Tour of the Modern Smart Home: The Kitchen

This post is part of a 3 part series. If you missed the first post, you can read about The Family Room here.

The kitchen is such a central part of your home. It’s where meals are cooked, bonds are strengthened, and milestones are celebrated. Family dinners fill the room with laughter and the chatter of everyone sharing highlights of their days. 

Entering your new kitchen, you are immediately reminded of all the memories you will create here but you also recognize that the kitchen accounts for a significant amount of your home’s energy consumption. As you look around, you are relieved to find many energy-efficient measures in place to help you with that.

To turn on the lights, you look to your phone. Your home is equipped with smart lighting that you can control from an app on your phone. From anywhere, anytime, you can turn on or off the lights in every room. You know this will help you save a tremendous amount of energy. Lights are easily left on during busy mornings or evenings and now you can control them remotely – even from your desk at work!

With the kitchen now properly lit, you immediately notice all your ENERGY STAR certified appliances and let out a sigh of relief. These appliances will work efficiently every day to ensure you are saving as much energy as you can without sacrificing the level of performance you expect from your refrigerator, stove, and dishwasher.  They all have eco modes or settings to help you keep the energy consumption down. You even notice a smart plug in place behind the stove that will automatically turn the stove off if accidentally left on.

You’re also glad you purchased a home with solar panels equipped. It’s satisfying to know where your power is coming from and that it’s an eco-friendly source. The panels will generate more than enough energy to power your whole home from the most natural source you can find – the sun!

You walk by the kitchen sink and an attachment on the faucet catches your eye. That circular addition to the faucet’s end is an aerator and will help you save water when washing dishes. After all, if every household in America had a faucet that dripped once each second, 928 million gallons of water a day would leak away. The use of water efficient fittings, such as aerators, has the ability to cut water use in homes by 45%. You give your hands a quick wash and are happily surprised to find you don’t feel a difference in water pressure or quality. Perhaps with water, less is more!