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    To Ecobee or not

    Somewhat plug-in related. I figured the most users of Ecobees would be lingering here, so...

    I'm on the fence about getting an Ecobee3 Lite (I already have OS temp sensors) or Ecobee4 ($50 GC at BestBuy at the moment), or just a dumber z-wave thermostat. I'm happy to see this plugin exists and it would be the next purchase after leaving the store, but my concerns are:

    - Apparently control is cloud-only, not via local wifi from HS3 direct to the thermostat. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
    - What are your experiences with outages? That means zero remote control available, right? Does it happen often?
    - Polling at >= 4 minute intervals. But is this really any issue? I imagine this is an API limit Ecobee enforces.

    I work from home all day, with kids wandering around too, so the house is occupied 95% of the time. That means some of the 'learning' bits of the platform are of no concern. Leaving the biggest possible issue: Wife hits tablet/phone/alexa across the house, and the thermostat doesn't respond. Whereas, control of my old Wayne Dalton Z-Wave thermo has been easy and works every time... but the temp sensor in it is becoming unreliable.

    Thanks in advance,
    Lost in Thermoland

    #2
    Originally posted by dhayner View Post
    Somewhat plug-in related. I figured the most users of Ecobees would be lingering here, so...



    I'm on the fence about getting an Ecobee3 Lite (I already have OS temp sensors) or Ecobee4 ($50 GC at BestBuy at the moment), or just a dumber z-wave thermostat. I'm happy to see this plugin exists and it would be the next purchase after leaving the store, but my concerns are:



    - Apparently control is cloud-only, not via local wifi from HS3 direct to the thermostat. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

    - What are your experiences with outages? That means zero remote control available, right? Does it happen often?

    - Polling at >= 4 minute intervals. But is this really any issue? I imagine this is an API limit Ecobee enforces.



    I work from home all day, with kids wandering around too, so the house is occupied 95% of the time. That means some of the 'learning' bits of the platform are of no concern. Leaving the biggest possible issue: Wife hits tablet/phone/alexa across the house, and the thermostat doesn't respond. Whereas, control of my old Wayne Dalton Z-Wave thermo has been easy and works every time... but the temp sensor in it is becoming unreliable.



    Thanks in advance,

    Lost in Thermoland


    I have had two Ecobee 3's for over a year and a half at our house and haven't had one issue with them. I have a pretty good ISP so I haven't had any internet or WiFi issues. I'm not sure that if your phone/tablet is on the LAN if it connects with it directly or over the internet but I have never once had an issue connecting to the Ecobee. (Knocking on wood). If your house is occupied 95% of the time, you will gain little benefit from the Home and Away settings but the schedule can be customized more than just a typical thermostat. The Nest has the "learning" feature, Ecobee uses motion sensors on both the main unit and the Lil'bees (small occupancy sensors/temp sensors) to determine if you are home/away or if a particular room is occupied or not.
    Hope that helps....


    Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
    HS4 4.2.6.0 &HSTouch Designer 3.0.80
    Plugin's:
    BLBackup, BLOccupied, BLShutdown, EasyTrigger, Ecobee, Nest, AK Bond
    EnvisaLink DSC, PHLocation, Pushover, SONOS, Blue Iris, UltraRachio3,
    weatherXML, Jon00 Alexa Helper, Network Monitor, MyQ, Z-Wave

    Comment


      #3
      I have been running ecobee 3 with several lil bees around the house. Nice feature to be able to average the master and kids rooms at night to maintain the house temperature vs just the hallway where the unit is at. Had a nest previously and with the hallway placement the unit was always going to sleep even when we are home, the ecobee doesn't have the same problem as the sensors can be placed around the house if you don't want to depend on HS to supply home or away status.

      Haven't had any issues here either and pretty much runs like I would expect and I think very little about it.

      One benefit although the turn around is slow but works for my office is to use the room occupancy portion of the little sensors to augment automation. When I work from home and enter my office, the desk fan turns on and my sonos start to play. Reverse happens when it no longer senses me there... nice little extra benefit. I can also control the speed of ceiling fans based on the specific temp of the room that has sensors which is nice, can turn them off as well when the occupants leave. The 1 minute delay is noticeable when using occupancy but I don't tie anything that requires instant notification to it. I am ok if the fan runs for 30 seconds after I leave the room, no big deal for me.

      Comment


        #4
        Go with the eco bee 4. Along with the Alexa integration and all of the obvious stuff it is really good at learning how your house heats and cools taking into account outside temp and humidity.

        Comment


          #5
          Last edited by B1Trash; August 5, 2017, 04:38 PM. Reason: Extra thoughts & readability

          Comment


            #6
            Originally posted by norcalhkr View Post
            I have been running ecobee 3 with several lil bees around the house. Nice feature to be able to average the master and kids rooms at night to maintain the house temperature vs just the hallway where the unit is at. Had a nest previously and with the hallway placement the unit was always going to sleep even when we are home, the ecobee doesn't have the same problem as the sensors can be placed around the house if you don't want to depend on HS to supply home or away status.

            Haven't had any issues here either and pretty much runs like I would expect and I think very little about it.

            One benefit although the turn around is slow but works for my office is to use the room occupancy portion of the little sensors to augment automation. When I work from home and enter my office, the desk fan turns on and my sonos start to play. Reverse happens when it no longer senses me there... nice little extra benefit. I can also control the speed of ceiling fans based on the specific temp of the room that has sensors which is nice, can turn them off as well when the occupants leave. The 1 minute delay is noticeable when using occupancy but I don't tie anything that requires instant notification to it. I am ok if the fan runs for 30 seconds after I leave the room, no big deal for me.
            But all of that can be done via Regular Sensors connected via Zwave and used by HS so far nothing pushes me to buy a cloud based when I can control all in-house even if Internet goes down.

            So far the same Pro's can be achieved by utilizing a cheap z-wave Thermostat with the Event control of HS.

            Comment


              #7
              Originally posted by sirexilon View Post
              But all of that can be done via Regular Sensors connected via Zwave and used by HS so far nothing pushes me to buy a cloud based when I can control all in-house even if Internet goes down.



              So far the same Pro's can be achieved by utilizing a cheap z-wave Thermostat with the Event control of HS.

              Comment


                #8
                Originally posted by sirexilon View Post
                . . . the same Pro's can be achieved by utilizing a cheap z-wave Thermostat with the Event control of HS.
                The pro that is most important to me is maintaining the basic functions of a thermostat, even when HS or the internet is not working. Ecobee provides that. Only it's fancy features require an internet connection. If you find a less expensive tstat that is reliable and meets your needs, I'd definitely go with it.
                Mike____________________________________________________________ __________________
                HS3 Pro Edition 3.0.0.548, NUC i3

                HW: Stargate | NX8e | CAV6.6 | Squeezebox | PCS | WGL 800RF | RFXCOM | Vantage Pro | Green-Eye | Edgeport/8 | Way2Call | Ecobee3 | EtherRain | Ubiquiti

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