Oh man. I'm so frustrated with Ecobee. I was an early adopter of their thermostat probably 15 years ago. The thermostat has been bulletproof, but out of the blue a couple days ago it wouldn't respond to my Alexa commands, their mobile app wouldn't work, and I noticed the outside temperature no longer had a reading on the device itself even though it was connected to the Wifi network just fine.
I contacted Ecobee and here is what they gave me: Help Centre. They just decided to basically turn off all services to their legacy devices with no explanation why. With no explanation it seems to send the message that this was just a way to get people to upgrade their Ecobees. What an incredibly poor way of handling this. I would have preferred them charging me to use their services or at least offer a discount code to your most loyal customers.
So, why am I writing here? I'm wondering if the Hubitat possibly offers any way to salvage this Ecobee thermostat? It does appear there are some things that Hubitat can do with the Ecobee, but I think they will all require access to Ecobee's servers. Am I correct about that or is it possible that the Hubitat can just access it locally?
If the Hubitat can't salvage this Ecobee in some way, I guess I'm going to have to get a new one installed, which I don't think will be as easy as just replacing the thermostat. There is a box this legacy ecobee connects to so I don't think your standard thermostat will work with it. Basically, I'm probably going to have to have my A/C company install a new one. If it does come to that, are there possibly any Smart Thermostats out there that don't need access to the Manufacturer's servers? I would like to avoid this from happening again, if possible.
FYI - ecobee sent out at least 3 emails that they were shutting off support for their original Smart and EMS thermostats on July 31st. So it is incorrect to state that they did this with no warning - check the email address that you registered your Smart thermostat under.
Those thermostats use their old API, unlike the Smart Si and later thermostats. The Smart Si itself dates back to 2012 and is still at supported.
The Smart and EMS thermostats will continue to work as regular dumb thermostats. If you need cloud connected thermostats, there are plenty of upgrade options from ecobee and others.
Also, Hubitat cannot connect to these thermostats locally.
P.S. I got those emails because I had a Smart thermostat that I upgraded to a generation 2 ecobee3 in 2014.
I upgraded my HVAC system in 2020. Prior to that time, I had to use the converter box as I did not have the extra wire needed to power the Ecobee. After the HVAC upgrade, they removed the box as it was no longer needed.
If you need the WiFi connectivity and Alexa features, you can always purchase a newer Ecobee model. You should be able to wire the new model in exactly the same way as your older one.
Personally, since I am retired and someone is at home nearly all the time, I have one setting for summer cooling and another for winter heating. I never change the setpoints. Thus, I never use the WiFi or Alexa capabilities, but I can see how some people would.
Getting 15 years out of a cloud service with no subscription is nothing to sneeze at. I have an ecobee 3 lite I got from power company. I'd be ok replacing it after that long.
Know nothing about this specific case, but it's rarely like that. Much more likely some underlying dependency is being decomissionned or has become a security liability and would force them to rewrite part or all of their service.
Well if you need Alexa or remote access via app there's no easy path to complete independence Best approach might be to chose something that offers more than one option. Newer Ecobees are Homekit compatible so can be remote-controlled that way.
The ecobee thermostat that @JPW has is their original ecobee Smart thermostat. That thermostat connected to an EIM via a 4-wire digital connection. The EIM was wired to furnace control board.
Ecobee doesn’t make EIM thermostats anymore. And they haven’t made such thermostats since 2011.
Using a new ecobee will require removing the EIM, and upgrading a 4-conductor connection to the thermostat to be more than 4 conductors.
And what have we all learned today, boys and girls?
Don't use cloud services for things that can be done with local control. Just. Don't.
We either see something like this happen (equipment obsoleted by manufacturer) or we end up paying a subscription. No more, for me. Local, please and thank you.
I don’t know anything about this but apparently there might be a way to bring ecobee into HomeKit and make it local? Maybe check this thread for whether that’s actually possible? If so I might want to do it too…
Or not. Looks like @aaiyar was involved in that thread so I bet you’ll get an answer here in a sec
Only if you have a generation 2 ecobee3 or later - HomeKit compatibility was added with the introduction of the generation 2 ecobee3 in 2014.
@JPW has their original Smart thermostat that was introduced in 2009, and used a different physical architecture and infrastructure design compared to all their models introduced after 2012.
Ecobee informed Smart and EMS thermostat owners starting in October 2023 that their cloud service for these thermostat would be shut down on 7/31/2024. They have offered upgrade paths to newer thermostats. I have no idea why @JPW didn’t receive those emails.
Ecobee’s current/supported cloud infrastructure is shared for all thermostats introduced beginning in 2012.
I've been teetering on switching my Ecobee for one of these. but honestly, the Ecobee replaced the Wi-fi version of the T6 which annoyed the crap out of me with lack of AUTO setting. Does the Z-wave version have this? For the most part the only Wifi/Cloud stuff I have now is Rachio, my Tesla Powerwall and (maybe) my Nano leaf essentials bulbs, though i believe those can be locally controlled with HomeKit if I lose the cloud.
I like the Ecobee for the most part but with someone one home all the time, I'm sort of like @rwclements228 above where its one setting in the summer fall, one in the winter / spring. I don't use the voice control as much as I thought I would, I don't use it with apple music or Alexa, so in the end I don't know that I'm getting all that much value for the could connection.
Ecobee 3 (and later) all work locally on HomeKit, and can operate locally without Ecobee's servers. I use the HomeKit emulation in Home Assistant to get local monitoring/control over my Ecobee 3s, and bring them to Hubitat via HADB.
It was discussed in another thread.
I felt they wouldn't provide enough fine control for my hot water zone pumps.
I have a 120 gallon buffer tank with high efficiency pump/motors.
They can cycle on and off a lot without any problem, not starting or stopping the oil boiler.
As I recall, the Ecobee can do +/- .5 deg F.
Wow. Thank you so much for all this wonderful dialogue. It helps immensely. I'll try to be brief, but let me touch on some of this.
I received zero warning and none of the emails. I archive almost everything to my gmail account, which is registered with ecobee and checked. Nothing. Now I'm hearing that they may have offered some upgrade options, but I haven't even seen those. I may try to call them and see what they might have available, but this whole experience has left a pretty sour taste in my mouth because in my case it isn't a simple swap out of thermostats. This forced obsolescence is probably going to end up costing me around $800 and maybe more.
Yea, I think you'll see where another poster cleared this up. This isn't the case for me. The "early adopter" ecobee equipment has a box between the thermostat and the equipment so you can't just switch out the thermostats. It is all going to need to be rewired forcing me to get my A/C company in here to do the work.
I think you have the impression this is a simple thermostat swap. It isn't. This forced obsolescence, and let's be honest, this is solely about ecobee wanting to force their customers to upgrade to make more money, has already cost me considerable time, it will cause me additional time, it will cost me the cost of a new thermostat, and it will cost me the installation cost of having my A/C company come out and rewire all this. And for what? To switch out a device that works perfectly fine until the company behind it turns it off? How is this being loyal to your most loyal customers who helped you get your start by buying into your product? Anyway, my A/C company is good, but you pay for it. They are pricey. I can tell you the work needed here won't be as inexpensive as many of you might think.
That is good to know. I'm not familiar with Homekit, but I'll be looking into it now.
Spot on. Thanks for sharing the technical details around this. You explained it much better than I could.
So true, but what choice do I have? For the features I like, I'm not seeing really any options out there (maybe the ecobee with HomeKit might do it, but I was really hoping to avoid ecobee after all this). I do like things like the gathering of historical data to show how my system has been running against outdoor and indoor temperature. I do like the Alexa integration. I'm not sure if I can get those things without having dependence on the cloud.
Yea, I don't know either, but based on what their support told me, they are completely overwhelmed right now. It sounds like I may have not been the only one that didn't receive any of the emails about them turning off so many devices.
But this thermostat doesn't gather any kind of historical data...correct? I know most people probably don't need that, but it is something I like.
Ugh...this may be where I'm forced to go. Pay all this money because of what Ecobee has done to buy another one of their products and then pay probably in the neighborhood of $500 to get my A/C company to completely rewire everything to accommodate their old product to now fit their new product. The only silver lining might be that once I do this, and if they do something like this again (seems like they could), the HomeKit option will still allow me to control my thermostat remotely. HomeKit is completely new to me, so I'll need to learn more, but this is the impression I'm getting.
Are you certain their first generation thermostat doesn’t somehow rely on an API they are deprecating (possibly for good reasons)?
As @hubitrep mentioned, there could be perfectly valid reasons to do this other than just screwing their customers who haven’t purchased anything from Ecobee in a while.
