Saving energy is important and today with electricity prices it is even more so. However, we are not always saving as much as we think and it can even be counterproductive. In this article we are going to talk about the case of light bulbs, something that we can easily turn on and off. Do we really save every time we turn it off or are there times when it may be better to leave them on?
Turning off a light bulb doesn’t save as much as you think
First of all, it should be mentioned that this will depend on the type of bulb. If you are using an incandescent, the old ones, then it does make much more sense to turn them off the longer the better. On the other hand, the most current ones, the low consumption LED bulbs , will have a much lower consumption.
In these cases, for example leaving a room and turning off the light to return to the moment, it will not really make us save. Even if it’s something we do constantly or drag it out for a few minutes, the difference on the bill is negligible. It is true that any device that is not turned on will not consume, but in this case the difference is small.
But the most important thing about all this that we mentioned is that it can even be counterproductive . Why do we say this? Continually turning a light bulb on and off can shorten its lifespan. Let’s see, logically the light bulbs are made so that we can turn them on and off thousands of times before they stop working. But of course, if it is something we do continuously, we can shorten its life.
There is nothing mathematical about this, since no one knows how many times we can turn something off or on before it breaks. What we can know is that turning any light bulb off and on (especially the older ones) can have negative consequences. The capacitors of the LED bulbs can be affected by having a higher electrical voltage and every time we turn them on they can suffer a little.
Although this is practically negligible, if we turn a light bulb off and on many times a day that will only be off for a few seconds, in the end it is more likely that we will have to change the light bulb before having really had a significant saving on the bill.
Home automation helps save with light bulbs
Therefore, although we know that having a light bulb off means saving electricity, we are not really going to obtain anything important in the cases that we have mentioned. We can even have problems with the durability of the bulb and it begins to wear out before its time and we have to buy another one.
Now, home automation can help us save on the electricity bill each month. We can make better use of the devices we have and this also includes light bulbs. We can create patterns so that they turn on and off at certain times, configure them to adjust the brightness according to the situation or even have models that have motion sensors.
Having a smart home is the future, but we can already say that it is the present if we want to save energy. The uses are very wide and we also have increasingly cheaper smart devices available.