So, if anyone else has been patiently awaiting Ecobee to address the known bug in their latest firmware that broke group settings, it appears that the wait is now over. Their response: It's no longer supported. Their stellar customer service notified you in the usual way they address things. That is, they didn't send anything official. When the bug first appeared, they just let you find out by going to the online user guide and they had placed a note saying it was temporarily out of service. Now, it is just not in the online userguide (even though they have a link to it) and they just let you find out on your own when you try to check and see if it is working again on the web portal. When you do that, you will get the below message
While I can use (and do use) HE to resume the built in schedule and put the thermostats into away mode, this requires cloud. To be honest, Ecobee cloud is not all that reliable. Which is why it really requires you to have comfort settings and schedules on the units themselves to really be able to be reliable. With the group settings, you were at least only required to update any changes once, and the other thermostat(s) in the group would automatically be updated to the new settings. This was completely optional. So those that did not need or want this functionality could still have separate schedules, comfort settings, and so on.
In any case, I am now looking for the best completely local option (Probably Zwave). At least that way, I can fully rely on what I have setup in HE to actually get to the thermostat and not have to rely on a cloud for my schedule. I would also be able to control both T Stats with single rules and again only have to update variables once. If it matters, these are Goodman heatpumps with Auxilliary strip heaters for emergency heat. Apparently, no one in Maryland uses fossil fuels for heat any longer.
Depending upon what you want to replace, there is the local option for Ecobee.
Set up Home Assistant on a RaspPi. Use HA's HomeKit emulation to add the Ecobee tstats. You now have completely local control of the Ecobee (with all the control exposted to HK). Add HA into your HE via HADB and you now have local control of the Ecobee tstats from HE.
There are several added bonuses is with this setup. The Ecobee room sensors have both a occupancy device and a motion sensor device. The later becomes a useful motion sensor that goes inactive in 60s. Their camera (which Ecobee sent me for free) works without their security subscription.
I only use HA for it's HK emulation to locally connect my Ecobee tstats and my Aqara FP2s. I send the devices back to HE (via HADB) for all control/monitoring. But personally I only monitor my Ecobee tstats; I set up comfort settings and schedules internal to the tstat and let them do their thing.
I only ever used their Thermostat Groups when I would switch the tstats (I have 2) from heating to cooling or to off, at the transition points between seasons. I'll miss it, but it isn't a deal breaker for me.
So, I would also need an apple home kit device? Or are you saying I can use my pi to emulate home kit without having to actually join the apple ecosystem?
That sounds like something I should have been doing already. I am assuming you will have to delete the Ecobee integration in HE to prevent conflicts of having two of the same thermostat (currently using the bult in app on HE)
I do believe that Ecobee will still need an initial internet connection to establish the HomeKit connection because they do not have an MFI chip. Most manufacturers seem to be choosing this route now to lower the cost of adding HomeKit compatibility.
I recall this being the case with the Ecobee 3 that I used to own.
No, you don't have to.. but you can. If you don't, you'll just have two different devices that can control the same thing. I haven't gotten around to deleting the built-in Ecobee integration yet, but I really should, since it doesn't add anything for me.
My ecobee tstats are still connected to the Internet, and I still use the Ecobee app (via their cloud) to monitor them. I suppose you could turn that off once their are connected to HK, but I don't have any need to do that.
So, can you use the comfort settings at all? It looks to be missing the resume program and away of the built in driver. They lost the capability of choosing specific comfort settings (modes) years ago.... which was my first rant. LOL
Right. Once you're connected to HomeKit it's station to station, but initially it needs to communicate with iCloud. I found this out from @patrick and confirmed that when I blocked the internet connection to my Ecobee, it wouldn't display the QR code to allow HomeKit setup.
I have no iCloud anything. I connected my tstat to the HA HK instance without any Apple infrastructure or login. I think it needed the pairing code printed on the tstat.
(maybe it used iCloud without my knowledge or needing any login/authentication... idk)
This. Apple likes to refer to connections to their servers as iCloud in many instances, even when it doesn't matter to the end user whatsoever. Those guys market themselves in their sleep.
It takes things like this to get me off my ar$e to try something I have been wanting to do for a while but was a bit intimidated. Installed Docker, installed HA in my Docker, and the Ecobee installed seemlessly. Note: The screen pops up with the pin code as HA is connecting. THANKS for the direction!!!
This. Apple likes to refer to connections to their servers as iCloud in many instances, even when it doesn't matter to the end user whatsoever. Those guys market themselves in their sleep. 
