By Alex Steffen from Worldchanging

There is a direct link between the growing "intelligence" of our homes -- their increasing ability to use electronics to sense, monitor and adapt -- and their sustainability. Many of the coolest aspects of green building involve the building itself responding to the conditions around it, working with, rather than against, the sun, wind and weather. Such adaptive, responsive buildings are at least as important a goal as radical new material breakthroughs.

We don't even need robotic edge monkeys crawling all over our homes to get there. The tools are ready-to-hand or coming soon. Smart homes can automate the opening and closing of windows to maintain ventilation and cooling, angle sunshades for optimal solar heat gain, even turn geothermal heat pumps on and off.

Smart homes can also change the way we think about inhabiting our homes, by revealing to us previously hidden connections and facilitating better choices. Making intelligent action the easiest choice is a powerful design strategy. Using meters (like the PowerCost Monitor) to show us the results of our actions has a powerful effect: as we've noted before, studies show that simply making people aware of their energy use can induce them to use 10% less energy before they even get around to a swapping out an incandescent for a CFL. Sending price signals as we make consumption choices (from pay-as-you-go car insurance to pay-as-you-throw garbage fees) can bring home the backstory of actions we've tended to ignore: true costing can become a form of perspective-shifting.