My ecobee3 HomeKit WiFi thermostat with remote motion/temperature sensors makes sense/cents

Updates to this article below.

If you have multiple members of your household that are home at various times of the day, then you likely have some familiarity with inevitable temperature preference skirmishes.

If you have multiple rooms in your home, then you likely also experience conflicts, especially if you have a bunch of computer gear in your home office, for example.

Would a Nest Learning Thermostat help? Not much, since it doesn't know the home's temperature, it only knows the temperature of the room it's in.
(JUL 20 2015 correction - there are third-party solutions, thanks Richard Gunther!)

Saving $ with efficient solutions is a TinkerTry theme. With air conditioning and heat being the top energy guzzlers for most homes, the thermostat is a logical device to consider as an investment in more responsible home ownership.

Last month, knowing I had some vacation time coming up, and knowing that the heat of summer was imminent, it was good timing that ecobee announced a refresh of their smart thermostat, the ecobee3 with HomeKit,

For homes with more than one room™

Why ecobee3 seems to be a good solution for my home

• Has tiny remote sensors that detect motion and temperature, located in the rooms we spend the most time in.
• I can teach it to sense rooms with activity, then average out those room temps to automatically choose a temperature that helps keep everybody be comfortable.
• I can also set schedules that give it guidelines about our work schedules.
• Any motion detected in "Follow me" mode can automatically override the away mode, regaining comfort, without having to remember to do anything.
• IFTTT (If This Then That) Support. Fellow tinkerers can optionally do useful tweaks like geo-fencing, where the ecobee3 can be set to automatically go into away mode once the smart phone (with IFTT and the ecobee3 app) is beyond a specified distance from home, see also plethora of IFTT recipes. Keep in mind that you are inherently adding more risk by sharing your location data.
• HomeKit has a shot of eventually unifying my Insteon and ecobee3 systems, which is admittedly still in early days.
• I happen to have Apple and Android devices, and the newer ecobee3 units are now Apple HomeKit compatible, which I demonstrate in the video below by saying to Siri "Set temperature 70 degrees."
• The ecobee3 app for iPhone/iPad is available from the App Store:

• Android fans can use the ecobee3 app from the Google Play Store:

Did my research (sources below), placed order, crossed fingers

I went with pre-ordering the ecobee3 which I Google+'d with anticipation, going with the "ecobee3, HomeKit-Enabled Smarter Bundle" directly from ecobee3. It arrived July 10th, and I completed the install on July 13th.

Install story

First, I waited for a cool morning, and turned all AC power off at the breaker. Next, the real "fun" began, starting with removal of the old thermostat.

For my home, some of the work involved in the installation was a pre-sales call to the friendly Canadian technical support, who helped with me through issues revealed by my visit to ecobee.com/compatibility. I had to run a common wire to my attic's air handler, so off to my local Home Depot to pick up some thermostat wire.

It didn't take long to carefully shuffle around the attic, moving the blown-in fiber glass aside as needed, to get that new thermostat wire routed nicely. Since I care about my lungs, I made sure to wear my MSA Safety Works 817663 Multi-Purpose Respirator every time I went up into the attic.

The next chunk of my time was spent on handling that unpainted mess of sheetrock under my old thermostat, discovering the hard way that I really needed to get some screws right into a stud, for a nice secure mount. Why? Well, when you pull the ecobee3 off its mount, it's just a tight friction fit. It has a tendency to pull the wall anchors right back out of the wall. I also decided that I really didn't want to use that optional big round backplate (shouldn't it be rectangular?). So it was time to do it right, messing up the wall temporarily to relocate the plate to the nearest stud, notching out a bit of that stud with a 1/2" paddle bit for the cables, then finishing it all up by patiently patching, sanding, patching again, sanding, and painting.

Once it was installed on my wall, the setup was quite straight forward.

Minor Issues

Nothing serious here, mostly nitpicking.

1. Some trouble getting my schedule times set to anything but midnight.

2. Room occupancy status might be incorrect

3. The iOS app occasionally needs a force-quit, to avoid the login password prompt

4. Renaming a sensor after the install might not be reflected in the nifty HOME IQ, System Monitor reports.

5. The ecobee3 app is a little clumsy for looking at sensor temps, but I can work around this with 3rd party apps such as Eve "At a Glance" single page summary view.

6. It's unfortunate that my situation, with a transformer in the basement (gas heat) and another in the attic (AC air handler), required some rewiring. While clearly not ecobee's fault, they handled the process of getting me through the install quite well, providing excellent phone support, and analyzing some pictures I took of my wiring situation to give me proper guidance. Most folks should probably contact ecobee support and discuss issues found at the compatibility checker, and if it sounds complicated, simply choose a professional installation. AC compressors are expensive. You don't want to mess the installation up.

7. WiFi is 2.4GHz only, this feels a little like planned obsolescence to me, in a world that's fast moving to 802.11ac and the less-crowded 5GHz.

8. I don't have Siri working yet for setting temps when I'm not at home quite yet, even though my Apple TV that's logged into my iCloud account should have allowed it. Not a problem, I can wait until this fall's iOS 9, when that Apple TV dependency vanishes. Or I can just use the ecobee3 app, from any location.

9. HomeKit's use to me is currently rather limited, given it apparently requires that I avoid Auto Mode during those New England "between" months of April and October, when it can be very cold at night, and quite hot later on that same day.

In addition to resolving some of the issues, here's some ideas for the future

1. Allow existing account holders to change enable two factor authentication for web access, and to change their login ID/password, in case they later decide to use a unique email address just for their ecobee3 account using something like Blur.

2. I would love to see a third party or ecobee3 smart vent with integration with Insteon and/or ecobee3. That might be asking too much, but even just a newer Activent design with a quieter tight seal would do nicely for one or two of the many AC registers in my home, see also Keen Home and Ecovent here. Direct control of just one or two key room's temperature would be a big improvement for many homes.

3. Even better would be an AC air handler company coming out with intelligent cooling outputs, using internal dampers kept up in the attic, rather than noisy vent covers in the rooms where humans live.

4. 5GHz WiFi compatibility.

5. Optional RJ45 kit for wired networking, adding resilience.

6. App that resumes where you left off, with a more informative main view that includes sensor status.

7. Sell a variant of ecobee3 in Europe too! For example, not available on Amazon UK or Amazon Germany.

Closing thoughts

So far, so good! Looks good, works well, and easy enough to use. Those HOME IQ reports, pictured here, are really quite nice, and I'm looking forward to more extensive details available after a full month of ownership.

I may be posting updates below this article, once I have some more time under my belt with this ecobee3. But so far, my hunch is that things are going to work out just fine, especially once I get things tuned so the rooms that matter to us are at the right temperature at the right times.

For me, being able to set the temperature from anywhere, in the house, or on the go, is a big step forward. So is having the ability to set my home up for some serious savings when on vacation, or when no motion is detected for hours.

Assuming I get some of the minor issues eventually resolved, I'll likely be quite happy with this purchase for years to come, even after I replace my 18 year old AC system with a variable speed model for improved humidity control.

I do have a separate thermostat on my first floor for heating, so it would be good to see a way to intelligently integrate a second ecobee3 into my system someday, ideally coordinating settings and sharing the remote sensors.

More pictures and videos

If you're looking to see some very detailed screenshots of the installation process, followed by the HomeKit pairing steps that are kind of like Bluetooth pairing, Steve Jenkins does a wonderful job here:

• Review: ecobee3 HomeKit-enabled Thermostat 7
  JUL 15 2015 by Steve Jenkins at SteveJenkins.com

If you'd like to see a video I created of the HomeKit pairing process, along with some test Siri commands to set my thermostat temperature and query my remote sensors temperature readings, I just created one today!

Places to buy

Home Depot now sells the ecobee3 with HomeKit, as does the Apple Store Connected Home department, and many local Apple Stores, along with Amazon.

I would recommend you seek out the ecobee3 HomeKit-Enabled Smarter Bundle that arrives with HomeKit capabilities and 3 sensors total. This bundle seems to be tougher to find online, but is the way to go if you think you might use an Apple product someday. It's also handy to have the ability to use the remote sensors on-hand during the initial set up process, but they can be added simply and easily at any time. If you order direct from ecobee3, they offer free shipping from Toronto, Canada to the US.

JUL 20 2015 Update

It should be noticed that currently:

• The Keen home Smart Vent isn't yet shipping, but will be compatible with ZigBee, 6LoWPAN, and Thread, explained here. See also the FAQ.

  We are launching the Smart Vent with support for thermostats on the Smart Things and Lowes Iris platforms, and we are working towards "Works With Nest" certification.
  ...
  Will the Smart Vents make noise?
  The motor makes a mechanical sound when it adjusts the vents, but that's it. We specifically designed the vent louvers as air foils to minimize drag and avoid that annoying whistling sound that happens when standard registers are closed.

• The Ecovent system is only compatible with Nest and Radio Thermostats, explained here.

JUL 21 2015 Update

What is IoT, or Internet of Things? Here's what Intel has to say here:

Intel defines the Internet of Things as devices that are connecting to the internet, integrating greater compute capabilities, and using data analytics to extract valuable information.

Well, you could certainly include Nest and ecobee3 in that definition. IoT could really allow our homes to finally become much smarter, with our various systems finally getting interconnected.

Some of the challenges to the growth of IoT that I think about:

• Will usability flourish?
• Will hackability tarnish the ownership experience?

Today, I contacted ecobee support, to see if they could answer some of the issues I noted above. I have now learned the following new information. Note, this is support technician, he can't speak on behalf of the entire company.

• When a sensor is renamed, the new name won't show in the HOME IQ, System Monitor reports until 3 days later.

• On the thermostat display, the occupancy status of the remote sensors is nearly immediate. On the app, there can be up to a 6 minute delay.

• Once a remote sensor has detected motion, it will show "Occupied" for a minimum of 30 minutes, even if no more motion occurs.

• The need to force-quit the iOS ecobee3 app to avoid the password prompt is a known issue, new release expected within a month to resolve this

See also at TinkerTry

• Home Automation
  2013 to 2015

• Insteon Hub Pro now available for pre-order with HomeKit
  FEB 25 2015

• Display your iOS and Android devices on Windows, using Reflector and Droid @ Screen
  MAY 04 2014

• My home's First Alert ONELINK system for smoke and carbon monoxide detection includes voiced warnings, with optional smartphone alerts
  JUN 14 2013

See also

• homeautomationforums.com
  Discussion forum

• Experiencing the issues that come from being an adopter of smart home tech with both @smappee and @ecobee.
  JUL 19 2015 by Kenneth Pardue on Day One

• Home: On from The Digital Media Zone: Home: On #051 – Going Hubless, with Adam Miarka
  JUL 09 2015 podcast by Richard Gunther and Adam Miarka at Digital Media Zone

• Apple Stores begin selling first HomeKit compatible thermostat
  JUL 07 2015 by Adam Westlake at SlashGear

• Ecobee3 Smart Thermostat, Amazon Echo, Homekit and Simplisafe Security – HGG217
  JUN 23 2015 by Paul Braren at Google+

• How to Set up and use HomeKit-enabled accessories with your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch
  JUN 16 2015 by ieenews at IEE (Android, Windows, iPhone News & Reviews)

• How to set up your accessories with HomeKit
  JUN 04 2015 by Serenity Caldwell at iMore

• Apple’s HomeKit is here: “Siri, turn on my lights”
  JUN 02 2015 by Chris Burns at SlashGear

• Nest Partners Offer Remote Sensors, Optimization
  FEB 22 2015 by Richard Gunther at Digital Media Zone

• The ecobee3 wifi thermostat is as smart as it gets
  FEB 19 2015 by Adam Zeis at iMore

• Heating vents that direct warmth where you want it - So-called smart vents claim to add comfort and save money
  JAN 08 2015 at Consumer Reports
  featuring smart vents by Keen Home and Ecovent

• HomeKit in iOS 8: Explained
  AUG 27 2014 by Rene Ritchie on iMore