An ever-increasing body of research explores the effectiveness of Home Energy Management Systems (HEMS) in achieving energy savings in households. To date, however, the overall life cycle impact of the HEMS itself has not been taken into account. Thus, no assessment has been made whether the amount of energy saved (e(saved)) outweighs the energy needed for production, use and disposal (e(invested)). Therefore, an eco-cost and a Cumulative Energy Demand (CED) method were used to analyze three distinct types of HEMS. Based on the literature, six scenarios were developed in order to find the break-even point, where e(invested) = e(saved). The results show that the overall impact is dependent on the type of HEMS, and that if the duration of use is short and the achieved savings are small, the benefits do not always outweigh the environmental costs. Care should be taken not to develop HEMS with unnecessarily elaborate parts or functionalities and that their own electricity consumption is minimized. The paper concludes by discussing the implication for polices concerning the implementation of smart meters and HEMS and their design. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.