Simple fixes to these smart home technology items could help save money :: WRAL.com

Amazon, Target and Walmart are all kicking off big sales this week.

Each store is offering steep discounts on smart home technology, but those products don’t always lead to instant savings.

Smart tech like thermostats can lead to savings on your energy bill but not if you make these mistakes.

These smart tech mistakes are costing you money

Putting your smart thermostat in the wrong spot – like near a sunny window or heat vent. That throws off the reading, and your unit ends up running nonstop.

Don’t ignore eco settings. Most smart gadgets default to convenience over efficiency. Turning on “energy saver” or setting schedules only takes a few minutes. 

Forgetting to update your settings as seasons change, and skipping software updates that can boost efficiency by 30 percent.

North Carolina utility customers tend to spend more on energy bills in the winter.

“A lot of people have now added things like smart
thermostats to their home, and that’s a new tool that can be really powerful to
help you save energy by automating some of the things that we typically
manually forget,” said Duke Energy spokesperson Jeff Brooks.

Check Point Software engineer Aaron Rose shared concerns about the data customers give away.

“Whether it’s smart technology or a social media platform or sending off your genetic data to a company for testing, you need to understand how your data is shared,” Rose said. “I’ll give everybody a very easy tip, ChatGPT is excellent at analyzing terms of service.

“So if you’re like me, you’re probably not going to read 800 pages of legalese. What you can do is you can copy and paste that into ChatGPT and then ask it questions. Ask it how does this impact me? What data might be shared?”