Smart home sensors have become a mainstay in our daily lives. Homeowners now rely on them as motion detectors and smoke sensors to enhance safety in and around their homes. Smart sensors allow homeowners to automate their homes, making them more functional, classy, and modern.
They can either be standalone or multipurpose. Standalone sensors do only one thing, e.g., detect fire in the home. Multipurpose sensors have many built-in capabilities. For example, one can simultaneously be a humidity, light, motion, and temperature sensor. Multipurpose sensors are obviously the better option if you are installing them in your home for the first time. They come with many energy-saving and other benefits. Here’s a quick summary of the common sensors and their benefits:
1. Gas or water leak detection
If you have gas cooking, heating, or a gas water heater in your home, a gas leak monitor eliminates any chances of a gas explosion. These priceless sensors are easy to order, simple to install, and quite affordable. One gas leak sensor can monitor a large area and detect leaks quickly, which saves you money in terms of gas saved.
Moisture detection, on the other hand, minimizes the chance of water-caused damage in your home. Water damage is one of the leading causes of home insurance claims around the world, which tells you water leakage can be an expensive accident. Water leakages mostly happen around dishwashers, water heaters, refrigerators, and sinks. When placed near these culprits, a water leak detection sensor will tell you if any of your pipes are frozen or if there’s a broken waterline before serious damage happens. These sensors save your home, reduce water wastage, and consequently saves you money in terms of repair cost and energy bills.
2. Motion sensors
For starters, motion sensors complement smart alarms by detecting unauthorized motion inside your home and then alerting the alarms to sound the siren. But they have more capabilities and benefits than just complementing alarm systems. You can, for example, hook them up to your smart lighting system, enabling it to fire up automatically whenever there’s motion in the home. The lights then go off automatically when there’s no movement in the home for a specified period of time. By switching off the lights when you don’t need them, smart motion sensors will help you save on lighting bills without compromising your home security.
Note: You can set the motion sensors around dangerous areas, such as the swimming pool, to alert you whenever a child or pet wanders around that area.
3. Door/window sensors
These sensors enhance your home security by alerting you through your smartphone when someone enters or leaves your house. They are perfect for detecting and thwarting home break-ins. You can connect these sensors to your lighting system so that they can turn the lights on automatically when the front door swings open or when an intruder breaks a window.
Besides enhancing your home security, door and window sensors help you minimize your energy bills by giving you better control of the HVAC system. Some homeowners connect their window/door sensors with an HVAC Smart Relay Switch (HSRS) for better control of the HVAC system. When a door or a window remains open for a specified amount of time, say 10 minutes, the HSRS switches off the HVAC system automatically.
4. Temperature sensors
These sensors combine with smart thermostats to keep your home’s temperature at optimal levels. When the sensor notes the room temperature is higher than normal, it alerts the smart thermostat to turn itself down. If the temperature is too low during winter, the thermostat turns itself up. Temperature sensors can also detect activity in a room and optimize comfort levels accordingly. That minimizes energy wastage while keeping comfort levels high.
Temperature sensors are part of a wider web called ambient sensing. As the name suggests, ambient sensing measures the ambiance of a room and communicates the same with other smart devices in a smart home. For example, an ambient air temperature sensor monitors the temperature around a piece of equipment or in a room. Ambient sensors provide wireless, unobtrusive, and cloud-based home comfort solutions.
5. Air quality sensors
Ambient sensing extends to measuring the quality of your indoor air. Air quality sensors include carbon monoxide detectors and smoke detectors. These monitors will alert you when carbon monoxide or smoke levels in the home are elevated, which minimizes cases of intoxication and suffocation due to poor air quality. A good air quality monitoring system also saves your HVAC system from overworking and inflating your energy bills.
6. Appliance usage monitors
These ones monitor the usage of electric kettles, showers, TVs, ovens, microwaves, water heaters, etc., in the home. These appliance usage monitors will detect and notify you of spikes in appliance usage, allowing you to take proactive energy-saving measures.
Final thought
The future of energy-saving and home security is smart home sensors. Your sensors will help you manage and optimize energy consumption, security, and comfort levels in the home. To optimize the many benefits of your smart sensors, you need to install smart IoT devices around the home. They perform optimally in fully-automated homes.
Author: Bella Clarks
