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I highly recommend Ecobee if you want an alternative to Google Nest.

by _mlbt 1y ago

themerone 1y ago
I've had both and am much happier with Ecobee.
- jjtheblunt 1y ago
  same here. had 2 nests and 2 ecobees. the only ecobee quirk i find after 9 years of ecobees is that the weather calculation is way off if you live near microclimates. i'm not sure if they use your postal zipcode, or use a map from IP address to more accurate weather, but it's normally showing weather from 10 miles away.
  - worthless-trash 1y ago
    My wife can ask google home for the weather forecast and it is correct. I ( the account holder ) can ask it when right beside her and it will provide weather prediction for a location 30km away.
    - jjtheblunt 1y ago
      for extra fun. weird bugs in both it seems
emchammer 1y ago
Does Ecobee require an app and account to be activated, or is it something that HomeKit just detects on the LAN?
- sanex 1y ago
  I know they used to be Home Assistant capable but required an API key which they will no longer give out. Seems like no fully local control to me. I believe my app stops working when the Internet goes out but it's been a bit.
  - SV_BubbleTime 1y ago
    My ecobee has been working a for year with no internet. Of course the app stops working, but that’s expected from a WiFi product.
  - xp84 1y ago
    Oh really? Weird. I did need to do some developer API key thing to get mine in HA, and it's awesome. All sensors and controls work great[1]. Since it's Homekit compatible though, you can go that route. HA easily discovers anything HK compatible as soon as you connect it to your network. So you connect Ecobee to HA with the HomeKit protocol in lieu of connecting it with Apple's stuff. [1] ...and anything's better than the asinine on-device UI that Ecobee "updated" to a couple years ago (ask yourself: what would a foolish inexperienced "uX dEsIgNeR" do to ruin a plain old thermostat UI? It's that.)
dasmoop 1y ago
I was really disappointed with the lack of analytics / historical data. Thankfully the open source beetstat makes ecobee a lot more useful, with full history and graphs for heat/cool runtime, aux heat, indoor/outdoor humdity, etc

I highly recommend Ecobee if you want an alternative to Google Nest.

by _mlbt 1y ago

I highly recommend Ecobee if you want an alternative to Google Nest.

themerone 1y ago

I've had both and am much happier with Ecobee.

jjtheblunt 1y ago
same here. had 2 nests and 2 ecobees. the only ecobee quirk i find after 9 years of ecobees is that the weather calculation is way off if you live near microclimates. i'm not sure if they use your postal zipcode, or use a map from IP address to more accurate weather, but it's normally showing weather from 10 miles away.
- worthless-trash 1y ago
  My wife can ask google home for the weather forecast and it is correct. I ( the account holder ) can ask it when right beside her and it will provide weather prediction for a location 30km away.
  - jjtheblunt 1y ago
    for extra fun. weird bugs in both it seems

emchammer 1y ago

Does Ecobee require an app and account to be activated, or is it something that HomeKit just detects on the LAN?

sanex 1y ago
I know they used to be Home Assistant capable but required an API key which they will no longer give out. Seems like no fully local control to me. I believe my app stops working when the Internet goes out but it's been a bit.
- SV_BubbleTime 1y ago
  My ecobee has been working a for year with no internet. Of course the app stops working, but that’s expected from a WiFi product.
- xp84 1y ago
  Oh really? Weird. I did need to do some developer API key thing to get mine in HA, and it's awesome. All sensors and controls work great[1]. Since it's Homekit compatible though, you can go that route. HA easily discovers anything HK compatible as soon as you connect it to your network. So you connect Ecobee to HA with the HomeKit protocol in lieu of connecting it with Apple's stuff. [1] ...and anything's better than the asinine on-device UI that Ecobee "updated" to a couple years ago (ask yourself: what would a foolish inexperienced "uX dEsIgNeR" do to ruin a plain old thermostat UI? It's that.)

dasmoop 1y ago

I was really disappointed with the lack of analytics / historical data. Thankfully the open source beetstat makes ecobee a lot more useful, with full history and graphs for heat/cool runtime, aux heat, indoor/outdoor humdity, etc