With many things going away it is interesting to see that ST has now gained Energy Star certification for smart home energy management systems. https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/us-epas-energy-star-program-advances-energy-management-through-smart-homes. Certainly, part of the power of ST or competing platforms is to limit unneeded parasitic power use.
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Iām notā¦ Againstā¦ this.
Im just still trying to figure out exactly what part of SmartThings got ācertifiedā
Energy Star (IMHO) has unfortunately devolved into one of those things that says āthey at least said theyāve thought about efficiencyā
With ST (and any home automation platform really) your energy data is only as good as whatās fed in. It takes monitoring devices. This just tells me. Theyāre slapping EnergyStar on anything that shows an energy dashboard. ābecause it helps users be more informedā In that case slap it on the Alexa app and Homeassistant as well both of those platforms also have dedicated dashboards for energy. (and honestly are farther along the path than ST)
Im a fan of energy finally coming front and center in home automation in general (I specifically love the offerings from SPAN and Schneider with managed electric distribution panels in the US, and own two SPAN panels) but this feels a little disingenuousā¦ But I blame the US government on this one not SmartThings.
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Agreed, although I think it is more than a dashboard (which IMHO ST has not done that well). I think it is mostly the ācapabilityā to do something. But capability and doing are two very different thingsā¦ Officially: Key features of the SHEMS performance criteria include:
- ENERGY STAR certified smart thermostat, ENERGY STAR certified lighting and plug load control.
- Standby limits on all required devices.
- Ability to receive and utilize occupancy information to produce energy-saving actions (e.g. schedules, suggested actions, service-initiated actions like adjusting the heat when no one is home).
- User access to energy use information to facilitate energy-saving behavior.
- A daily kWh budget for operating lights while away.
- Grid communication to enable demand response functionality.
- Integration with utility dynamic (time of use) pricing schedules.
Having been involved with energy efficiency for many years, I raised the question when this was posted on Linkedin about studies that show these systems save energy. My guess is that the average user and probably many on this forum really donāt leverage ST to save energy by scheduling or using controls to turn unneeded equipment off and hence may actually increase consumption as all of these devices directly or indirectly draw some type of power.
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SmartThings as a whole didnāt get certified.
The certification applies only to the āsmartthings energy service,ā and then only in specific configurations, when all of the device is being monitored by that service have the ability to be put into standby. And are themselves energy star certified.
So I donāt think itās disingenuous: I just think itās a little confusing. 
With ENERGY STAR certification of the new Samsung SmartThings Home Energy service
Right now itās very limited in the devices you can attach to it. At one point it was only specific models of Samsung appliances: I donāt know if thatās still true.
Seems very Samsung centricā¦
It is. The project was initially developed to help property managers of multi unit buildings manage large fleets of Samsung appliances.
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Thanks JD - I figured you had the detail hereā¦
Ahhh marketing spin promoting a certification earned for one part of a product as the wholeā¦ You go, marketingā¦ pats their little heads good job!
facepalm
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Currently it is not possible to add energy reporting plugs, sockets to the energy app, even though it clearly states in there graphics it isā¦ something that has been urksome since i started using the energy app
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Iād hoped to do this as well and or have the app confirm the status of things, but it does not look like that functionality exists.
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Weāre seeing this everywhere these days with Matter.
Big name brand supports Matter!
.
fineprint: for one model, which is planned for released sometime in the next few months
To be fair, sometimes itās a press error, like all the bloggers who wrote that Aqara was going to have Matter certification for āover 40 devicesā when in fact, they were certifying one hub, which will bring in over 40 Zigbee devices. The Zigbee devices themselves are not individually certified for matter. 
their individual Matter end devices are coming later.
Indeed - itās hard to keep track of it. Heck even Stacey got it wrong last week somewhere in the middle of the show she mentioned ST would export its devices to something like Google (Clearly describing a Matter bridge) when we know ST at the present time has no plans for a bridge. No, I donāt have the timecode, I just remember chuckling in the car when I heard her - āwell thereās a retraction next weekā¦ā
In any case Iām all for more efficient white goods, and ST marketing got us to talk about it - so again pats their little heads good job marketingā¦
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To be fair, smartthings and Google have a special arrangement planned, where Matter devices added to either platform will be automatically added to the other. Itās not a āmatter bridgeā but it is a close integration.
There has been a question raised as to whether that will only work for people with a galaxy device, but that hasnāt been answered yet.
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This EPA ācertificationā ruffled my feathers a bit when it was announced. I posted a Twitter thread of why it doesnāt make any sense.
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