Possible to use the motion detector of EcoBee 3lite

You CAN... But remember that the motion sensors don't reset very fast / show motion "active" for a very long time.

May be useful for an initial trigger, but wouldn't be very useful for much else.

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I believe the ecobee motion can only be accessed through their webservers, making them reliant on their servers and an internet connection.

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I also believe that to be the case, but could be wrong as I got out of the Ecobee business about a year ago.

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I was hoping that you could directly access the motion detector value without the cloud. Then I forgot that EcoBee is a web Based access to it not local.. might be time to replace my thermostat with a Zwave one

That's what I did... And for basically that reason... Ecobee was going through a patch where the cloud connection was dying regularly at one point, and I got pissed off and ripped all 4 of them out.

If you go that route, there are a number of zwave and zigbee options to be had, depending on the features that are important to you and what your HVAC equipment looks like (humidifier or not, multistage heating/cooling or not).

Accurate in most use cases. I think that Homekit access is local through the thermostat (for Homekit compatible ecobees).

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I forgot about Homekit. I think you are right on that one!

I think replacing it is the best bet.. I went from Nest to EcoBee because Nest was not good with SmartThings LOL now I have to move to another thermostat because same reason :slight_smile: I like the way the NEst and EcoBee look and when I look at other Z-wave controllers they are ugly as heck.. Maybe i just replace my thermostat with a tablet in the living room for better looks get a 7" fire tablet

There are no z-wave/zigbee thermostats with all the color and graphics that Nest and ecobee have. You could, in theory, install a thermostat to be right by the air-handler/furnace and make use of temperature sensors in living space to control it.

The other limitation of z-wave/zigbee thermostats is that they generally don't support peripherals like Nest/ecobee do.

I will be replacing my ecobee with the Honeywell T6 Pro zwave+ thermostat - rather plain, but it is discreet and apparently works well (if internet reviews are to be believed).

Thanks aaiyar, thats not a bad idea... I wonder how hard it would be to make an interface for your thermostat so that its full screen on the tablet and you could mimic the Ecobee interface.. Put the thermostat beside the furnace like you said and just use temp sensors to control the furnace and have the nice tablet in your living room full screen and swipe left to get other device controls

I would rather have an ugly thermostat (that I never really look at anyway) that works 100% of the time over a "pretty" 98% working one.

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To be honest it's our clock and outside temp viewer and we like knowing outside temp for some dumb reason lol. But I do agree with you function over form... if I can get EcoBee Devs to allow a parameter like setAway(temp) or something like that so it does not HOLD it would be fine

Could you elaborate on what you mean?

WIth @storageanarchy's Ecobee Suite you can set Away Mode, Home Mode etc. directly in Hubitat ..... I do this - so my ecobee3 changes its mode in sync with my Hubitat Mode (Away, Home, Sleep).

When you use the setAway from the Hubitat to the ecobee the ecobee HOLDs the setting not matter your schedule till you unhold it from the device its self or you do a resume() on it. Very annoying that ecobee does not have an API for temp changing the mode to Away mode till the next programed scheduled change.

Why don't you control your ecobee entirely from Hubitat? @storageanarchy's Ecobee Suite is way more powerful than the choices offered by ecobee's own app.

I am thinking this might be the option... I'm not apposed to it just might use that as a last ditch effort just before getting rid of the EcoBee. But ill install the Suite to have a look just so I know what it can do. From what I have read the Hubitat is not 100% hardened and mature and can screw up sometimes so when it comes to important things like heating might look at it but would rather used mature EcoBee software and hardware to control it.

My Ecobee Suite won't "break" your important things - the thermostat runs entirely autonomously. The Suite just allows you to have more direct programmatic control (think Rule Machine and custom Helpers) over the thermostat than does the basic native support. You know, simple things like being able to set:

The problem isn't that the Ecobee API doesn't support it. You are seeing the limitations of an incomplete/immature implementation of the Ecobee API...

And FWIW, Ecobee Suite ()and its predecessor) has been around for almost 4 years now - I would argue that it is far more "hardened" than is the Hubitat- (or SmartThings)- support.

But it is entirely up to you...

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haha good points.. :slight_smile: I am going to have a look at it and maybe it can save the life of my EcoBee if i cant get the devs to expose this feature on the EcoBee API

Thanks BTW for making that app. It seems really great! If i took the schedule out of EcoBee's hands this would obviously solve the problem as form Hubitat you could force the resuming of modes

Don't hold your breath for the Hubitat developers adding functionality to their Ecobee support...they tend to want to keep things to a "least common denominator" rather than implementing full-feature drivers and applications. With good reason, if ALL thermostats don't support "hold until next scheduled program change", then it gets REAL HARD to support it in Rule Machine, etc.

That's why you see us 3rd party developers filling in the blanks and polishing around the edges...

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Thanks!