That time we talked about smart thermostats: The Ecobee3lite

This is episode number 2 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is my friend Craig Williams.

Are we friends?

I'd like to think we are.

Should we put this on paper? Contract?

I think it sounds better for me to say you're my friend, so that's what I'm going with.

Alright.

How's it going, man?

It's going good. Everything been okay?

Yeah, I've been, uh, you know, trying to learn to walk again recently. That's weird, isn't it?

I— well, I mean, my, my threshold for like my expectations with you, I mean, they're here. But I mean, I, I can— so walking's impressive. What, why are you learning— haven't you learned to walk?

Well, man, I did something really dumb about 2 months ago. I was, uh, was moving some large barbecue grills and, uh, multiple barbecue grills. There were more than one.

Did you get like some side hustling barbecue grills? I mean—

That would have been a much better story if I had.

You side hustling the barbecue?

No, we were— I was delivering a couple of barbecue grills for an event. And, um, anyway, I, I was in the back of my truck, jumped out of the back of my truck holding one end of a barbecue grill, and, uh, the result was not pretty. I tore my ACL. And, uh, so as you can imagine, life's been a little bit crazy for me over the last couple of months trying to, uh, recover from ACL reconstructive surgery. So I'm going to physical therapy and man, it's, man, it's life-changing in weird ways.

Which is not the kind of therapy I recommended for you.

That was a whole different type of therapy.

I even gave you some names.

I mean, yeah, but they wouldn't take me. Yeah. You know, it is what it is.

But so physical therapy is going pretty good? You walking?

Yeah, I'm walking now. Not using a crutch anymore, which was a big step. That was bad.

Terrible. On that note, this is the Homeowner Show. We're glad that you guys could join us. Just ignore Kevin and his bad puns. No, we're happy you guys are here. You can always find us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or at www.thehomownershow.com. And anywhere that you find podcasts, you can find us on iTunes or any of your favorite podcast platforms. We're going to be there for you guys to help you out with all of your homeowner needs. So what do we got going on today, Kev? What's on the docket? Well, no, you had— you actually had something So, so today we're going to be talking about the— what, what is it?

It's a thermostat. So, so one of the things that, that we're going to do from time to time on this show is do some product reviews. And, um, we're going to start off with, uh, with a smart thermostat.

Awesome.

Yeah, so, you know, I, I mentioned in our very first episode, uh, which was one episode ago, yeah, uh, that That I love.

The triumphal entry of the Homeowner Show, episode 1.

That's right.

The one that they're gonna be talking about for years to come.

We're actually back for another one too. How about that?

We made it.

Uh, so they kept us on the air. Yeah, I love gadgets. I love tech. And, um, I try to infuse those things into my life in ways that I can. And when we bought our home, Uh, my wife was saying, oh, we need to buy this and decorate with this. And I looked at her and I said, can I like have some sort of tech? She's like, what do you mean tech? And I was like, I wanna, I wanna smart thermostat. She's like, what is a smart thermostat? And I think that, um—

She wasn't concerned at all that you were going like full Skynet in the house, right?

No, she probably should have been.

No, but I'm concerned.

Yeah, so, um, So anyway, I've, I've been interested in having a Wi-Fi thermostat for years now. They've, they've kind of come on the market over the last 5.

Yeah, they're still relatively new.

They are, they are. But, um, but it's something I've always kind of thought would be, would be interesting. Um, I mean, are you even interested in owning something like that?

Oh, absolutely. No, I just, I just don't like to like reveal my nerdiness to the, to the public. And I full-blown nerdy. Keep it on the DL.

Yeah, you know, it is what it is, man. It is what it is. So, uh, you know, I started doing research on Wi-Fi thermostats because, man, there's a lot of them out there. And originally I was kind of thinking, man, the thing that I really want is if I'm super cold in the morning, I can just Not have to get out of bed.

I don't have to put those cold toes on the floor. Is that what you—

That's right. I just want to be able to change.

I see the real motivation here.

Absolutely. I mean, you got to think about what's really important in life. And for me, not having to get up to change the thermostat if I'm cold in the morning, big deal.

Yeah.

So I started just kind of trying to figure out, okay, what What's gonna do the best for me to be able to do this? What kind of price range am I even gonna get into? What kind of features are even available? And honestly, there were kind of 3 that topped the list as far as things that were interesting. And the first one, probably one that a lot of people have heard about, is the Nest thermostat.

Right.

The second one was Honeywell. They've put out a pretty good Wi-Fi thermostat. And then the last one, the one that I actually went with, was the Ecobee. And so there's, there's features about each one that are interesting, but for me, I own the Ecobee, so we're gonna review the Ecobee today. Maybe we'll get to the Nest or the Honeywell another time, but we're gonna kinda focus on the Ecobee today. So, um, I'm just curious, we didn't even talk about this beforehand, but do you have any questions about things that you would be interested in knowing when it comes to a smart thermostat?

Um, yeah, well, I mean, like, I'm actually— I've been shopping for one for a while now, and the Ecobee has definitely been on my radar I like, I like some of the things I've seen about it. I think my subconscious concern is that my house would treat it as a foreign entity and like just attack it, you know, like, like it's like, you know, I think my house would actually view it as like witchcraft. It wouldn't know what to do. Yeah, what do we do?

Burn it.

Burn it. Burn it.

It's a witch.

How do you know it's a witch?

I saw it.

It's magic. It didn't look right. Yeah, no, I— that, that, that's honestly been my— one of my concerns. It's like, I don't know if my house would actually like accept this thing as one of its own. Um, yeah, no, um, as far as like— yeah, like, so because— and, and this is something we'll get into later, but like the operation of the thing. I mean, I think for me and for like a lot of people, I think it's like, am I gonna have to learn to program this thing like I used to have to program a VCR? Because like, it's a thermostat. I mean, like if you're taking something that's traditionally been typically mechanical, which is what most thermostats are.

Sure.

And you're converting it into digital where you're connecting it to the internet of things, Doesn't this get like exponentially more complicated to operate?

Yeah, no, you're— that's a really valid point. Because recent years, even before the smart thermostats came on the market, we started seeing touchscreen thermostats, right?

Yeah.

And even before then, we had more digital options like 7-day programmable, right? And you're sitting in front of your thermostat for an hour just trying to get it to do what you want it to do. Right? Right. Yeah, no, I've—

and I've even been in some homes where, and this is just, you know, sort of, I think the cultural bias that we have, where I've seen the home be set up with iPads as the room-to-room control system. And so like when I would walk into those rooms, it's like, oh, there's an Apple product. Those are super simple to use. So I could probably operate this room. And so like that concern is sort of taken away because of the familiarity with the product. I mean, 'cause like even if you don't have like an iPhone or— an Apple Watch or an iPad or any of those kind of things, you've probably seen one and seen somebody else operate it. It's like, oh, it's like, that's the app, you use

touchscreen and, and those kinds of things. And so like, I could probably figure out how to do this kind of thing. Where like, this is something like completely new and different, not necessarily from like an operational standpoint, but like you're gonna have to learn and like you're probably gonna have to read a manual, um, which most people don't want to do.

Sure.

Um, they, you know, kind of want to like pop up on their phone and tell me what to do or watch a YouTube video on how to do it. So I mean, I think, I think there's like a sort of a level of intimidation right at the get-go of like, this is something I'm not used to. I'm used to having the dial that I can just sort of point. And like, you know, there, there are digital thermostats now that aren't like as sophisticated as these smart ones, right? Where like you hit the button and it changes the little simple LCD screen to show me the temperature that it's going to be or something like that.

Right.

Um, so, but like, this is like a whole other layer of complexity in as far as like features and options and what it's capable of doing. Or is it, you know, is it learning? Is it not learning? Is it what? And, and, you know, for people that are probably like our parents' age and older, um, Really intimidating.

Sure.

I mean, you know, because they're still like frustrated that they're not flip phones, right, anymore.

No, that's a good point. And, and I think the, um, the thing, the thing right out of the box that I want to tell you is that this thing was super easy to install. It was super easy to program. Um, and honestly, it doesn't get a lot easier than telling Siri to change your temperature to 74 degrees. And I mean, that was one of the beauties of, of this thing is, you know, uh—

But like, but like your, your phone didn't like automatically know like, hey, there's a smart thermostat in the house and now I have control of it, right? I mean, like there was, there were steps involved getting those things to talk to one another.

Sure. Uh, but I will tell you it's a lot easier than, than you might think. And that's one of the things that I want to kind of educate people on today is just give some, some information about what this thing can do, what some of the pros are, maybe what some of the cons are as well.

Yeah.

And just kinda go from there. So you ready to get into this thing?

I'm ready. Let's do it.

Okay, cool. Well, so just to let you know, there's a few different models of the Ecobee. The one that I own is called the Ecobee 3 Lite. Um, the Ecobee 3 has been discontinued. So, uh, at the time we're recording this—

So the one, the one that you're using has been discontinued, or the one—

No, no. So, so the Ecobee 3 is a different version than the Ecobee 3 Lite.

Gotcha. Okay.

Now there's a little bit of a misconception that I had that the Lite version was like a a watered-down version of the Ecobee 3, which is not completely true. And we don't really have to get into all the specifics, but the Ecobee 3 has now been discontinued. So they now also have a new version, is the Ecobee 4.

Right.

So one of the things that is really beautiful about the Ecobee system is they allow for room sensors. We're gonna get into that a little bit later, but the Ecobee 4 comes with a room sensor, and it is also Alexa-enabled, which means Alexa is built into it. So if you were to—

Right, so you don't, you don't need like an additional Dot or Echo or Show or what— there's like 5 or 6 different ones now, right? You don't need those additional ones in order to have Alexa in your house. It's already there. in the Ecobee. That's right.

So, so you can—

I've heard it even has like the same like blue LED light at the top.

Yes, it does.

That lights up like— oh, okay.

Yeah, so, so that's one of the beautiful things about that model is it has Alexa built into it.

Comes with the same Russian espionage—

That's right.

Invasion.

That's right.

Okay.

Now, I will tell you, um, that you have to be— think real critically about whether or not you need that. In a thermostat because it comes with like a—

it's like significantly more.

It is, it is more expensive, right? Um, right now, which again, um, is relative depending on when you're listening to this, uh, but there's like a— it was like an $80 difference in the Ecobee 3 Lite, which is the one that I have, versus the Ecobee 4 that's Alexa enabled.

So for, for everybody listening, So essentially you could buy the Ecobee 3 Lite and an Amazon Alexa Echo—

For about the same price.

For about the same money as the Ecobee 4.

And then you could put that, that Dot wherever you wanted it.

Well, the Dots are like half the price.

Yeah, they're even cheaper.

So I mean, like, for $80 right now, I mean, like, you can get the Echo, which has the built-in speaker. It actually sounds really, really nice. If you guys haven't had the chance to listen to one, yet. Um, so you could actually— I mean, like, potentially you could actually have more depending on what you're— yeah, by not getting the 4 and getting the 3, because the 3 can connect to Alexa, right?

Absolutely. We're gonna get into that as well. Um, so, uh, just to kind of wrap up the different versions, so the 4 also comes with a— with one room sensor.

Okay.

And it's Alexa enabled. Those are the 2 primary differences between the the Ecobee 4 and the Ecobee 3 Lite, which comes with no room sensors, and it is not Alexa. It doesn't have Alexa built into it, right?

Um, they can still— like, Alexa could still—

It can still function with it.

Connect to it or whatever.

That's right.

So, but can you get room sensors for the Lite?

Yeah. So, um, let's just jump to that real quick. Um, what's really cool is the Ecobee system has specific room sensors. And so this, this room sensor is basically like a, like a little 1-inch by 1-inch square that's got a little stand on it that you can— it's wireless. You can put it anywhere in your home that you want to, and it connects back to the thermostat itself, and it senses the temperature in the location that you put the room sensor.

So, you know, Yeah, I gotta be honest, the first time I saw these things, it looked like a tile.

Yeah, it actually looks just like that.

I was like, is that in case I lose the thermostat? Is that something like that?

Yeah, and, and it— that, that's a good version of what it kind of looks like, is kind of looks like that tile. But, um, the neat thing about it is that thermostats are built to read the temperature at the thermostat, right? So if, if you've got a whole house thermostat, one room you might notice is super cold or maybe super hot. So you put a room sensor in that room that is at a different temperature typically, and it sends the information wirelessly back to the thermostat itself and helps adjust the temperature of your house to negate that problem.

So it's a better regulation of the temperature throughout the whole home.

Yeah, it, it, it— that's one of the smart things about it. It gives you the ability to regulate your whole house better than just having one sensor at the thermostat itself.

So is it— and this is, this has actually been one of the things I've been super curious about when it comes to Ecobee, because there's not really anybody— none of the other competitors really seem to have anything that I know of that's kind of like this, where they have like additional sensors that you can put throughout the home.

The new Nest does.

The new Nest does.

Okay, it's a new thing.

And so they're upping their game a little bit.

Finally.

So this is something they've seen as like a, you know, competition issue between them and the Eco.

Correct.

Um, so like what I've been curious about is like, so say I had like a really hot room in my house, would that sensor then, you know, cause me to use a lot more electricity, or could I, you know, sort of customize it to where you know, maybe plus or minus 10 degrees or something like, you know, can I, can I set those as variables?

Yeah, that's a great question. Um, so there's a couple of different functions that the room sensors can hold, and you can set these parameters up inside both the app on your device and on the thermostat itself. We'll get to how those things are similar a little bit later, but there's different modes that you can put the sensors in. So you can basically have them set to, to activate a smart home or away setting. So if you're home, it'll sense that you're home because it senses motion as well as temperature, which is really cool. So if you walk into a room So you're talking about—

are you talking about like the, the sensors or the actual thermostat itself?

Good question. Both.

Oh, okay.

Both have a motion detection sensor on them. So the thermostat itself and the external sensors, um, they have a motion detection on them and a temperature regulation detection on them. So, um, if you're not in a room for maybe half the day and you walk into that room, you can have it set to where it now triggers that that is an occupied room and adjust the temperature accordingly without you touching anything.

Hmm.

Okay, so that's kind of a neat, a neat option. Another option is called the Follow Me feature, um, and so basically it senses which room is being used and then if, um, if you leave that room and go to another room, it, it almost follows you in that, in that way. So it senses where you are in your house.

Yeah.

And it regulates the temperature based on that. Now you have to have multiple sensors in order for that to work, but that is one of the modes of that. So, um, like I said, there's a couple of different features about how you can actually utilize the sensors. And here's the other thing. You can add up to 32 sensors.

Holy cow!

To each thermostat. So, for me, I've got 2 air conditioning units at my house. A lot of people do. We actually just have a single-story home, but we still have 2 heating and air conditioning units. So I had to have 2 Ecobee thermostats. Now, they don't necessarily talk to each other, but they work hand in hand just fine, just like any 2 thermostats might. But imagine I could have potentially 64 sensors around my house. Now, that would be silly, obviously. Um, actually, you would have one for the thermostat itself.

Make the tour really long.

That's right. Um, but it is really amazing how specific they're allowing you to get with your thermostats.

So, with any of the other competitors that we're talking about, do they— I mean, like, say you had, you know, 2 systems like what you have, are there any of those systems that do sort of communicate between each other?

Not that I know of.

Not that you know of?

Not that I know of. So, that's not necessarily a feature I'm losing by using the Ecobee over another one.

Right.

I could be wrong, but from what I understand, none of them do. So, let's just talk about a couple of the pros in general of the Ecobee. So, first of all, it's Wi-Fi enabled. Okay, so, couple things that that means. Number one, it means that it will work with my phone or my iPad or, you know, whatever device that I'm using. So, I can be literally— I'm not at my house right now. We're recording off-site. And, um, one of the crazy things that happened before we got here, uh, is my air conditioning unit stopped working.

Yeah.

I was putting my kids to bed and it was 77 degrees in, in the, the bedrooms. And I was going, what is going on? And for some reason my condenser unit wasn't coming on. So we fiddled with this, that, and the other. And, uh, I don't think I fixed anything, but somehow my condenser started working. And I was able to check a few minutes ago on my phone and see that indeed it had dropped to the 73 degrees, which is what we keep it at at night. And so I'm able to adjust those offsite based on the fact that it's Wi-Fi. The other thing it does is it gathers information from your local, from your local weather

station.

Hmm.

And so it knows how hot it is outside. Now, that's going to come into play whenever you set certain features of this Wi-Fi thermostat to know how long it's going to take to cool down your house.

Hmm.

So, you can set some parameters to say, you know, for example, I want my house to cool down by 5 o'clock in the afternoon whenever I get home. Well, it may need to kick on at 4:30, it may need to kick on at 4:40. It just kind of depends on how hot it is outside and how hot it is in your house, obviously.

Yeah.

In order to cool down to the appropriate level. So that's really neat. Um, it also works with every platform that you can think of. So it works with, uh, HomeKit, Apple HomeKit. All right, um, we can discuss what that is at some point, uh, but if you have an Apple TV, um, you have Apple HomeKit capabilities. Uh, it also works with Alexa, it works with Google Assistant, it works with SmartThings, and it also uses a technology called IFTTT, which is—

If then that then, or—

Yeah, if this then that.

If this then that.

Yeah, so that's really helpful For example, well, let me just say this too before I get there. It also uses geofencing. So geofencing is the capability to sense a certain area and do certain things based on the area that you're in. So for example, whenever I drive into a certain radius of my house that I can set I get a notification on my Apple Watch that says, do you want to run the automation? So I've set up an automation with my Apple TV with HomeKit to say unlock my front door. So I've also got smart locks on my house.

Right.

So it'll automatically, whenever I say run that automation, it'll automatically unlock my front door. So I can set this thermostat to say, if this— so if the front door unlocks, then set my thermostat to a certain temperature or to a certain setting, right? So if this, then that. So if my front door unlocks, then do this to the thermostat.

So do you, do you also have to have a like specific Ecobee app in order to—

Yeah, there's, there's a free app that can be downloaded on your iPhone or Android devices.

Yeah, and see, this is, this is where I think for, for some, you know, people who are in the older age bracket, uh, I think that's probably where it gets like stressful, right? It's like, okay, so I gotta have to have the Ecobee app and then I have to have the the IFTTT, whatever. You know, I have to have— so I have to have this app so I can talk to that app so that app can talk to this. And like, that, that's where it's like, I know that that becomes like an issue for them where it's like, how do I do this? I can't, you know.

Yeah, that's just cumbersome.

Yeah, they don't want one thing. And I think that's why a lot of people will default away from it and go, no, no, I'm just gonna put the mechanical one up in it.

Right. Now let me tell you this though, because this is really cool. The software that is utilized with this thermostat is really good, and it partners with the app in a really cool way in that— so you've got a 3.5-inch digital screen on the thermostat itself. So if you're at the wall where the thermostat is, you've got a 3.5-inch digital screen. What you see on the screen is exactly what you see on the iPhone or Android app.

Oh, so it's—

It's the same. So you're not looking at a certain thing in the app and a certain thing on the thermostat. So I think one of the things that's beautiful about this app specifically is you're not trying to navigate something differently than you're having to navigate on the thermostat itself. Does that make sense?

Yeah.

So, uh, that's a really good thing. I will tell you, um, another benefit is it's got something built in called HomeIQ. And if you're using not just your iPhone but maybe an iPad or, or the computer, you can go on and see real-time energy savings that you're getting and also compare that with, um, other people in your neighborhood who are also using some sort of a Wyze Wi-Fi thermostat to give you real-time data based on saying things like, your house is this efficient, or, or not efficient enough.

Yeah, because that, to me, that's appealing because now it's a competition.

Yeah, absolutely it is.

And I'm going to win.

You're gonna win. And that means you may have to do some other things to your house. It actually helps you when it comes to homeownership. It helps you know, oh, my house actually isn't very efficient. What does that mean? And it may mean that you need new insulation in your house.

Right.

You know, up in your attic.

Now that I'm thinking about this, I'm gonna have to buy another house in order to win.

Yeah, you're gonna fail.

I'm not—

You're gonna fail. That's okay.

That's okay. But it's worth it to win.

Again, your house will eat this thermostat.

The white blood cells will come out.

That's right.

Yeah, that's right.

Now, I will tell you this. So, um, there are a couple of things that I would say are cons about this thermostat.

Sure.

One of them is that the Ecobee system requires a C wire.

Okay.

Do you know what a C wire is?

I have no idea what a C wire is.

I didn't either. And actually, it wasn't as difficult as I expected it might be. But the thing is, it doesn't have batteries.

Okay.

And it will not allow, uh, you to put batteries in it.

So for example, um, so is this something that like most thermostats currently don't have, or?

Yeah. So if you have just a plain Jane original, you know, 1950s thermostat, it's purely mechanical, right?

My house would love that.

Yeah, it would. You move a little lever and it moves another little lever and it tells the thermostat to keep—

You've already gotten way too complicated for my house. I mean, we're beyond one lever.

Well, hold Only one lever, right? So once you start going digital though, it's got data.

Okay.

Data, like for example, you know, we talked earlier about a 7-day programmable thermostat, right? So you've pro— you've spent an hour standing in front of this thing trying to get Sunday to change the temperature whenever I get home from church, right?

Right.

Um, so If for some reason, um, you lose power or the batteries go dead or something, um, there's some sort of backup if you have a battery system. Okay? So—

You mean like— you're talking about like a home battery system?

Is that what— No, no, no, no. Like AA batteries that actually go into the thermostat itself. Oh, okay.

I got you.

Yeah. So the Ecobee does not have batteries. So in order for it to get power, it has to have a C wire. The C wire, basically think about it this way, it's constant power. It's a C wire.

Okay.

So the way you get that, and this is kind of the tricky part, is either A, your thermostat has already got that capability. So there are wires that come out of the wall And one of them is a C wire. That's one option. My house didn't have a C wire coming out of the wall. So one of the cons is that they provide you with, with another little device that goes on your, your actual heating and air system, on the actual big thing, either up in your attic or outside. That you have to plug into and it sends power back to the thermostat itself. So there's another step if you don't have a C wire that you have

to install. Now it's pretty simple and there is a tutorial which actually I will link to the show notes here.

Uh huh.

That is an online tutorial that'll help you walk through this process. It's fairly simple, but it's another thing that you have to do.

I mean, it was just like something you had to like drop a wire down through the wall or something like that?

No, no, it's easier than that because basically you just take a panel off the side of your heating and air system and connect one wire and you're good. It's, it's, it's a whole lot more simple than it sounds like it is.

Sure.

But it's another step that you have to do. And I, since I have 2 thermostats, I had to be up in my attic twice. to get that done. So, it was a little bit frustrating, but that's just the way it is.

Sure.

Now, the other thing—

Is it— I mean, it's completely unfunctional without—

Yeah, it won't work without the C wire.

Yeah.

So, the other thing is that it is not a learning thermostat. And so, a lot of people have really connected with this idea of a learning thermostat. So, Craig, why don't you explain for a minute what a learning thermostat means?

Yeah, so from what I understand, I mean, it basically learns your routines. I mean, like, it sort of begins to predict your behavior. And like, so it learns when you leave for work, when you're coming home for work. And so like when things need to start coming back on, going off, when to conserve energy, when to expend energy. And, you know, so like typically most people are home on the weekends during the day, whereas during the week they're not. And so it like learns that like, well, on Saturdays I probably need to run the AC more than I do on like a Monday or a Tuesday when everyone's out of the house. You know, if you're out of the house during the week, or if like, you know, maybe you

have a job where you're home on Thursdays. And so it would just sort of begin to learn that like, oh well, Craig's home on Thursday, so we need to run the AC on Thursdays. And it just begins— I mean, from what I understand, it just basically picks up the patterns of, you know, your, your regular routine. And you can deviate from those routines and, you know, make changes that are out of the ordinary. Um, you know, like if you're out of town on vacation, you could probably let a learning thermostat know like, hey, I'm going to be out of town for the next 10 days or something like that. Um, so yeah, I mean, like, this was a, this was a struggle for us for a while too because we used to have a pet that we had to keep. I think we had like a an

exotic pet that we had to keep at a specific temperature. And so like a learning thermostat was just like out of the cards for us because it was— we had to keep, you know, you could— we didn't have the option to keep a room a specific temperature. And so we had to keep the whole house a specific temperature most of the time. Um, but the idea that, um, yeah, that the thermostat can actually learn and begin to understand your behaviors, pretty incredible. A little creepy.

Yeah, yeah, but, but that's exactly right. So basically every time you walk by that thing, you're wanting to— for the first couple of weeks, yeah, you're wanting to kind of, you know, adjust it. And, and when you leave and when you come home, those sorts of things, and it learns your behavior. So, uh, the Ecobee doesn't do that. Instead, um, it, it does something a little different. They, they've come up with a different solution. So they basically have said we're gonna provide you with 3 settings that are the most common settings. Those settings are home, so when you're actually physically at home, away, so when you're not at home, and then sleep, so when you're sleeping, right? Now there are others that you can add. It's actually a new feature that

they've added recently You can add other specific specifications as far as preferred temperatures, but basically they're saying we want you to set a temperature that you're most comfortable at when you're at home, and one for when you're away, and for one for whenever you're asleep. So when you're programming this thing, you basically say you go into, to the app and tell it At this time I'm home, at this time I'm away, and at this time I'm sleeping. And then it will program based on those settings.

And can you, can you set it up based on— I mean, like, will it differentiate between people?

Uh, well, on some level, yes. So, um, the way that will work specifically is again with the geofencing. So you can set it to where, for instance, my wife and I both have iPhones.

Right.

We're the only 2 people in our house that have phones right now. And so as long as you're on the same platform, iPhone, then the way it works is if I leave and Kimberly is still there, it knows because it sees that there is still a device within a certain range. If the— if then she leaves, then it'll sense— you have to set this up and it's a— it's just a click of a button, but, but then it'll sense there are no iPhones in the geofenced area that you have set up. Therefore, we're going to adjust the temperature. But, um, other than that, that's, that's pretty— that's about as specific as it gets, if that makes sense.

Sure. So, and so with the, with the geofencing, how far out can that be?

You know, that's a good question. I don't know the, the exact answer. Um, I'll tell you—

The idea there is like, so like, say like with— I'm, I'm within 3 miles of the house, Ecobee is going to kick on the AC so it's reasonably cool when I get home.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. Um, so we, we have ours set up pretty close, uh, to our house. Uh, just that's the way we have it set up. It's within about a, about a 2-house radius, so it's pretty close, but you can move that out. And so when we, when we leave the house, it's a little bit closer than when we get to the— come to the house, it's a little bit further out.

Is that a feature of the Ecobee app, or is that an If This Then That?

Both, actually.

You have to kind of do it in conjunction.

It's both. So you can— if you don't have another device that is helping run your thermostat, so for example, if you don't have an Apple TV or if you don't have an Alexa or a SmartThings or something like that, then the app itself can set those things up for you. It becomes smarter when you pair it with one of those other devices. But the Ecobee app itself can set up the geofencing specifically.

Yeah.

So, a couple of other things that I find are real impressive is the way it works with HomeKit specifically, which is what we use. We all use Apple devices at my house. And so, HomeKit's a pretty neat feature. Swipe up from the home screen and I can click on HomeKit And, and I can set all kinds of automations for various things in my house, and they can all tie in with my thermostat. And so that's a, that's a feature that's really nice. Again, the other thing that's really nice is I can literally use my, my phone to say, you know, Siri, change the temperature to this degree. You know, if we got friends coming over and we

want a little bit cooler or something, Uh, we just tell Siri to change it and it will. So that's a beautiful thing about, um, the way HomeKit can work. Now, um, if you've got, you know, smart lighting at your house, you can tell it that whenever, you know, at, at a certain time, if it finds that your lights dim, maybe that changes the mood of your house and it can change the thermostat. So There's a lot of different ways that HomeKit specifically can interact with your thermostat to just— it just makes it a little smarter. But the really beautiful thing is, even better about being smarter, I've seen about—

this is—

I know this is crazy, but I've seen about a 40% decline in my overall energy bill. So what I was paying a year ago for electricity is about 40% less today than it was a year ago. And based on the HomeIQ, which is— which comes with, with the thermostat itself, I can tell that it's— I mean, it's showing me about 36% savings. So it's It's really right in range.

That's impressive.

It is.

Yeah.

And so whenever you start thinking about that, for me, I can tell you that that's about— I know it sounds crazy— that's about a $50 difference, um, every month that I'm paying, which means within just a few months I've paid for the thermostat itself.

Yeah.

Based on the savings that I'm getting, which is pretty impressive.

Yeah.

Uh, so I, I've alluded to it before, the Ecobee app is very well designed. There's a lot of things that you can do. For instance, you can change the temperature differential from whenever it kicks on. So for instance, if you've got your thermostat set at 70, you can tell it, I want a 3-degree swing. So it won't kick on until the temperature gets down to 67, for example, or if it gets up to 73 if it's in air-conditioned mode. So that's a 3-point differential. Most thermostats can't handle that. Most of them will do a 1 or 2-degree swing and it is set. You can't change it.

Right.

So you can, you can change it.

And you can make it bigger than 3?

You know, I think it goes all the way up to 5.

Okay.

So, and you can lower it all the way to 1. So it just kind of depends on what your own comfort level is.

Yeah.

But it's got all the normal things. I mean, you can, you can program every day differently, so it is 7-day programmable.

Well, I know you said earlier, you, I mean, you, you were looking because you were concerned about the, you know, condenser coming on, but you looked to see what the temperature was at your house just from here at the studio.

Yeah.

Um, and, and so are you able to adjust the thermostat from here?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah, so, um, if, if I wanted to change the temperature of my house right now and be a jerk, Yeah. I could do that. Um, that's something that I could do very easily. It doesn't— I don't have to be connected to my own Wi-Fi in order to change the temperature. Um, so that is kind of a nice thing. One of the reasons that I chose to go with smart locks on my home is so that if I needed someone to get into my home When I wasn't there, I could just unlock it from anywhere in the world. Well, now I can also adjust the temperature for them as well. So that's kind of a neat thing.

So if you let somebody in, they stayed a little too long, you could just oust them. Yeah, just sweat them out.

That's exactly right.

I love it.

It's a beautiful thing. So it's also got vacation mode, right? So, uh, you know, things like that. If you, if you're on vacation, you can set it for any number of days. And it'll, um, it'll adjust itself accordingly. Um, so when, when you first unbox this thing, um, it's, it looks really nice. I, I love unboxing things and, and it be nice, you know. It's not all cluttered up. It's not hard to find things. The installation guide is fantastic. The online tutorials are really, really good. You can literally watch a tutorial video and go step by step by step, and when you're done, you're done. There's nothing else that you have to do. So the installation, they really took a lot of care in saying, you know what, you're not gonna have to hire a professional if you have

any sort of ability to do DIY things yourself. Then you don't have to hire a professional. to just install a new thermostat, which could be quite costly on top of the thermostat itself. So that's kind of a neat thing.

So do you, do you wish it had any of the, the features that you're missing from some of the other models?

You know, the only thing that I think, uh, is quote-unquote missing from this model is the learning capability. And honestly, um, you know, there, there are pros and cons to the learning system because it takes about 2 weeks to learn your system, for your system to learn you.

Yeah.

And—

I like to think I'm more of a complicated person than that. Than 2 weeks? I think I'd need like, you know, at least 2 and a half.

2 and a half. Yeah. So, you know, that's well and great but, you know, once it's set, it's set. I mean, it kind of— it's, it's learned itself, and, and it'll, you know, it'll just— it'll adjust as necessary. But with this one, I mean, I can, I can set it from the beginning and, and go. I mean, I kind of know what my rhythms are. I don't need someone else to learn it. Yeah, I know what they are.

So you have concerns about prejudice with the— with this?

Let's not go there. Okay, let's not go there.

Um, my thermostat's telling me I'm lazy. I'm lazy. I'm supposed to be at work, I turned the air off.

That's right.

I'm sick, all right? I'm home.

That's right.

Okay, I got you.

You never know. So yeah, that's kind of— I mean, I could get into a lot of the functionality of the app and those sorts of things, but I guess the thing that I would tell you is that it works.

Yeah.

And it's functional, it's intuitive. don't have to go through a lot of process just to learn how to use the app or how to use the thermostat itself. It's, it's intuitive.

Um, so like aesthetically, I mean, like just like purely like, I mean, like, is it in your opinion, is it— because I, I actually think the Ecobee is really like slick looking.

Sure.

I'm like, like, to me it kind of looks like it, it's supposed to be married with an iPhone or like a, you know, a smart device or something like that. But do you think it's aesthetically, you know, because that's, that's important to people, the way it looks in your home. Is it better looking than the Nest? Is it better looking than the Honeywell? I mean, where does it— for you, where does it fall in that?

So yeah, so, um, it, it is a— it's a square device with rounded edges.

Okay.

And like I said, the screen's about 3.5 inches. Um, and the, the Nest is round and kind of looks like a hockey puck, right? Right. And it's got pretty colors on it. Okay, it's blue if it's cold, or if you're using cool setting, it's—

Oh, I didn't know it did that. It changes colors with the— okay, that's cool.

Yeah, so, so, so there's some LED things going on there as well, right? Um, the Ecobee isn't that flashy. Um, it's, it's black and white. that the majority of the Eco Bee is white. They did that on purpose because most people don't have black walls.

Hmm.

And so, you know, the white blends in to most settings a little bit better. And I will tell you that the Eco Bee 3 Lite is— it seems significantly thinner than the Eco Bee 4. that has the Alexa enabled.

And who wants a fat thermostat?

I'm just saying. I know, right? But it sticks out further from the wall, the 4 does, than the 3. But, you know, aesthetically, man, I think it looks really good. I, I was— it's a— to me, it's a big upgrade from what I did have. Uh, I think anybody would walk by and go, okay, that's cool. You know, it, it looks aesthetically better. than just your typical everyday run-of-the-mill thermostat would. Even some of the touchscreen ones, some of those get big and wonky. I don't think this one is at all. I think it's got a good look to it. It gives you the information you need whenever you walk by it, and it's just a neat product. I would

highly recommend this. So I guess on a scale from 1 to 10, would I buy this again? I would buy it again. I would give it an absolute 9 or 10 on this.

We don't need to do those. We need, we need the, the homeowner show rating system. 5 houses out of 5 houses. It's all right. How many, how many houses are you gonna give this thing?

I'm giving them— I'm giving it to 4 out of 5 houses.

4 out of 5 houses. Okay.

Yeah, and I think that 5th house probably doesn't want a Wi-Fi thermostat.

So the 5th house is my house.

It's your house. It won't accept it.

That's right.

Yeah, it'll swarm it.

So yeah, only custom pull-start thermostats for—

Custom.

Yeah, that's right. Diesel, diesel thermostats for my house.

Yeah, instead of Alexa-enabled, it's diesel-enabled. That's right, that's right.

From Czechoslovakia.

That's right. Well, I, I think we've I think we pretty well covered this. I mean, do you have any other questions or thoughts about this Ecobee specifically?

No, I think I'm convinced. I need to go buy another house and get me some smart thermostats.

Yeah.

So, and start saving some money on the— wait, let's buy the other house first.

Yeah, it's not going to work out the way you want it to, I don't think.

Maybe if I just never ran the AC.

Good luck with that.

You do have a wife and kids.

Yeah, good luck with that.

Yeah, no, I did recently listen to an interview with Elon Musk. Musk, and he, uh, he spent a good deal of time talking about smart thermostats.

Really?

Um, particularly in conjunction, you know, with one of his businesses, which is solar power, which is something I'm really interested in. I love the idea of solar power, and I think you and I have talked about before— we've talked several times about getting it on, on our property.

Yeah.

Um, but he, he was actually saying one of the biggest hang-ups with, with these smart thermostats is, uh, people's anxiety with setting them up.

Sure.

And that's why they ended up not getting them, is like, I don't think I know how to control this thing. I don't think I know how to program it. And that's the idea I think is stuck in people's heads— I have to program it.

Yeah.

Um, which I think is the appeal of the smart one, is like, I don't have to program it, it'll just sort of program itself over time.

Sure.

Um, but it seems like you get more options with this Ecobee where you can, you know, you know, motion detection and geofencing and all that. Not that the other ones don't have that, but like, this one seems to be just kind of operating a little bit differently.

Yeah, so, you know, there's a lot of fancy bells and whistles. I mean, we're saying things like motion sensors and geofencing and if this then that, right? Yeah, we're saying a lot of these things. But, um, even if you never used any of those things, I think at the end of the day what you would see is a reduction in your overall cost of of electricity for your house and the amount of time your thermostat is running because, oh man, I left my house again and forgot to change the thermostat.

Yeah.

And how often have you thought that? And man, all I got to do is pull up my app on my phone and change it and, and I'm good. So I didn't have to waste 6 or 8 hours of my day of energy efficiency because I was able to change it and not drive all the way back to my house. So there's a lot of benefits here that even if you didn't use some of these quote-unquote, you know, fancy options, you'll be happy with.

Sure, you're gonna get quite a bit of benefit. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

Cool. Anything else we need to cover? Any homeowner show business?

You know, I guess the thing I would tell our listeners out there, if you've got a product that you love, let us know. I'm interested to know what it is. Um, if you've got a product that you would like to see reviewed, I, you know, we'd love to know what that is as well. And if we have an opportunity to review it, we will. Um, and it doesn't have to be tech. Um, yeah, Craig, you and I were talking just before the show about a new product that I've seen online. It's like an alternative to, uh, to putting concrete around fence posts.

Yeah.

Kind of neat. thing, and, um, it's fairly new. And so, you know, again, I don't know what those products would be, but if you've got any ideas and would like to, uh, have us talk about it on the, on the podcast, we'd love to do that. Send your, uh, your request or your ideas to info@homeownershow.com, and that'll get to both of us.

Yeah, or if you have a business that has a new product that you, uh, wanting to get out there, and we'd be happy to review it, take a peek at it.

Absolutely.

Uh, see if it'd be helpful to all the, uh, the homeowners out there. So yeah, one of the, one of the best things you can do is go online and review the show on, uh, on iTunes or on YouTube, um, or just subscribe to the show, uh, on YouTube or on iTunes, uh, or just send us a message. You can, uh, reach us again at info@homeownersshow.com. You can also reach us on Facebook and Instagram. We're always available and happy to talk with everybody and hear what's going on. And let us know if you have any ideas for upcoming shows. We want to put together shows that you guys want to listen to, and so if there's a home project or modeling or a product or any of those kinds of things that we can talk about

in regards to homeownership. We want to be here for you guys to help you get through that. So I guess until next time, Kev.

See you later. Thanks for listening.