Lee Harrington, our Connected Home expert, reveals how smart appliances can help you reduce the amount of energy you use each month.

When it comes to appliances that are permanently switched on, Siemens Home Appliances has developed seemingly small but super-smart features that help to save energy. For example, we have incorporated wi-fi connectivity into many of our fridge-freezers. If you accidently leave the door open you’ll receive a reminder to close it via the Home Connect app. This not only saves energy but also a fridge load of groceries.

Another handy energy-saving feature is holiday mode. If you’re going away, you can raise the temperature of the fridge to 6–8°C by selecting this mode. The refrigerator doors will be closed while you’re away so the compressor doesn’t have to work as hard to maintain the optimal internal cooling temperature, helping you save on electricity bills. And if you do forget to select holiday mode – no problem! You can activate it remotely from anywhere in the world via the Home Connect app.

Other popular energy-saving features are superCool and superFreeze. When you select these via the app, the temperature in the fridge and/or freezer is lowered temporarily. If you select these modes as you leave the supermarket with your shopping, by the time you get home, the temperature of the fridge and/or freezer is lower than usual, which will offset the rise in temperature when you open the door to load groceries.

In addition to this, our partnership with IFTTT (If This Then That) allows access to geofencing, whereby actions are automatically triggered when you enter or leave a previously defined geographical area. To put this in context, you can set the app to activate superCool or superFreeze automatically as you leave the supermarket carpark – an excellent way of automating one of life’s mundane but essential tasks!

It’s not only possible to activate eco modes within the Home Connect app, but you can also set them as ‘favourites’ – a feature that was designed for programmes used on a regular basis. So, instead of going through the same process every time you start a particular eco programme, you can simply tap the app and select your specific favourite with pre-defined individual settings.

An added benefit is that all your favourites will automatically sync to your Apple Watch, Wear OS by Google or Fitbit. This means you can monitor and control your connected appliances without ever reaching for your phone.

I’m particularly proud of our new generation of learning dishwashers. These feature self-learning algorithms that make it possible to tailor programmes even more precisely to your needs. Every three cycles or so, they will ask for your feedback based on the efficiency of drying, the cleanliness of your dishes and the time they’ve taken to do them. Based on your feedback, they will then refine the programme, tailoring it exactly to your specific needs. They will also tell your how much water and energy the tailored programme uses, so you can refine that if necessary.

There is always a handful of people who are sceptical about the benefits of connected appliances and consider them to be energy hungry. But in fact, it’s the opposite. If you forget to turn off your dishwasher, for example, or the spin cycle on your washing machine has just finished, you will be notified. You then have the choice to switch off the machine manually or remotely, therefore saving energy.

Changing someone’s mind about connected appliances is about showing them the positive impacts of these devices in real-life scenarios. So rather than focusing on our products’ features, we’re highlighting their benefits instead. For example, a ground breaking feature of our intelligent dishwasher is that it learns your preferences, but what’s the real-life benefit to you, the consumer? That’s what’s important. I think once we start focusing more on benefits, then we’ll see an uptake in people using connected products and understanding what they gain by integrating them into their lives.

The Home Connect app keeps on top of your energy and water usage with clear consumption estimates for each programme and suggestions for more energy efficient programmes. Additionally, many energy suppliers are now offering cheaper rates at selected times. So you can easily select start or finish times for your programme via the Home Connect app to avoid energy usage during peak times.

Find out more about Siemens smart kitchen appliances here: https://www.siemens-home.bsh-group.com/uk/inspiration/innovation/connected

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