Your energy consumption is a major budget line item for your household and with the recent heat wave, you have probably felt the impact to your bottom line. Just being aware of your energy use is the first step to understanding how you can reduce your usage, but what feedback do you get besides your monthly bill? By the time you get your bill, it is too late, and you can’t do anything to change it.
You Can’t Manage What You Don’t Measure
As a resident of metro Detroit, I have forever been a customer of DTE Energy, even when it was Detroit Edison. Through the years, they have stepped up their game in providing free access to audits, services, and apps to help their customers use less energy.
DTE released their Insight app in 2014 as a resource to customers who have their smart meters installed. This app allows them to see daily usage for electricity and gas (where available), provide feedback on trends (it’s hot out, try to run your dishwasher at night) and offer dozens of project suggestions to help save energy in all seasons of the year.
Real-Time Energy Use Feedback
This app will also pair with their Energy Bridge, which is currently still in testing mode, which is an additional piece of hardware plugged in at your house. The Energy Bridge can give real-time information, whereas the app with the smart meter alone has about a 2-day delay.
Manage Your Budget
The DTE Energy Insight app also integrates a budget feature, so you can tell the app what you’d like to spend, and it will keep track of your trend to know if you will overshoot or undershoot your budget. It can also incorporate the weather information so you can know if a particular high usage day was because of the extreme heat outside.
Weekly Challenges
The app encourages daily check-ins by providing different challenges every week. They could be just to open the app and look at your usage for four days this week, or to try and reduce by 3% compared to last week.
When you accomplish a challenge, you get points, and you can upgrade your digital “house” with different features, colors, and layouts.
App Availability
The Insight App is available to all DTE Customers with smart meters. You can download the app and use all features for free for iOS or Android systems by visiting this page.
We recommend the meter and app combination for you to check out to see if it’s right for you, and maybe it can help you save energy. This is article is not a due to a partnership with or endorsement of DTE Energy.
As always, contact Pro Home Improvement with questions or for more energy saving ideas at 888-776-1998.