Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I just switched from a Nest 3rd Gen thermostat with 2 remote sensors. I loved the Nest because of it’s simplicity and design. I’ve had a Nest for around 6 years. I’m no fan of Google and they now own Nest. They recently announced that they were going to end the Works with Nest program. It would have killed a good deal of my automations that depend on the program. Google has since reversed course and said that they would allow us to keep our old accounts and therefore our gadgets would continue to work. Why did I switch camps? Well, I was intrigued by the idea of the Follow Me mode. I have multiple sensors around my house. I bought 4 additional plus the one that came with this thermostat. Ecobee knows what room I’m in and adjusts the temperature accordingly. It's like magic. This feature alone was worth switching for because Nest only allow you to use it’s sensors based on a time schedule. I also love that I now have Apple Siri support along with Alexa and IFTTT. I could control the Nest with Alexa but as I discovered Google has other ideas about that and to make matters worse they refuse to add Siri support. After using the Ecobee for a week I have yet to see it enter Smart Away. I can monitor the motion sensors from HomeKit and I see that my cats constantly trigger them during the day. I’ve had to resort to turning off that feature and using geofencing to trigger Away / Home modes. Ecobee has added support for Apple HomeKit but I’ve had trouble with that as well. I have no idea why, maybe it’s because I don’t have the strongest cellular signal at my house. What I found is that using Life360 and IFTTT is far more reliable and works where HomeKit fails. As I understand it, Apple is working on HomeKit geofencing to improve it in iOS 13. Time will tell but for now I’ll stick with Life360. It sends a command through IFTTT to set Away and when I come home it sends the command to resume schedule. The new room sensors are small and unobtrusive and they claim to have a 5 year battery life using the largest button cell I’ve ever encountered. I wonder how much those cost when it’s time to replace them? Design wise I like the Nest better. The interface on the Ecobee is complicated and confusing. I’ve found that some things are easier or maybe mandatory to change on the unit itself or the web interface. The app seems to be missing some of the settings. I feel that the actual LCD panel could be larger. As it is there is a huge bezel and tons of wasted space. The bezel houses the spatial microphones and proximity sensor but there is really no reason the screen couldn’t be larger. I would like to see the screen change color, blue for cooling and orange for heating like the Nest. Many of the advanced settings are not explained in any detail as to what they actually do. I wouldn’t feel comfortable changing some of theses settings without the advice of a qualified A/C technician. This model has very good audio quality. I often use it to listen to music and talk radio. From what I’ve read it’s a big improvement over the audio quality of the old model. So what I have gained by switching? Built in Alexa and Siri support. Follow Me mode and additional room sensors. There has been a huge learning curve too but in the end I’m happy with it. EDIT: After much trial and error I learned that I was setting up Geofencing with HomeKit incorrectly. The ecobee app itself has Geofencing built in but it only supports one user. If you want multiuser Geofencing you have to use HomeKit or if you are an android user then there are probably different steps that I am unaware of. I had Geofencing turned on in the ecobee app and I was also trying to use Geofencing in HomeKit. You can’t use both simultaneously. After turning off Geofencing in the ecobee app and setting up Geofencing in HomeKit everything started to work properly. Edit December 11th, 2019: Ecobee issued a firmware update and broke one of the main features that I loved about this setup, GEOFENCING with Apple HomeKit is broken. They say to enable eco+ with minimal settings and the feature will still work but that doesn’t address the problem that I contacted them about. They broke the feature and either don’t understand the problem or don’t care. The way it works now is that the thermostat wants to try and schedule Home/Away modes based on what is senses via the motion sensors in the house. What if I’m off work on a holiday or I’m sick and stay home? The thermostat will go into away mode and I have to switch the comfort setting back. Using Geofencing it wouldn’t enter Away mode unless the last person left the house. See the problem? See the email I sent and their response below.... ME: Hi, After I got the firmware update to enable eco+ I am no longer able to use HomeKit and Geofencing to select COMFORT Settings. It only allows me to select a heating or cooling mode and the temperature. You broke one of the main features of the system that I use daily. All I want is for HomeKit to put the ecobee into Away mode when the last person leaves home and Resume Schedule when the first person arrives home. It used to work perfectly. Now it doesn’t. Now I’m forced to use IFTTT and Life360. Too complicated for me. Make HomeKit work again. You should also consider multi user / household support for Geofencing in your own app. It’s stupid to have geofencing built in for only a single user. Ecobee: Hello, Apologies for the late reply. If you have disabled eco+ completely, then the Smart Home/Away will also be disabled. I would suggest using a very minimal percentage of eco+ and that way Smart home/Away will be enabled. Regards, ecobee Support Jay Hannah Dec 4, 8:26 AM EST More correspondence with Ecobee support on this issue... ecobee Support (ecobee Support) Dec 11, 12:54 PM EST Hello, With regards to geofencing, yes we are experiencing some issues and our team is looking into it. I understand that at the moment, the schedule is rigid and I am not entirely sure if eco+ is causing this. But I will have to reach out and get a confirmation on this. Regards, ecobee Support Jay Hannah Dec 11, 5:06 AM EST I’m not talking about SMART HOME / AWAY, I’m talking about the GEOFENCING features of Apple HomeKit. There is a huge difference. I see that Smart Home / Away is still there but I want the system to recognize via Geofencing when the last person leaves the house and then set the comfort profile to AWAY. It’s a smarter way of doing this because your scheduling system is rigid but GEOFENCING is dynamic based on the location of the users phones. What if I’m home from work on a sick day? Your rigid schedule tries to set the system to Smart Away if I’m in bed sleeping with no movement in the house. Geofencing wouldn’t allow that because my phone hasn’t left the house so it knows I’m home and wouldn’t set the comfort profile to Away. See the difference? Please fix this issue. Why can’t your new eco+ setup work in tandem with Geofencing? Think about this. You are designing a “Smart Thermostat” so make it smart enough to know when someone is home based on Geofencing. It could be an option to turn off if someone doesn’t want to use it but don’t kill the feature for the rest of us. On Dec 10, 2019, 2:00 PM -0500, support@ecobee.com, wrote: ecobee Support (ecobee Support) Dec 10, 2:00 PM EST EDIT 1/30/2020 ecobee quietly updated their iOS app and fixed the SMART HOME / AWAY Geofencing features. It now recognizes when the last person leaves my home and automatically sets the ecobee to Away and when the first person arrives home it Resume's schedule. I no longer have to use Life360 and IFTTT to achieve the same result. I'm happy once again with how this thermostat operates. Now they just need to build a much prettier thermostat. The nest is by far the prettiest and more intuitive thermostat.