Behind The Walls
Security Vision is more than just security—it’s about transforming the way you live. Tune in to discover how we can turn your home, backyard, or business into your dream space. From smart home automation to custom outdoor kitchens, we bring innovation, comfort, and style together—all in one place.
Behind The Walls
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Happy Friday, Coastal Retreaters!
This week on Behind the Walls, we're exploring how smart home technology can do more than add convenience—it can help you save money every single month.
Join founder Michele Weissman as she discusses how home automation can reduce energy costs by creating schedules for thermostats, lighting, irrigation systems, and other energy-hungry appliances. Discover how your home's control panel—the "brain" of your smart home—can automate daily routines, monitor energy usage, send helpful alerts, and give you complete control of your lights, shades, garage doors, and even your coffee maker with the touch of a button.
Whether you're looking to lower your electric bill, simplify your daily routine, or make your home work smarter, this episode is packed with practical tips to help you save energy, time, and money.
Behind the walls by security vision, security and more. A whole lot more. Welcome to Behind the Walls. It is the podcast from Security Vision. Michelle is here and Kyle is here. Welcome back. Thank you. You know, one of the things that is so important right now, affordability is a big issue. My electric bill has not stayed the same. And some of the things that Security Vision can help with is controlling energy costs. And I'm I'm kind of curious to explore that a little bit. Let's talk about how we might help on energy bills and other economy measures.
SPEAKER_00So there's a lot of things we can do within our security platform. Um, you know, as we kind of say security is not only security anymore, it's about creating that smart home and all the things that can tie into it and the rules that you could set through your traditional panel that we start with when we always start with a security system in a house. So from there, you know, the things that we can add on are and things that can help with the security. Of course, so you can replace your thermostat that we can control, tie into. You can adjust that settings to say, you know, this certain time of day when you're not home, you want the temperature to be at a certain temperature, but that night you like it a little colder, so you want to bring it down. That way you're not running the system fighting when it's you know 90-some degrees outside and you're trying to keep it cool when nobody's there. So that's is kind of one of step number one of what we tie into.
SPEAKER_02Now, when you talk about the panel, you're installing your own panel.
SPEAKER_00Our own security panel is the hub. It's the brains of your security system, it's the brains of the um the smart home devices as well.
SPEAKER_02And it and where where does that go?
SPEAKER_00Uh traditionally, it's a good-looking touch screen keypad that would go, you know, either in your main kitchen living room area, it could go by your garage entry door, it could go by your front door. Um, typically nowadays, because there's so many other things you can add on security, like keyless entry door locks, um, your phone virtually becomes your keypad, your smart keypad as well. You do not have to have it right by your entry door anymore. So because you can add cameras, you can lock your doors, you can control your lights, you can do other things with it. It's now usually more closer to the kitchen area. That way, if somebody rings your doorbell, you can see who's who's there by looking at your keypad and not having to find your phone.
SPEAKER_02Or this is kind of science fiction-y.
SPEAKER_00I mean, it really is.
SPEAKER_02But but in terms of costs, it's it's more than just the thermostat.
SPEAKER_00It well, true. So there are other things.
SPEAKER_02Which all those that's a big issue.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's that's kind of step number one that we kind of talked about. The other thing is about the things that are running. So let's just say you have um your um you have certain waterfalls, or you have a sprinkler system, or you have other things that are using energy and you don't want them to run at certain times of day. Again, we can put in um controllable switches or outlets that you can make them smart. So now you can set a schedule as to when you want certain things to run.
SPEAKER_02This is through the panel.
SPEAKER_00Through the panel.
SPEAKER_02In other words, I don't have to do I don't have to do anything once it's set.
SPEAKER_00Nope. You don't have to do anything.
SPEAKER_01Well, and and um it's a very uh big thing down here in Myrtle Beach area because our electric company now charges you extra from three to six in the peak time. Now it'll be a few years. But so to be able to control those devices and turn them on at a certain time and turn them off at a certain time, you know, like pool controls, which is a huge, you know, down here, you know, with the with the pools and the and the pool heaters and pool chillers, you know, to have that running during the peak hours kills your electric bill.
SPEAKER_02So it you set it up where automatically, for example, right now, it'll turn it off at 259. Exactly. Turn it back on at 605 or whatever that may be.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and and that's and that's huge for energy savings. And and we also do, and if you have other devices that are not within our security platform, we do do control systems that are separate from security that are part of the home automation. Um and they have a uh a much bigger catalog of devices that we can use to control in a smart home system.
SPEAKER_02Okay, talk about that because I'm I'm not sure which you're talking about.
SPEAKER_01So home automation meaning meaning control pretty much of everything that is controllable. So your lights, your shades, your coffee maker, your um faucets, you know, if you have a Mowen faucet, you know, you want to turn the shower on before you get out of bed, you can put those on an app with a control system. Like you can see.
SPEAKER_02So my alarm clock goes off at whatever, and then I program it to the shower.
SPEAKER_01You can set schedules to turn your outside lights off, your inside lights on, you know, lock certain doors. You know, we do multiple control systems, you know, some voice, um, and we use control four for a lot of products, a lot of the you know the coffee makers and the uh pool equipment and the shades and all that stuff.
SPEAKER_00And some of the bigger draws, like hot water heaters, is that something you'll so there are the you what do you mean as far as monitoring them?
SPEAKER_02Well, or I've heard that you don't want them heating during the peak hours.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we haven't really um done done done with those, but uh again, if it's controllable, if we can control it, we can set schedules for it. Somehow you're you're tying into all of this hundreds of.
SPEAKER_02I mean I've heard things like uh you know, TVs are never really off. And you can pull the power down to nothing.
SPEAKER_01Um Yeah, I mean you can. Um their their draw is pretty minimal.
SPEAKER_02What are the big draws? What are what's really sucking?
SPEAKER_01Any any heating element is the biggest draw, you know, like your hot water heater, your you know, your uh heat pumps, your um pool equipment heaters, a dryer, a dryer, a washing machine, uh anything, really the heating element is the biggest draw on a the electric in your house.
SPEAKER_02And somehow you'll be able to help coordinate the times that they are using, sucking the most energy.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, instead of saying, you know what, oh crap, I'm at work and I forgot to, you know, set the the hot water heater to a certain time, you know, and it's so again it's running, you know, our kids are home, they're taking showers and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_02And right, and some of this is teaching uh kids I'm turning the hot water heater off until such and such a time.
SPEAKER_01So, but it is controllable. So now that is adding to your experience in in your home, a better experience. Right.
SPEAKER_02And dropping your energy costs uh or water costs. I mean, I've talked I was just yesterday talking to some people who says their water bills are going through the roof. Well, you know, we're we're watering our lawns, we're and there's peak times now with water usage. Yeah. It's like you don't want to be out there watering your lawn at five o'clock in the afternoon.
SPEAKER_00And we can set alerts to um as well. So let's say if your water is flowing and the parents want to know that the kids are there doing something, you know, they could be alerted and say, wait, can you not wait and run this? Or they could shut something down where they couldn't run the washing.
SPEAKER_02So you'll get an alert that you can't declare a shower for 15 minutes.
SPEAKER_00If you wanted to be alert, there are things that we can alert of. Right, right.
SPEAKER_02If you got a house full hold of house full of kids, I think I'd want to know that. Absolutely. Wow. So saving the money on the energy costs, you know, clearly that's a factor. Installing this is relatively simple. That's what you do.
SPEAKER_00It's what we do. Yeah. It again, we build it based on what the customers' needs are, and then it doesn't have to be a new build.
SPEAKER_02I mean, you put these in on anything, but yeah, it could be a retro job. And some of this obviously is because the new uh uh appliances or pools or whatever, they're smart, smart enabled. Yeah. Which still amaze you? I mean, I'm amazed. It's like you gotta be kidding me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. It amazed me when they ask me to um control, you know, the coffee maker or the espresso machine to, you know, set up a program where at 7 30 every morning the espresso machine.
SPEAKER_02Because they want that cup of espresso. When they walk into the kitchen, right, and it's there, yeah. It's sort of like it's a restaurant, I don't have to do anything. Well, it's just amazing. Well, and again, the process is simple. You'll come, take a look. Absolutely. Are we doing a lot of this?
SPEAKER_01We are doing more than we ever have.
SPEAKER_02Really? And who who's doing it? What are the who are the customers for this?
SPEAKER_00So again, there's there's different platforms. Um most everyone can afford the the introductory package that we kind of do with a lot of our stuff through our uh alarm.com control security platform. You can do a lot of your most of your basic automation things as long as it's within a certain amount of numbers, right? Like you could do, I'd recommend, yeah, you could do 10 or so lights, but if you want to do the whole house, we want to step you up to more of a control system. Right. Right? If you're wanting to do a couple locks, or if you're wanting to do, you know, uh a few different few shades, things like that, then yes, we can do that on a simple platform, and anybody can easily afford that, adding things on as they want to add on. If somebody's wanting to do the whole house control of their TVs and all of their lights and all of the shades, more involved. Exactly. Right. Then, you know, of course, that would take, you know, a little bit more and of not everybody being able to do that. But we can customize based on what somebody's needs, concerns, looks, budget.
SPEAKER_02I'm guessing if you're traveling a good bit, this would be a nice sense of security.
SPEAKER_00Yes, we do a lot of second homes, turn on the lights. There's also things that we could do with like rental properties. So, you know, talking about the energy savings as well, if you have a rental property and we're putting in the HVC thermostat unit to be able to control the thermostat. And now you have somebody on vacation that they're on vacation, they don't care, they want to leave the doors open and still keep the air running. Uh-huh. Well, that costs a lot of extra money. So we can also set a rule that if the sliding glass door is left open more than five minutes, it will slowly start turning off the heat and air unit. So, you know, they're not paying to keep the outside cool.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because and we love our renters, they're all great, but I've seen so many instances when they're not as maybe as concerned about the property as we would hope they would be. Yes, correct. That is pretty cool. Yeah. Why is it getting so warm in here?
SPEAKER_00Close the door. Yeah, and once that door shuts again, then the the air will kick back up.
SPEAKER_02I think that is great.
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_02It uh again, all of this stuff just sounds like science fiction in in many ways, but it's terrific. To find out more, we haven't mentioned your website. Oh, place to start.
SPEAKER_00Yes, come check us out at SecurityVisionmb.com. So that's SecurityVision MB from Myrtle Beach.com.
SPEAKER_02Michelle and Kyle, let's do another. Behind the walls, the podcast from Security Vision. Thank you.