Ecobee Thermostat Integration

I was wondering/verifying that the currently available integration for Ecobee thermostat today, does this work with the latest Ecobee SmartThermostat with voice control.

I had seen that it was compatible with ecobee 4, just wanted confirmation with compatibility of "SmartThermostat with voice control" (technically ecobee 5 I guess)

Seems to be a lot of controversy on which manufacture to go with but I think I have landed with Ecobee

I don't have the SmartThermostat (both of mine are Ecobee 3s), but it should be completely compatible.

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I have the ones with voice. They all work the same.

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The ecobee integration(s) rely on communicating to the thermostat via Ecobee's cloud service. So don't expect instant updates in the hub or at the thermostat when making changes at one or the other. For example, when my Ecobee starts a heating cycle, it can take 1-2 minutes for that update to get sent to the Ecobee cloud and then polled from the cloud by the app. For many applications this is just fine. For some, it is a problem. Sending commands to the Ecobee is typically much faster as the hub sends the command to the cloud immediately and it is then relayed to the thermostat without delay.

I would strongly recommend the community app Universal Ecobee Suite. It really allows you to get into the nuts and bolts of the ecobee software/settings and enables things that aren't even possible using Ecobee's native app.

The exception to all of the above is HomeKit (or HomeAssistant using the HomeKit Controller app). Ecobee does expose a very limited set of functions locally (NOT using the cloud) via HomeKit.

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Correct. You can change mode (heat/cool/auto), and set temperature. You cannot control the fan.

Thats so weird because I'm pushing complex commands to 4 ecobee thermostats simultaneously and they work/update instantly every time for me.

In fact, I only use the native app to make sure any programming changes have been picked up (because it's the easiest place to see 4 thermostat settings at once) and every time I've looked, the updates were there (within 1-3 seconds).

How quickly do you see updates in the opposite direction? I.e. make a change at the thermostat and then see it reflected in your HE device states? How often is your integration polling the Ecobee cloud?

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Fair point, I DO have my ecobees on my secondary hub. I checked and it's set at 1 minute.

For most things, the cloud-based integration (and any delay) is perfectly fine. The only thing that caused me issues is I was using the change of state (heating-idle-cooling) to trigger automations for my other HVAC equipment and faster is better.

I'm not sure where this belongs, but thought I would post it under this thread.

I have a whole house fan that is automated using RM to run when the outside is below a threshold, and the inside is above a threshold.

I use the Ecboee remote sensors for the outside temperature, and the Ecobee thermostat itself for the inside temperature reading.

I noticed that Ecboee sensors (using the Ecboee integration in Hubitat) read to the TENTH of a degree, whereas the Ecboee Thermostat reports to a DEGREE only.

I switched from using the Ecobee thermostat reading to a remote sensor in the same room.

I'm not sure if this helps anyone, but thought I would share :-).