Ecobee Thermostat Review

I’ve had my Ecobee 4 Smart Thermostat for several years now.

Pros

HomeKit Support

This is one of the main reasons why I decided to go with Ecobee instead of the competition. (I’m looking at you, Nest!)

At the time, it was really the only smart thermostat that could support HomeKit.

Even now there is very little serious competition out there when it comes to HomeKit.

Built-In Alexa Speaker

Ecobee 4 includes a built-in Amazon Alexa speaker. If you are comfortable with having a smart listener always on and especially if you are already making use of Alexa, this is a great add-on to have.

Design

There are some naysayers out there but overall I feel it’s a classy design that fits well on any wall.

Remote Sensor

This is a feature that Ecobee pioneered. The included remote sensor can be placed in another room, which is especially useful for a second floor, so you can also track temperature, humidity and occupancy there.

Reliability

I haven’t really had any major issues with the thermostat. Importantly, it’s not entirely reliant on the cloud and can continue to operate and updated manually.

Cons

Wifi Connectivity

This is really the only issue I have encountered with my Ecobee thermostat and to be frank it’s something that happens only rarely, let’s say once or twice a year.

I have found that it has a difficult time reconnecting to WiFi automatically when there’s some sort of rest (for example, power out or modem restarting). In those cases, I’m prompted to reenter the Wifi credentials.

Takeaways

Overall, I’m very pleased with my Ecobee thermostat.

Update: Ecobee released a new version of its smart thermostat that can also double as a HomeKit speaker. It would be nice if the company could extend support to the earlier version. That would inspire more confidence in its products going forward.