Oh, all those first world problems we have to deal with… I mean seriously, is there a worse thing than having to remove popcorn from your lap, leave the remote aside, unwrap your blanket and get up from your comfy space at your sofa just because you forgot to turn the lights off? Or forgetting to turn the heating on during winter while you are at work, and when you get home you have a feeling you arrived straight to the Arctic?

How great it would be to have someone or something do all that annoying stuff for you. Wait a minute – you do. You have 10 of them on your hands and one inside your pocket (or maybe even in your hand right now). Here is the list of the best smart gadgets that will both make your life easier and save the environment.

Smart strips and power adapters

Whether you know it or not, power adapters, as well as power strips, are responsible for all the energy that flows through our devices, so it makes perfect sense to keep them as energy efficient as possible. There is one occurrence called ‘Vampire power drain’ – when appliances are still sucking the energy even though they are off, which leads to quite a significant energy loss in homes. However, with the help of smart adapters and smart strips, that can sense when is the time to shut the current off completely, you will be able to fix this issue. You will reduce both energy consumption and your monthly costs.

Automated lighting

Light is an essential part of our home, and we’ve already come a long way in improving it and making it more energy efficient. Instead of incandescent bulbs, we now have CFLs, LEDs etc. However, light accounts for 10% of your total electricity consumption, and believe it or not there is still a way to save energy and cut the costs. There is a huge range of lighting systems available on the market that have many different options from changing brightness, setting a schedule and even changing colors – and can all be controlled from your smartphone.

Alexa

Amazon echo, or Alexa, is a voice-controlled speaker and your own virtual assistant. You can use it to control all the smart installations in your home using only your voice. It is like having an invisible butler, who cannot cook or serve food, but can tell you jokes, instantly convert measurements, play music, control your devices, etc.

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Solar inverters

If you have solar panels, you are already saving thousands of dollars annually and helping nature, since just one installation offsets around 200 tons of carbon dioxide over a period of 30 years, which is approximately equivalent to planting 10 football fields with trees. After all, those fossil fuels have to run out at some point, but our beloved shiny star will stay here for longer than we will.

Besides this, if you are an American, you are also earning quite a tax credit as well.

However, even though solar panels are the best thing ever, there is still a way to improve them or simply make the most of them, by investing in SMA solar inverters that will maximize the power point tracking and protect your home from islanding.

IMAGE SOURCE: PEXELS.COM

Smart sprinkler controllers

Up to almost half of the water we are using outdoors gets wasted because of poor watering methods. By installing an intelligent sprinkler system, you will upgrade your lawn management in a much more sustainable way and curb the water waste, while still keeping your immaculate yard. As soon as you get your hands on those smart features that can integrate current weather as well as different soil zones, you will ditch your old sprinklers for good. Oh, most of them can also be controlled with your smartphone.

Smart tap systems

A dripping tap wastes around 300 liters of water per year. And water is something really precious and something that definitely shouldn’t be wasted. Luckily for us, and the whole nature, some smart people invented some pretty cool filtration systems that, besides filtering out more than 70 different contaminants, they will also inform you about the water usage and remind you not to leave the tap running.

And this is still not all. Every day scientists are working hard to contribute to both our society and our planet, our job is to follow their work and take what’s given to us on a silver plate. These gadgets may be pricey now, but they will definitely pay themselves off in a very short period of time.

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