With state of the art technology at our fingertips, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be conserving more time, money, and resources with all of the efficient energy-saving products and their corresponding apps, which is why we’ve rounded up some of our favorite eco-friendly gadgets just for you. 

Some of these products will be more practical and affordable than others, starting at around $200, but with the rapid growth of this particular market, there should soon come a time where the pricier products, currently up to $3,500, become much more attainable for the average homeowner.

Until then, it’s still a good idea to get a feel for the technology that’s available, especially when it comes to saving our precious resources, like time, energy, and money, so that we can spend more of it doing what’s most important to us.

1. August Smart Lock 

This nifty lock saves you time, money, and hassle by allowing your smartphone to be the key to your front door, which means you never have to copy keys again. With the August Smart Lock and app, you can lock and unlock your door from your cell phone, create virtual keys for your guests or residential employees, and have a record of who comes and goes, like notifications when your kids arrive home from school. You can grant access for specific periods of time – down to the day and the hour, plus you can delete guest access instantly.

2. Philips Hue LED Light Bulbs 

Once the Philips Hue system is set up you can add up to 50 Philips hue lights, luminaries, switches, and other accessories all from the specially designed smartphone app. There are many energy saving products to choose from with varying features like smart control, away from home control, light schedules, setting an alarm that allows your lights to wake you up, syncing with music, changing the colors of the bulbs, and so much more. These products can be purchased at your local hardware store and starter kits are available.

3. Nest Learning Thermostat 

In about half an hour you can replace your current thermostat with the Nest Learning Thermostat that adapts to your life and the changing seasons to automatically provide you with the most ideal temperatures. This smart and attractive little gadget only needs a week of programming to learn your habits. It also knows when you’re away from home and will automatically change the temperature in order to conserve energy. The Nest’s app allows you to control the temp when you’re away so you can make sure the house is at the ideal temperature before you, your family, or guests arrive home. These are readily available at hardware stores.

4. LG Smart ThinQ Refrigerator

The large capacity luxury refrigerator boasts plenty of great storage features, but is famous for its built-in 8-inch Wi-Fi LCD screen. This tablet-like monitor is the heart of the refrigerator’s smart design and it works as a mini computer that’s focused on your needs. One particular refrigerator inventory app can keep track of your groceries, letting you know what you need, what you already have, and what’s ready to expire, so you save time, money, and waste less food. It is also capable of running other apps, including one for recipes, groceries, memos, a calendar, photos, temperature settings, and more.

5. WeatherTRAK sprinklers 

A helpful tool for all of your irrigation needs, this advanced controller works with 6, 8, or 12 station sprinklers and can be managed from your smartphone. This is especially helpful for those of you who have water restrictions in place, as it’s EPA WaterSense approved and has a SWAT smart performance score of one hundred percent. You can save time, money, and water thanks to remote alerts and the ability to manage from your app anywhere, anytime. It also has one-touch customer support right at your fingertips.

We hope you enjoyed our selection of energy saving products and their apps. Now that you’ve seen a few of the products available, we want to hear from you. How far are you willing to go to make your life more efficient? Would you like to see any of these products in your own home? Let us know your thoughts on the EcoSalon Facebook page!

Related on EcoSalon

Modular Furniture Ideas for Every Room in the House

Every Drop Counts: Low-Flow Fixtures for Kitchens and Baths

The 5 Best Air Purifiers for Your Home: Breathe Easier, Breathe Cleaner 

Image of Woman with Smartphone via Shutterstock

The post 5 Energy-Saving Home Automation Products and Apps appeared first on EcoSalon.

You know it’s true. You might forget your head if it wasn’t screwed on, but you would never, ever leave your smartphone at home. This fact could work in your favor next time you head out to a concert or event and leave behind everything you need for the evening – except your tickets, because they’ll be on, yep, your smartphone! (Oh, and how much do you hate Ticketmaster? More on that later”¦)

Twicketer is a new paperless ticketing service (can you say save like a billion trees?) that uses what TriplePundit is calling “a scam proof system” for on-phone ticket sales and downloading. The process is simple enough: Event promoters create an account on Twicketer, set up an event and are given a URL that can be used in promotions anywhere online: via email, websites, Facebook, Twitter, wherever. (Twicketer refers to its service as “social ticketing,” by the way.)

To get your paperless ticket, you just click on the URL and you’re taken to a website that accepts PayPal or credit cards in exchange for a for-your-use-only link where you’ll “accept” your ticket to your phone. (You can buy multiples if you like, and distribute them to your friends’ phones, as well.) Security at the event checks your phone “like an ID card.” With a couple of taps you verify your ticket with the system’s servers and voila, the velvet rope’s undone. The service can also be used for coupons and vouchers.

The technology was developed by Twicketer’s parent company, Screen Ticket, which has developed something called “On Device Verification,” a patent-pending feature that makes it possible to redeem coupons and tickets without the use of scanners or any other hardware. This is great news for folks putting on events (or redeeming coupons) as everything’s done directly on your web-enabled phone, which also provides real-time statistics about conversion rates, usage and other info that marketers get all excited about. The technology also boasts a seven-ways-from-Sunday, you-so-can’t-f-with-it security system.

Twicketer is now in beta, but is looking like a damn good idea. The service can already deliver mobile tickets to more than 200 countries through hundreds of mobile carriers and is prefect for events both big and small. And here’s a big kicker: the service charge is only 99 cents a ticket! Setting aside for a moment the fact that we all love using our smartphones for doing, well, pretty much everything, consider the service charges and general hassles Ticketmaster, et al., have been killing you with for, oh, how many years now? Wouldn’t it be nice to stick it to the Ticketmaster man? By the way, a quick Google of “Why does Ticketmaster suck so bad?” is some great fun. (Oops! Does the link I provided for Ticketmaster just now take you to ticketmastersucks.org? Did I do that?!)

Image: micahtaylor

The post Showtime for Smartphones: Calling It in with Paperless Ticketing appeared first on EcoSalon.