The Official Smarthome Blog – All Things Home Automation

Is your garage door safely closed? Are you sure?

Without having to rush through the house to get a good look at the largest door to your home, now you can be assured that the door is down with the Universal Garage Door Monitor, which uses a door-mounted sensor for accurate assessment of the garage door’s status. When the garage is opened, the sensor automatically sends a signal to the monitor, which can be plugged into any convenient location in your home for instant peace of mind.

The Universal Garage Door Monitor works with any overhead garage door. Mount the sensor to the back of your garage door with the included Velcro strip. When the door opens, the sensor moves into the horizontal position and sends a signal to the monitor that the door is open. The monitor then provides simple, visual cues to indicate your garage door’s status: When the light flashes red, the door is open; when the green light is on, the door is closed.

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The average household water heater holds about 50 gallons of water and with a flow rate of about 20 gallons per hour, an 8-hour leak can spill over 200 gallons of water into your home. Chances are your water heater is located somewhere out of sight, so a spill can go unnoticed for a considerable amount of time. This can mean thousands of dollars in water damage and cleanup costs. Factor in the sub-freezing temperatures in winter and you have an even bigger disaster. Learn more here

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With the winter months here you can consider taking some steps to saving money during the time when homes have their highest demand of energy of the year. When this type of thermostat is installed, combined with the use of four pre-programmed temperature settings for weekend and weekdays you could give you a savings of about $180 a year!

Did You Know?
The average household spends more than $2,200 a year on energy bills – nearly half of which goes to heating and cooling. Homeowners can save about $180 a year by properly setting their programmable thermostats and maintaining those settings.

With a programmable thermostat it will make it easier for you to save the optimal amount of money, since there are already pre-programmed settings for when you are home, asleep or away. Here are are the settings for an energy star programmable thermostat:

Check out our full list of Energy Star qualified programmable thermostats.