Easy ways to reduce your electricity bills
Regardless of personal views on the issue of global warming and the fight against it, saving electricity undoubtedly makes sense, if only because of rising electricity prices: why spend more than necessary? The FRITZ can help you rationalize your spending!Box!
For starters, a cost-effective router
With the rated power of the device approx. 10W even savings of several percent are unlikely to fundamentally affect electricity bills, but since we are already getting down to optimizing energy consumption, there is no reason not to take advantage of the available opportunities.
Elements of power consumption management are already encountered on the main page of our router's web configurator (standard at: fritz.box, 192.168.178.1 or emergency 169.254.0.1):
After clicking on the link, we go to a detailed analysis of our router's power usage:
With knowledge of the router's power usage, we can, for example, reduce the speed of unused LAN ports:
Restrict Wi-Fi during hours when it is not in use anyway, reducing the radio noise of your environment:
The configuration of the Wi-Fi radio module also allows to reduce the signal strength by software:
The DECT radio module, which supports cordless telephony and Smart Home terminals, can be limited in a similar way:
It is worth noting, by the way, that DECT devices from the FRITZ family! use the DECT ULE (DECT Ultra Low Energy) standard, helping to reduce the need for electricity in general.
Decisions based on empirical evidence
How much electricity is really consumed by each consumer? The order of magnitude can be judged by reading the nameplate or the instruction manual, but how to verify this information, or check how much the food processor consumes in the second of five gears? And how much does it cost per year to leave the phone charger plugged in?
Smart home terminals from the FRITZ family will play a key role in answering these questions!DECT, such as FRITZ!DECT 200, FRITZ!DECT 210 and FRITZ!DECT 440. This is because these devices have (in addition to many others) the function of measuring current, instantaneous energy consumption:
In addition to measuring instantaneous consumption, the device allows you to record the results over a selected period of time (such as a day, a week, a month, or even 2 years).
The system can also calculate projected annual energy consumption, its cost, and even the amount of CO2 emitted in the process of producing it.
Turn it on and off intelligently
Smart plugs from the FRITZ family!DECT allow you to freely control the power supply of any devices that are connected to the power through them. Of course, the benefits of such a nifty power supply will be evident in the case of devices with high nominal energy consumption, such as electric heaters. Let's consider some example configurations.
Radiator in the bathroom reheated with a heater
Even with central heating, for bathroom radiators it is worth thinking about using an additional electric heater? For what purpose? To be able to walk into a warm bathroom on a cold, drizzly day outside of the heating season and wipe yourself with a warm towel! To do this, set the power switch on the heater for, for example, half an hour - forty minutes before you plan to wake up and take a bath. In theory, you could set the radiator thermostat to turn on when the temperature drops below a set value, but you could end up wasting a lot of energy heating the bathroom at night when it's not in use. The smart plug allows you to precisely determine the time of switching on and off so that energy is used in an optimal and organized way on a yearly basis, as you can use the schemes to program the operation of appliances at different times of the year.
Precise control of the electric heater
FRITZ smart plugs!DECT have a built-in thermometer, which is a measuring instrument that provides data to the Smart Home system. Of course, the heater can be turned on and off based on the temperature measurement in the smart plug to which it is connected, but such a measurement can be subject to error, since the air near the heater rather rarely corresponds to the average conditions of the room. To prevent inadequate control responses, the user has the option to enter a correction value (in st. C), in plus or in minus - depending on the user's practiced need - so as to achieve the most comfortable temperature throughout the room.
Instead of the correction value, another method can be used - the FRITZ plug-in!DECT can be controlled by measuring the temperature of another terminal, such as another plug, placed in a location where there is a more representative temperature. This will ensure that the energy consumed is used most rationally.
Artificial lighting, only when there is no natural
Exterior lighting of the house and driveway can be troublesome, especially when we want to use automatic control of its operation, such as with a twilight sensor. Devices of this type work well for single lamps in an environment without other light sources - otherwise their operation is sometimes disturbed and, for example, the lighting does not turn on and off in a timely manner. An alternative could be to use a smart plug controlled by a calendar and the times of sunrise and sunset marked in it. The night will no longer be dark, and during the day the lighting will not unnecessarily try to compete with our star, wasting precious energy.
