Energy costs in the developed world have experienced a tumultuous time recently, and Ontarians have experienced this volatility firsthand. Over the past couple of years alone, the Ontario Electricity Market Price has fluctuated from monthly lows bottoming out at 22.46 to Winter highs reaching up to 133.21.
On a larger scale, the Ontario government has invested in three larger production projects to reduce unpredictable high costs, securing around 640 MW of new capacity. On the individual level, new technologies are helping Ontarians keep a firm hand on their expenditure, and this is where the new generation of smart home AI comes in.
The Traditional Smart Home
Traditional smart home systems work by automating home processes that would typically be done by hand. This includes turning on and off lights and air conditioners when users are home or away, or setting washing/drying cycles to better align with hours of cheaper energy costs. This kind of granular access can also be managed via the internet, letting people change their settings as they desire from a distance.
What Makes AI Systems Different?
Newer AI models of smart homes like the Apple HomePod mini or Home Assistant Green offer the full suite of tech available from traditional systems, updated to allow for even greater control. The primary difference is that older systems always relied on the user’s input; AI systems can learn and implement a range of solutions based on changing patterns.
In a traditional smart home, lights might be turned off at a certain time of night. With AI, a platform could turn lights on and off whenever somebody enters a room. Similarly, instead of being set to a timer, air conditioners running with AI could follow people around the house, toggling power based on a person’s preferred temperatures, the external temperature, physical activity, and the total number of residents.
AI technology could take this a step further by mapping scheduled tasks to recent news and updates about changing energy costs. Some systems might be set to message users when energy costs are the lowest, asking them if now might be a good time to start a wash and dry cycle. While not every system possesses all of these features, they all illustrate ways that smaller savings can eventually add up to something more.
Part of the AI Equation
AI smart home systems have the potential to affect appreciable and ongoing savings to Ontarians, as part of a great AI push which increasingly dominating our daily lives. More specifically, it succeeds because it is a targeted form of AI, which tends to be much more accurate than generalised systems. Generalised forms of AI, while useful, can produce hallucination rates upwards of 90% in certain benchmarks, making them a kind of double-edged sword.
Specially built home and business AI removes this issue by avoiding a jack-of-all-trades and master of none system. A modern customer data platform in the business space, for example, centres on data structures and fields. It understands the entirety of what occurs in this specific context, syncing and scaling with existing data without needing to guess or rely on nebulous training methods. As in modern smart homes, a specialised system is one which provides the most reliable and usable outcomes.
Source: Pixabay
Ontarians don’t and will never strictly need smart home solutions for savings, but their potential should be seriously considered if energy concerns are important to you. The technology is easier to implement than ever, it’s more powerful than ever, and the savings it produces can quickly justify the cost.
