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Going green is getting easier all the time thanks to the latest technological advancements and humanity’s inexhaustible fountain of entrepreneurial ingenuity. If you’re working on a budget, start small by getting energy efficient light bulbs or a water-conserving shower head. If you really want to commit to the cause, you might consider a backyard wind turbine or solar panel kit. Regardless of where you are on your ecological journey, we’ve found some products that can help you go one step further.
Many of the devices we leave idle but plugged in draw a small amount of power that adds up over time. An energy-saving power strip like the CyberPower P705G helps you avoid this wastage by automatically cutting the juice to up to three devices whenever a master device—like your computer—is switched off or goes into sleep mode. It’s called a smart strip for a reason.
You can shave as much as a quarter off your heating bill with this clever thermostat from ecobee, which automatically adjusts temperatures seasonally and throughout the day to save energy. This premium kit also comes with a smart sensor that detects when a room is being used and an air quality monitor to give you confidence in the air you breathe.
If you’ve got teens who seem to spend whole mornings in the bathroom, this water-saving showerhead is a must. You can set it to either 1 or 1.5 gallons (around 4 to 6 litres) per minute. And no need to worry about it being dribbly; this showerhead has a patented high-pressure, low-flow design that pushes water through smaller holes to ensure the stream still has scouring power.
We tend to think of wind turbines as mammoth structures meant only for the countryside and coastal waters, but there are plenty of smaller, more affordable models meant for home use. This 12-volt, 400 watt turbine sports compact 24-inch blades and requires only a gentle breeze to start generating power. Plus, it automatically adjusts yaw to ensure it’s always facing the right direction.
Folks who are serious about saving energy on home lighting tend to gravitate to Philips Hue. The power-saving bulbs use 80% less energy than traditional incandescent bulbs, and you can set timers, intensity, and colour. They’re pricey, and require a “bridge” (helpfully included in this four-bulb kit), but they last around 25,000 hours—which is more than a dozen years if you use them five hours per day.
With more cities enforcing outdoor water use restrictions, now is a great time to start using a water-conserving sprinkler controller. Rachio’s smart system is easy to install, manages watering for up to four zones, and can be controlled by an app on your phone. Better still, it monitors the weather and will skip unnecessary watering if it has rained recently or the temperature drops below freezing.
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Vivosun Outdoor Tumbling Composter -$139.99
FCMP Wood Grain Rain Barrel (45 gallon) – $145.00 at Amazon Canada
OVAL AIR 3-Stage H13 True HEPA 5-in-1 Air Purifier – $254.99
TP-Link Kasa Smart Wi-Fi Plug Lite – 4 Pack, $37.99
ECO-WORTHY 200 Watts 12 Volts Solar Panel Starter Kit, $215.99
Everything has a carbon footprint these days, even locally grown food. You can cut back on the distance some of your chow travels with this small indoor garden. It comes with everything you need to get started growing leafy green lettuce, cherry tomatoes, and basil. Bonus: The plants help brighten the room and freshen the air.
These outdoor security cameras with 2K resolution and night vision do their thing while remaining completely off the grid, drawing all the power they need from a small solar panel that you can attach nearby and angle to make the most of the sun’s rays. They only switch on when a motion sensor is triggered, and you can keep up to three days worth of recorded footage in the cloud for free before it gets recorded over.
The LARQ Bottle isn’t cheap, but it wants to be the last water bottle you ever buy. Not only will it eliminate single use plastic bottles from your life, it’s also the world’s first self-cleaning bottle. At the touch of a button it runs a UV-C LED-based cleaning cycle that scrubs the inner surface and kills bacteria and viruses, ensuring your tap water always tastes and smells clean and pure.
Green bins are good, but if you have a yard or garden you may want to consider this electric kitchen composter. It turns food scraps into fertilizer in less than 24 hours, creating a nutritious plant food that you can safely spread outside your home. And it was designed and developed in British Columbia, so you’ll be buying Canadian.
This rugged portable power station might be the easiest way to make the most of the sun’s radiant energy. A folding solar panel fully charges the battery in an hour (it even works in cloudy conditions), letting you power up any devices you plugged into its one DC, two AC, one USB-C, and two USB-A ports.
You know how most air purifiers have filters that need to be replaced? Not the Natede Smart. The pollutants it removes from the air are transformed into nutrients that get absorbed by a plant (of your choosing) that sits in a pot on top. All you need to do to maintain the purifier is wash a small filter under the tap every five years. If there’s a cooler plant pot out there, we haven’t seen it.
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Google Nest Wi-Fi Smart Thermostat – Charcoal, $179.99
Eve Energy Strip – $136.99
Govee Smart Light Bulbs – $32.99
GoveeLife WiFi Water Leak Detector 2, $129.99
Nanoleaf Shapes Hexagon Light Panels – Smarter Kit – 7 Panels, $279.99
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