I just installed this thing and what do you know, my old, antiquated thermostat was reading TEN DEGREES lower than the actual temp, prompting the heater to run all day and night just to maintain 60 degrees (meanwhile it was actually 70 in the house). Instantly saw this when I installed the Ecobee and used an external thermometer to measure it's accuracy.
The installation was easy enough, the only pain in the asphalt that I experienced was having to crawl up into my attic to connect one single wire to the furnace (the wire was already there, just needed to be connected to the C contact). The install directions via the downloaded up couldn't have been clearer and easier to understand. Bottom line, if you know where your furnace is and you can access it, you'll be able to install the Ecobee (even if you know nothing about furnaces as I don't).
Once installed, the app is sleek and gorgeous, as is the thermostat itself. The only confusion I had using the app for the first time, is it's not really like my old, manual, 20 year old thermostat. You CAN set the temp manually and it will hold that temp, but only until the set "schedule" starts whenever your "sleep" time starts. Simply put, there are three modes you can fully program with start/end times, and set temps. "Home" (when you're home but not sleeping) "Away" (when you're not home, like at work every day) and "Sleep" (when you're home but sleeping). I'm not usually a fan of this type of schedule automation, but it actually makes perfect sense. You can change anything about your weekly schedule at any time, setting when each "mode" (home, away, and sleep) starts, ends, and what temp it should hold. The schedule allows customization for each of the 7 days in a week, or you can set 1 days worth and copy it to the other 6 days of the week. That's what I did because I work from home, so I'll really only be using the "Away" mode when we're on vacation, etc. Right now only use the Home and Sleep modes 7 days a week (no more adjusting the heater before bedtime, the app does it for me via my set schedule).
I got one sensor with my thermostat and paid for 2 more. So worth it. You can place those sensors in other rooms, so I have a total of 4 rooms sending temp readings to my app (because the Ecobee thermostat itself acts as a sensor of course). I can choose to use all, some, or just one of the sensprs for any part of my schedule. So I have it set to read all 4 sensors during the day (aka, in "Home" mode). Then at night ("Sleep" mode), I have it only reading the sensors in our room, and the baby's room. That way only the temps in those rooms will trigger the heater if those rooms drop below my target temp, what's happening downstairs in the middle of the night doesn't matter so I don't have it consider those sensors until 7am (when my day/"home' schedule starts).
There are a ton of different ways to schedule it if you have more than one sensor, but how to use all of it is simple, and easy to understand (no tech-y chops required). There are a bunch more features I've omitted such as local weather forecasting on the app, local rebate programs coordinated and participated in through the app, and even TOU (Time Of Use) rate plan entry so you can really get efficient with your energy use. We also have solar, so this thermostat is the perfect companion, but that would still be the case if we weren't solar customers.
If you buy this, the only thing you'll regret is not buying it sooner (especially if you have an old thermostat like I did, lesson learned – NEVER trust an old thermostat)! Five stars Ecobee, you got this one right!
