Today you often see people making the move to turning their home into a smart home. With plenty of compatible technology, Smartthings is a company that is helping people with that move.

What is SmartThings Power Allowance? Power allowance offers you the same thing many motion detected lights offer, a way to set your lights and other technologies to turn off after an allotted amount of time. After an easy setup, you can get your regular smart lights on a scheduled shut off time, and save yourself some money in the process

Turning your home into a smart home can be a daunting task. Power allowance is just one of the many different conveniences that smart devices offer you, and not that many people know about it. Particularly when you are just dipping your toes into smart devices. This article will give you a short rundown on all you need to know about Power Allowance.

Perks to Using Power Allowance

The perks to using Power Allowance are limitless when you think about it, and most of these perks are summed up to saving money with reduced electricity use.

Lights

We are all guilty of leaving lights on from time to time, and with this feature that will be a thing of the past.

For example, you can set the lights to turn off an hour or so after bedtime.

Charging

All of us own a variety of smartphones, laptops, tablets, gaming devices, etc. Being that we are all generally awake during the day, we like to charge our electronics at night, and we don’t generally wake up after an hour or so to unplug them.

With Power Allowance you can set your smart plug to turn off after an hour or so, thus saving electricity.

Children

Children can also be a drain on power. Most people have memories of their parents constantly reminding them to turn the lights off, turn the thermostat down, etc.

Now you can program these devices to turn off after a certain amount of time, rather than running around the house after your kids, turning everything off.

It will even save you from being the “mean parent.” You will no longer have to constantly remind your children to get off their televisions or video games. Power Allowance will allow you to schedule a time for them to shut off.

The power-saving options are as limited as your imagination. If you find your imagination lacking, you can always visit the SmartThings blog, and see what other people have thought up!

How to Create a Switch

To set up your Power Allowance, you will need to create a virtual switch. A virtual switch is the same thing as an on-off switch you would find in your home, but instead, you will find it on your smart device.

You can even create a master switch to control multiple switches.

Here is a step by step guide to creating your virtual switch:

  • Find “My Devices”Once you’ve done that, click “New Device”You will need to enter the name you want for the device.You may enter a label for the device, but that is an optional step.Create a “Device Network ID”, this can be anything you want, but don’t make it too complicated.It will have to be a different name from other devices.Leave the “Zigbee ID” blank.When selecting a “Type” from the dropdown, pick “Simulated Switch.”Choose published for the “Version.”Your hub location should be “Location.”Your hub name should be “Hub.”The final step will be to click “Create.”

Once all of these steps are completed you will be able to access your virtual switch under “Things” on your SmartThings app (Source.)

Using Power Allowance

Power Allowance is featured in smart lighting, located in the SmartThings app. This setup will be just as easy, if not easier than setting up your switch.

Here is how you set up Power Allowance:

  • Select your virtual switch.On this page, it will ask, “What do you want to do?” Select “Turn Off.”You will see “How do you want to trigger the action” on the same page as step two.Scroll to the bottom of the page and select “power allowance exceeded.”This will give you a new option, and from there you can put in how many minutes you want for your Power Allowance.

After these steps are completed you will have your Power Allowance set up for that switch.