Environmental saving potentials of a smart home system from a life cycle perspective: How green is the smart home?

Smart home applications have the potential to reduce household energy consumption. With an empirical study, we examine environmental saving potentials of smart home systems with automated heating functions. We conduct a life cycle assessment of an average smart home system in Germany. In this article by Johanna Pohl, Tilman Santarius and other coauthors in the Journal of Cleaner Production, we show that savings are indeed possible, but are conditional to user behavior and the number of other smart home system components. Including both the life cycle perspective and user-driven parameters is crucial when determining the total environmental effects of smart homes.