Holiday Gifting of LED Lights

General Sense Discussion
1

Hi All,

We recently asked Sense employees about their personal goals for saving energy—because we’re always curious how our team puts energy efficiency into action!

Now, I’ll admit, my own goals were a too boring to tell here (and maybe even a little preachy), so I’ll spare you the details. Let’s just say being a New Englander probably means I’m overly proud of being cold all the time. But one of my colleagues, Tarah W., had an interesting take that I thought was worth sharing with you all:
She wrote:

"I’m the LED Bulb Fairy :fairy: to friends and family this year. This usually starts with someone complaining about how their power bill is hundreds of dollars per month, then pivots to me asking which lights they use the most. I then talk about the “old style” incandescent bulbs being basically mini heaters that use much more energy and have them hold their hand up to the bulb to feel. I use Watt Check all the time to measure the amount of energy used by lights, so its very easy for me to demonstrate to my friends and family that when I switched to LEDs I saved something approaching 90% in energy used. I now keep extra LED bulbs in my car to replace the incandescent on the spot. Saving the world - one bulb at a time.

Awesome! My mom’s moving soon, so I’m thinking about giving her a fresh start with LED bulbs for all her lights. It’s such a simple swap, but it can make a big difference.

We’d love to hear from you—do you have any creative ideas for saving energy or helping others do the same? Let us know!

1 Like
2

Having already switched almost all my bulbs to LED, lighting now accounts for less than 5% of my electricity usage. Heating and air conditioning account for well over 50% of energy usage, so your strategy, James, is probably the most effective. For anyone who hasn’t switched to LEDs yet, however, that is low-hanging fruit. Some others:

  • Put your Christmas lights on timers. Run them a few hours when people are most likely to be around, which also reduces light pollution the rest of the night.
  • Unplug vampires. My treadmill, for example, uses 20W while sitting idle if it is not manually switched off.
  • Seal windows and doors against air leaks. I estimate that when I did this to my attic door, I saved $50/month during the coldest months since heated air was being drawn up and out the attic by the chimney effect.

My ideas above are not especially creative and have been mentioned often in energy discussions, yet I have personally seen the benefit of each one. Here is a link to the Sense blog that James hinted about.

2 Likes
3

Thanks @jefflayman.
You got me thinking a little more for sure!

I’m not a super holiday person but can say the timer comment is a good one! Reminder that this can be done on Kasa smartplugs too, so if folks have any lights connected to smartplugs, you can set a routine for that here:

  • Vampire Load is probably something I need to deal with too. I don’t think we have too many things plugged in, but looking at my Sense, my “entertainment system” (TV, Blu-ray, Two Home Pods used as speakers, Apple TV, and Vizio TV) runs 29 W standby.
    Not awful but def worth turning off if I know I’m not going to be around for a while. I do use the Apple TV as a HomeKit hub for Matter but could probably just switch over to my aging iPad.

  • Sealing windows and doors is huge for me in this drafty house. Just sealing the back staircase window alone has made a huge difference! Probably the most critical out of the three for me.

2 Likes