on heating bills and 10% on cooling bills, or about $50 per year on average. In the Allentown area, where temperatures change a lot between seasons, our clients usually see even bigger savings—often 12-15% or more—because the thermostats can optimize heating and cooling during extreme weather and in-between seasons when regular thermostats often cool or heat too much.

Today’s smart thermostats do much more than simple scheduling with features like learning algorithms that study your patterns and preferences to automatically create efficient heating and cooling schedules, sensors that adjust temperature based on whether anyone is home, weather integration to factor in forecasts for best operation, and usage reports that give detailed insights into your energy use patterns. Smart home devices like thermostats work best as part of a complete smart home system, working with other devices for maximum efficiency. Advanced models can now work with smart blinds and ceiling fans to naturally control temperatures before turning on more energy-intensive heating or cooling systems, creating a layered approach to temperature management that greatly reduces energy waste while improving comfort.

3. Electric Vehicle Charging Stations

Electric vehicles help reduce your carbon footprint, but charging them efficiently is key to maximizing their environmental and economic benefits. Smart EV charging stations have intelligent features that optimize charging schedules, monitor energy usage, and work with your home’s electrical system. As more people in Pennsylvania buy EVs, there’s growing demand for home charging solutions that provide convenience and manage energy use intelligently. Our installations typically include dedicated circuits with planning for future electrical needs, making sure your home’s infrastructure supports efficient charging without overloading your electrical system.

Smart EV chargers help with home energy efficiency in several ways. You can program your charger to run during off-peak hours when electricity rates are lower, and advanced chargers can adjust their power use based on other electrical demands in your home. Some smart chargers can be set up to prioritize charging when your solar panels are producing extra energy, and they provide tracking to monitor your charging costs and patterns to optimize your energy use. As experienced EV charger installers, we can check your home’s electrical capacity and recommend the most efficient charging solution for your specific vehicle and usage patterns. The newest smart EV chargers can also participate in utility demand response programs, which give you financial incentives for adjusting charging rates during peak grid demand periods, creating another way to save on energy costs while supporting grid stability.

4. Whole-House Surge Protection

A complete smart home setup is a big investment in technology. Protecting these devices from power surges is important not only for making them last longer but also for making sure they keep working efficiently. While surge protectors don’t directly reduce energy use, they play an important role in your home’s overall energy efficiency strategy by extending device lifespan, preventing replacement waste, and ensuring system reliability. In the Allentown area, where electrical grid fluctuations and lightning strikes can seriously damage sensitive electronics, proper surge protection is even more important for maintaining the performance of energy-saving smart devices throughout your home.

Whole-house protection systems provide layered defense, with service entrance protection installed at your electrical panel to catch large surges from outside sources, branch circuit protection as secondary protection for specific circuits with sensitive electronics, and point-of-use protection for valuable devices. Our professional installation ensures your entire smart home system remains protected from damaging power fluctuations, maintaining the energy efficiency of all your connected devices. Surge protectors are your home’s first line of defense against electrical damage that could harm your energy-saving smart devices. Modern surge protection systems also include monitoring that alerts homeowners to protection events and device status, allowing for timely replacement of surge protection components that may have sacrificed themselves to protect your equipment, ensuring continuous protection for your energy-efficient technology investments.

5. Smart Electrical Panels and Monitoring Systems

Modern electrical panels with smart monitoring capabilities form the backbone of an energy-efficient home. These systems give you unprecedented visibility into your home’s energy usage patterns, helping you identify opportunities for savings. Smart electrical panels and monitoring systems change how you understand and manage your home’s energy use with circuit-level monitoring to track energy usage by individual circuits, real-time feedback with instant notifications about unusual energy usage patterns, historical data analysis to review trends over time, and remote control capabilities that allow you to turn off circuits when not in use. Our clients typically identify 15-20% in potential energy savings just from the insights provided by these monitoring systems, often discovering energy waste they never knew was happening in their homes.

The real power of smart electrical panels comes from their ability to work with other energy-saving devices through demand response to automatically adjust energy usage during peak demand periods, solar integration to optimize the use of solar energy production in homes with solar panels, and automated load balancing to prevent circuit overloads while maintaining efficient operation. Upgrading your electrical service to include smart monitoring capabilities is an investment that typically pays for itself through improved energy management and reduced waste. These essential electrical safety devices also enhance your home’s overall safety. Advanced systems now use artificial intelligence that learns your household’s usage patterns and automatically suggests optimization strategies or implements them on its own, continuously improving efficiency without requiring constant homeowner attention or technical expertise.

6. Smart Exhaust Fans

Proper ventilation is essential for maintaining indoor air quality and preventing moisture problems, but traditional exhaust fans can waste a lot of energy when left running unnecessarily. Smart exhaust fans solve this problem by operating only when needed. These intelligent systems include sensors and controls that optimize operation with humidity sensors that automatically activate when moisture levels rise and deactivate when they return to normal, occupancy detection to sense when someone enters or leaves the room, timed operation to run for exactly the right amount of time, and variable speed control to adjust fan speed based on ventilation needs. In the humid summer months common in Pennsylvania, these intelligent ventilation systems are particularly valuable for preventing mold and mildew while minimizing the energy impact of proper moisture control.

The energy savings from smart exhaust fans come from multiple factors. By operating only when needed, smart fans can reduce ventilation energy use by 30-50%. Proper ventilation helps your heating and cooling systems operate more efficiently, and preventing excess moisture reduces the energy needed for dehumidification in summer months. Our exhaust fan installation services include assessment of your home’s ventilation needs and recommendation of the most energy-efficient smart ventilation solutions that can be integrated with your overall smart home system. The latest models also incorporate heat exchange technology that captures thermal energy from exhausted air during winter months, preheating incoming fresh air and reducing the heating load on your HVAC system. This feature is particularly valuable in Allentown’s cold winters, where traditional ventilation can significantly increase heating costs due to the constant expulsion of warm indoor air.

7. Tankless Water Heaters

Traditional water heaters continuously heat and reheat water in a storage tank, wasting energy even when hot water isn’t being used. Tankless water heaters, especially smart-enabled models, heat water only when needed, eliminating standby energy losses. These systems offer big energy advantages by eliminating standby losses with no energy wasted keeping a tank of water hot 24/7, providing precise temperature control to maintain exact water temperature for optimal efficiency, learning usage patterns to optimize operation, and allowing remote temperature adjustment to save energy when away from home. For Allentown homeowners, the energy savings can be particularly significant during winter months when traditional tank water heaters work harder to maintain temperature in colder conditions.

Modern tankless water heaters can be integrated into your broader smart home system with energy monitoring to track hot water energy usage through your home energy dashboard, scheduled operation to program different efficiency levels throughout the day, and maintenance alerts to receive notifications about maintenance needs to keep the system operating at peak efficiency. Our experienced technicians can help you select and install the right tankless water heating system for your home’s specific needs and usage patterns, ensuring it works seamlessly with your other smart home energy-saving devices. The most advanced models now include recirculation pumps that can be triggered by occupancy sensors or smartphone apps, eliminating water waste while waiting for hot water to reach fixtures, combining both energy and water conservation benefits. This technology is particularly valuable in larger homes where traditional systems might waste gallons of water before hot water reaches distant bathrooms or kitchens.

8. Smart GFCI Outlets and Plugs

One of the biggest hidden energy wasters in modern homes is standby power consumption, also known as “phantom” or “vampire” power. Smart outlets address this issue by providing scheduled power control to program outlets to cut power to devices during hours when they’re not in use, remote switching to turn off power to devices from your smartphone even when away from home, usage monitoring to track how much energy each outlet is consuming, and occupancy-based control to detect when a room is empty and automatically cut power to non-essential devices. Our energy audits frequently reveal that standby power can account for 5-10% of a home’s total electricity usage, making smart outlets one of the most cost-effective energy-saving investments for Pennsylvania homeowners.

GFCI outlets with smart capabilities offer additional benefits by quickly detecting ground faults to prevent not only safety hazards but also the energy waste that can occur during electrical faults, protecting equipment to maintain their energy efficiency, and integrating with home systems for coordinated energy management. Our professional installation ensures that smart outlets are properly placed throughout your home to maximize both safety and energy efficiency. These devices are among the essential electrical safety devices that every modern home should have. The most sophisticated smart outlets now include power quality monitoring that can detect inefficient device operation or impending equipment failure, allowing for preventive maintenance that extends device lifespan and maintains optimal energy efficiency. This feature is particularly valuable for major appliances where gradual efficiency degradation might otherwise go unnoticed until significant energy waste has occurred.

Conclusion: Building Your Energy-Efficient Smart Home

Creating an energy-efficient smart home combines technology, strategy, and professional expertise. The devices and systems we’ve explored in this guide represent the most effective ways to reduce energy use while improving comfort, convenience, and home value. At Estevez Electric LLC, we understand that every home is unique, with its own energy challenges and opportunities. Our experience with Allentown’s housing stock—from historic homes to new construction—allows us to tailor smart home solutions that address the specific energy efficiency challenges common in our region’s diverse homes.

Our approach focuses on finding the smart home solutions that will deliver the greatest energy savings for your specific situation. From LED lighting installation to EV charging stations and whole-house electrical upgrades, we provide the professional expertise needed to transform your home into an energy-efficient smart living space. Ready to start saving energy and improving your home’s functionality? Contact Estevez Electric LLC today for a consultation on the best smart home energy-saving solutions for your Allentown area home. We’ll do a complete assessment of your current energy usage patterns and electrical infrastructure to develop a customized smart home plan that maximizes energy savings while working within your budget and lifestyle preferences.