Imagine a connected, efficient home where systems such as heating and cooling, water heating, appliances, and lighting seamlessly communicate and optimize valued amenities. Where the entire residence automatically addresses consumer preferences through established settings combined with occupancy data, energy prices, algorithms, and machine learning. A home that enables improved user experience through customized recommendations for saving money on energy bills, increased comfort at home, contributions to more reliable energy delivery, and the ability to help prevent and repair equipment failures.
The Integrated Home Competition identifies and supports newly available products that will work to achieve this vision of a comfortable, convenient, connected home. The Competition promotes devices and systems that meet consumer expectations in terms of interoperability, reliability, and simplicity of use with an emphasis on delivering energy performance and demand savings.
Comfortable. Convenient. Connected. With the wide range of offerings in the market, it can be difficult for consumers to choose the best ones. The CEE Integrated Home Competition provides designers and manufacturers the opportunity to stand out from the crowd by awarding energy saving, connected products that deliver an excellent consumer experience.
The exceptional products identified as winners by the Judging Panel of experts are heavily promoted through the Competition campaign and Sponsor endorsement for a full calendar year, gaining exposure among industry leaders and consumers alike.
The Competition seeks all connected products with demonstrated energy savings or load management capabilities. including connected thermostats, HVAC equipment (gas and electric), water heaters (gas and electric), combination space and water heating (“combi”) units, pool pumps, ceiling fans, lighting and lighting controls, window attachments, plug load controls, and other connected home devices.
The 2024 Integrated Home Competition will assess small-load entries. Eligible products include whole home energy management solutions, home appliances, plug load controls, window attachments, lighting and lighting controls, ceiling fans, and other connected home devices that deliver a positive consumer experience and provide load management capabilities.
The 2025 Integrated Home Competition will assess large-load entries, including connected thermostats, HVAC equipment (gas and electric), water heaters (gas and electric), electric vehicle supply equipment, combination space and water heating (“combi”) units, pool pumps, and other connected home devices.
The Integrated Home Competition is organized by the Air Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI), the American Lighting Association (ALA), the Consortium for Energy Efficiency (CEE) and UL.
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The annual Lighting for Tomorrow competition was created in 2002 to recognize the best decorative, energy efficient lighting fixtures in the market. Through 2017, Lighting for Tomorrow encouraged manufacturers to develop well designed, energy efficient lighting products with a specific goal of increasing the availability and market adoption of ENERGY STAR® certified residential lighting products.
In 2017, Lighting for Tomorrow Sponsors realized that the lighting market had been transformed to center highly efficient lighting technologies and decided to turn their attention to a new challenge: connected lighting.
A 2018 workshop brought together nearly 40 individuals from 25 different organizations, including utility program administrators and regional energy efficiency groups; connected home, home energy management, and Internet of things (IoT) strategy experts; lamp, fixture, and lighting control manufacturers; designers, vendors, and consultants; and publication and research entities. They identified the key opportunities of not just connected lighting, but all connected products: interoperability, reliability, and simplicity.
The result of this workshop was the creation of an expanded Lighting & Homes for Tomorrow competition that launched in 2020. This iteration of the competition recognized nine excellent connected home products with the potential to deliver on those opportunities.
To recognize a larger suite of available integrated home products and opportunities for consumers, the Integrated Home Competition is a continued evolution of the Lighting & Homes for Tomorrow platform with an enlarged focus to include larger residential loads and a full suite of offerings that contribute to an integrated home.
