We are officially entering the era of Home Energy Management 2.0. Or 3.0. It doesn’t matter. It’s a whole lot better than the first .0, which featured energy monitoring systems that did a nice job of reporting your energy use—but little else.

Don’t go away. The latest level of home energy management not only affects real money-saving changes in your home—some of this stuff is actually cool looking, fun to use and dare we say, sexy. OK, maybe not sexy in that hubba-hubba or killer A/V way. But as the following products prove, managing the energy in your home is getting a lot easier—and more appealing.

And we probably won’t be in this 2.0, or 3.0 or whatever .0 stage for long. This stuff is changing fast. Take a peek at the cool energy-saving devices that are already here or will soon be arriving.

Check out the slideshow to learn about these 8 great energy solutions.

Steven Castle - Contributing Writer

Steven Castle is Electronic House's managing editor. he has been writing about consumer electronics, homes and energy efficiency topics for two decades. He is also the co-founder of GreenTech Advocates.