By Svetlin Todorov, Shelly

True sustainability isn’t achieved through flashy features, but by small, everyday actions that become foundational. Smart home sustainability becomes real when technology enables effortless energy management—automating the shutdown of high-draw devices during peak hours, reducing HVAC usage when no one’s home, and avoiding standby power waste with intelligent scheduling. 

These practical applications translate into lower energy bills and reduce carbon footprint. But before homeowners can change their behaviors, they need access to technology that makes these actions simple, seamless, and reliable. That’s where product and system design play a critical role. As an industry, we must develop smart home solutions that not only promote sustainability, but actually enable it. That means building solutions with three core pillars in mind: energy insight, local control, and long-term usability.

Real-Time Energy Insights Make the Difference

One of the most effective tools in the shift toward sustainable living is energy visibility. When homeowners can see, in real time, which devices are drawing power, how much they’re using, and when energy usage peaks, they’re equipped to make informed decisions—or better yet, let automation handle it for them.

This kind of insight is already familiar to many electric vehicle (EV) owners, who routinely schedule charging during off-peak hours to save money and reduce grid strain. Seeing exactly when to charge based on time-of-use rates has made energy management feel both accessible and rewarding, even gamified. That same approach is extending into the home, where smart plugs, relays, and energy meters give users visibility into everyday energy consumption.

One Shelly customer demonstrates the power of these insights perfectly. After noticing his electric bill was climbing, he installed power monitoring devices throughout his home to identify energy usage patterns. "I started putting in some power metering," he explains. "I put a bunch of those around the house just to get an idea of how much a branch circuit's going to pull." This visibility led him to discover a faulty wire in his air handler that was causing dangerous arcing. By combining this discovery with automated controls that prevent lights from staying on unnecessarily, he cut his monthly electric bill from about $300 to $150—a reduction of almost 50%.

These tools empower people to cut phantom loads, optimize heating and cooling schedules, or better align appliance usage with solar generation. The goal isn’t just to monitor, but to manage—and to turn energy efficiency into a visible, trackable, and even satisfying part of daily life.

Local Control as a Pillar of Sustainability

As a recent Parks Associates blog highlighted, we’re seeing a division between cloud control and local control, and while local control provides a host of privacy benefits, it also provides efficiency. If the internet goes out or a server shuts down, critical automations can stop working. That’s not just a convenience issue—it’s an energy issue too.

Locally controlled smart devices address this by processing commands within the home itself. No round trips to the cloud. No lag. No platform dependence. Local control ensures that energy-saving automations function even during outages and that devices retain long-term value even as the ecosystem around them evolves. 

Longevity Should Be the Standard

Sustainable tech isn’t just about what it saves—it’s also about what it prevents. In the smart home, that means designing devices that don’t become obsolete the moment a cloud service is deprecated, or a protocol shifts. Firmware updates, local APIs, platform-agnostic integration, and backward compatibility are all essential pieces of a more sustainable approach to product development.

It’s worth remembering that the most environmentally responsible smart home isn’t necessarily the one with the most devices—it’s the one built to last, to adapt, and to empower the homeowner for years to come.

As we prepare for Parks Associates' CONNECTIONS™, I’m excited to have the opportunity to meet with fellow members of our industry to examine how smart home technology can continue to grow and develop to make sustainability tangible—for integrators, for consumers, and for the grid at large. Let's challenge ourselves to develop solutions that deliver measurable energy savings, prioritize local control, and ensure long-term value. Join me at the conference to share your insights on making sustainability not just a marketing term, but a concrete reality in homes across the country.