Smart Home Product With Quickest Return On Investment?

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Fun smart-home products are all the rage. They’re cool. They save you money. They connect to your smartphone. They make your life more convenient. But the creator of one of the newest such products thinks that his offers the quickest return on investment.

“I just want to say that we absolutely believe FilterWatch might be the only energy efficiency device for the smart home that will actually pay for itself in just a couple months.”

So, what is FilterWatch, and why is it so great for your pocketbook as well as your air quality and health?

filterwatch

FilterWatch keeps a close eye on your HVAC filters and makes sure you change them when it’s cost-effective to do so. John Pollock, the creator of FilterWatch, knows that he needs to change his filters in order to save money and keep his air cleaner. Yet, he (like pretty much everyone else) has forgotten or put off doing so time and time again. It’s just one of those things we do. In order to deal with this once and for all, John created FilterWatch, which is “a simple device that measures how clogged your air filter is and alerts you when its time to be changed.” Even John was surprised at how often his needed changed and how much he could save.

It may not be sexy, but it is über useful. “We’re not trying to build cool,” Pollock states. “[W]e are trying to save you some hard earned money and we want you to spend as little as possible to do that.”

There are a lot more details and some number fun over on the Kickstarter page. Go check that out for more on this part of the technology.

hvac enegry costs


Beyond the above, John and his crew would also like to add humidity sensors — if they receive enough funding. “With this, we will target issues that can occur with air conditioning not draining properly and as a monitor of areas (like basements) that have too high of humidity that promotes mold growth. These sensors are just under $3 per unit and we have almost 400 units to support our backers.”

John and team have currently raised $7,182 of their initial $4,000 goal. If they get up to $10,000, they’ll add the humidity sensors.

Again, you can get this over on the Kickstarter page, but for those of you who wouldn’t click over or read the whole write-up over there, I found this a particularly interesting and powerful statement:

Most of us will spend over 90% of our lives indoors and over 50% of that will be in our own homes. To make ourselves comfortable, we turn on the A/C during the hot summers and the heat on during the cold winters.

For most of us,  our HVAC system is the primary method for filtering the air that we breathe AND it is the #1 source of energy usage in our homes. With something so important in our lives, it makes sense that we should pay extra attention to make sure that it is working as efficiently as possible.

Indeed.

Go pledge some money and get your FilterWatch preordered now.

For related stories, check out:

  1. Smart Homes, Smart Cities Markets To Double By 2017
  2. 5 Smart Home Technologies That Save You Money
  3. Neurio Makes Ordinary Homes Smart

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Zachary Shahan

Zach is tryin' to help society help itself one word at a time. He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director, chief editor, and CEO. Zach is recognized globally as an electric vehicle, solar energy, and energy storage expert. He has presented about cleantech at conferences in India, the UAE, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, and Curaçao. Zach has long-term investments in Tesla [TSLA], NIO [NIO], Xpeng [XPEV], Ford [F], ChargePoint [CHPT], Amazon [AMZN], Piedmont Lithium [PLL], Lithium Americas [LAC], Albemarle Corporation [ALB], Nouveau Monde Graphite [NMGRF], Talon Metals [TLOFF], Arclight Clean Transition Corp [ACTC], and Starbucks [SBUX]. But he does not offer (explicitly or implicitly) investment advice of any sort.

Zachary Shahan has 7324 posts and counting. See all posts by Zachary Shahan