ecobee3 Lite Smart Thermostat – Programmable Wifi Thermostat – Works with Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant – Energy Star Certified – DIY Install, Black

The Ecobee3 Lite Smart Thermostat is an absolute game-changer for anyone looking to upgrade their home’s heating and cooling system. With its seamless integration with Home Assistant and Samsung SmartThings, this thermostat offers unparalleled convenience and control over your home’s temperature.One of the standout features of the Ecobee3 Lite is its programmable functionality. Setting up personalized schedules and temperature preferences has never been easier. The intuitive interface allows you to create custom heating and cooling profiles to match your daily routine, ensuring optimal comfort while saving energy and money.The integration with Home Assistant takes this thermostat to a whole new level of smart home automation. By connecting it to your existing Home Assistant ecosystem, you can effortlessly incorporate the thermostat into your smart home routines. Adjusting the temperature with voice commands or through the Home Assistant app on your smartphone has never been more convenient.But the benefits don’t end there. The compatibility with Samsung SmartThings adds another layer of versatility to the Ecobee3 Lite. It seamlessly works with other SmartThings devices, allowing for a cohesive and synchronized smart home experience. Imagine walking into a perfectly conditioned home with the lights set just right, all triggered by a single action—pure magic!Installation is straightforward, even for those with limited technical expertise. The package includes clear instructions and all the necessary hardware, making it a hassle-free process. Plus, the thermostat’s sleek and modern design adds a touch of elegance to any living space.In terms of energy efficiency, the Ecobee3 Lite is a top performer. Its advanced sensors detect occupancy and adjust the temperature accordingly, ensuring that energy is not wasted when no one is home. The energy-saving reports provide valuable insights into your usage patterns, empowering you to make informed decisions to reduce your environmental impact.The compatibility with popular smart home platforms like Alexa, Google Assistant, and Apple HomeKit further solidifies the Ecobee3 Lite as a top-tier choice. This thermostat is the cornerstone of a well-connected and intelligent home.In conclusion, the Ecobee3 Lite Smart Thermostat with integration of Home Assistant and Samsung SmartThings is a must-have for any tech-savvy homeowner. It not only delivers exceptional performance in terms of temperature control and energy efficiency but also elevates your smart home experience to new heights. Whether you’re looking to reduce your carbon footprint or simply want the utmost convenience, this thermostat will exceed your expectations. Highly recommended!

I have never installed something like a thermostat before. I have let this product sit in my cart for the last couple of months while I debated on if I was qualified enough for the daunting task of install. I wish I would’ve just purchased this a LONG time ago. And here is why….THE APP NOT ONLY TELLS YOU WHAT TO DO STEP BY STEP BUT IS INTERACTIVE!! I have NEVER had a product with such a user friendly (such an under rated term here) interface that tells you what to do BASED ON YOUR WIRING!!That’s right. You remove your old thermostat and tell the app which wires you see and it tells you what you need to do based on your specific situation. I will say I was very lucky and had the common wire and did NOT have to install the adaptor to my HVAC system. However, honestly the apps Instillation guide is so intuitive I’m sure that the extra step would have been easy enough. I know it may seem like I am rambling a bit. In this part of the review however, I want everyone to understand that the biggest reason for my hesitation was not the price of the unit but the installation process. I did not want to have to pay an additional fee for someone else to install. If I could possibly do it myself once I receive the product I had it installed within 15 minutes.The Ecobee Smart Thermostat is in itself, a wonderful and intuitive product. The product itself looks very elegant and doesn’t look like your typical hospitals style look. This looks futuristic and modern. I absolutely love how intuitive the sensor is like when you walk by the screen changing to show you a little bit more information. The software seems to know how to show you the right information to. When I want to look at the weather, it gives me just a glance at what is going on outside, which is wonderful and then I can expand it more to look into the future if I choose.The ecobee app is very user-friendly and easy to use as well. Setting up my thermostat through the ecobee app was super easy and quick.PRO TIP: Once the thermostat is installed, you can access the Apple QR code to connect your thermostat to your HomeKit ecosystem. The QR code is not the QR codes on the actual product cards inside the box.I really love the fact that this thermostat helps save on your heating bill by maximizing the heating and cooling of your HVAC system. But I was really impressed when during the install process, the software prompted me to enter my ZIP Code to show me who my local energy supplier was and allowed me to Request a rate decrease with the new install of the smart thermostat.I have not purchased any of the sensors yet, so I cannot contest to that ability of the software. However, I will be purchasing them in the future and will update my review accordingly.

The installation of the Ecobee3 Lite was painless and straightforward; our system is traditional gas heat only, with a fan wire and a C-wire. An adapter is included for non-C-wire installations.Ecobee has updated the firmware since the product photos were taken, and the look and feel is different from those photos.The display is apparently LCD, and so it’s obvious where the display rectangle is due to the black level of the LCD. That’s really the only thing that detracts from the thermostat’s appearance, but an LED display would probably add too much to the price.The Ecobee3 Lite integrates well with SmartThings, though the thermostat does not (in and of itself) take advantage of any SmartThings sensors. SmartThings can view: temperature, humidity, setpoint, fan mode (on/auto), thermostat mode (heat/cool/off), and state, and can trigger routines based on those values. The SmartThings user interface can change the setpoint, fan mode, and thermostat mode; routines can change those as well, but neither routines nor the user interface can force the thermostat to return to its schedule or force it to a comfort mode (both of those would be nice).The Ecobee’s configuration does provide a lot of options. The comfort settings concept is a great idea, in my opinion. You can create custom comfort settings too, but you cannot select a custom comfort setting manually on the thermostat’s screen.There’s no indication that the Ecobee has any surge protection built-in. The older style Honeywell programmable thermostat that it replaced, on the other hand, does appear to have some MOVs for surge protection on the back plate.Our local utility company is offering a $50 rebate for installing smart thermostats. That certainly helps with the cost!

In reality it only took 5 min to wire after understanding why my set up was different.Pros:Excellent product, easily affordable. Smart purchase. I did many reviews of many products and kept coming back to ecobee. They provide all you need for an install. If you are on the fence – go for it. My final push was I went on vacation for the first time in many many years. I realized it would be nice to control house temp while I was away. Now I can. Hooray technology.Take images of thermostat connections and furnace control board connections before you remove anything. You should call ecobee support for help but this may help you also.Super small Con: Con is only due to my particular wiring – not the device.I did not have a “C” wire at the thermostat, only White, red, green and yellow so this install is with using the PEK device supplied with thermostat purchase, my colored wiring set up and my pre existing connections. If you have questions – Call ecobee support – they sent me images and instructions(3 of the included images) for my set up.Per the wiring image. I had a separate red and white harness in my furnace going to my AC compressor and had to tie it into the PEK device supplied with thermostat which is used with 4 wire cable with no C wire at the thermostat end. If you have 5 (or more) wires you may have a C: wire or other wires for 2 stage heat or AC. I had a single stage everything. Your wire colors may be different it is more important to know what color wire goes to what connection. You should use the supplied stickers to label the wires. For example my yellow wire could be orange or blue in your set up. Put a Y label on it This based more on where you disconnected the cable from more then color though. If you dis connect a orange wire from Y or Y1 – label it Y or Y/Y1Original Thermostat connections and wiresI had a Red wire going to Rh with a Jumper to Rc (which can be ignored)Green to GYellow to YWhite to WFurnace end controller boardRed to RGreen to GYellow wire tied to red of seperate 2 wire cable to my AC compressor (Not to Y on furnace controller board) 2nd white wire of AC comporsser tied to wire nut then a white wire (shown as blue in wiring diagram) to C connection on controller boardWhite to WConnections for ecobee thermostat with No C wireThermostat endRed to RcGreen to CYellow to PEKWhite to W1PEK is magnetic and sticks to wall inside furnace in between wiring from thermostat and furnace control boardWiring from thermostat (4 wires) to PEK device suppliedRed to PEK “R”Green to PEK “G”Yellow to PEK “Y”White to PEK “W”PEK to furnace and AC compressor and furnace control board (5 wires on the other end of PEK device) If you happen to have 2 wires to any one terminal – Only disconnect the wire that went to thermostat. Leave the other wire connected as this may go to another device you have such as a humidifier. Leave any other wires on the furnace control board connected. Again – only remove the wires that went direct to furnace.Red (R) to furnace control board “R”Green (G) to furnace control board “G”Yellow (Y) to AC compressor red (with wire nut).White (W) – label looks Grey) to furnace control board “W”Blue (C) to AC compressor wire nut tying AC compressor white wire – PEK blue (C) wire and my short white colored wire (shown as Blue wire in wiring image) to furnace control board “C”Note:My original wiring connections on the furnace control board had no wire to “Y’ since my original yellow wire connected to wire nut with Red AC compressor. With ecobee I had to plug the yellow wire to PEK “Y” and the opposite end of PEK device went back to wire nut with Red AC compressor wire.The wiring image shows white AC compressor white tied with wire nut to PEK Blue wire AND a white wire(Shown in blue on Right wire image) to “C’ on furnace control board. – don’t let color confuse you it could be any color, where it comes from and where it plugs into is more important.

I had a Nest learning thermostat in my old house, and to be honest, I wasn’t crazy about it. When I bought my new home in 2019, it had a simple, non-programmable digital thermostat with zero features.I haven’t been happy with the way that my AC has been cooling in this hot Texas summer. Even with the fan running 24/7, it still always felt stuffy and a bit too warm, and my electricity bills were always a bit higher than I’d like.I took a chance and chose this one over a Nest, and it’s been the best decision that I could have made.I’m using the huge, white wall plate until I repair and repaint the holes from the other one. It looks a bit out of place, but it just barely covered the old holes. If the plate was any smaller, it wouldn’t cover them.Anyway, in the two weeks that I’ve been running this ecobee, I’ve seen a huge improvement in both my comfort levels and in energy reduction. I didn’t see much of a difference in the first week, but then I started figuring out how it worked with some of the advanced settings.When you can see all of the performance of your system on the website, you can see how everything is working. I initially set it so that it was more or less the same as my old, dumb thermostat, with the exception of changing the home/sleep to different values. My home is mostly one story, with just one upstairs bedroom that my oldest son uses. They system isn’t zoned, so it always gets really hot up there in the summertime. To help combat this, I’ve changed the fan from Auto to On so that air is always being circulated.What I didn’t realize is that actually makes things worse. When I could see the data on the webpage, I could see that the humidity in the home was going up and down like a roller coaster. It would go down when the AC compressor was on, but it would shoot right back up when the compressor turned off but the fan was still blowing through the system. I changed the fan setting back to Auto, and immediately, the humidity went down and stayed down. Previously, I was seeing the humidity in the house going up and down from 65% to 85% several times every hour. With just one setting change, spotted by the system data, I got it to stay at 65%.That still seemed a bit high to me, so I started researching getting a home dehumidifier. Pretty quickly, I found out that this thermostat has a dehumidify feature all ready to use. It uses something called Overcool, where you can set a target humidity and how many degrees you will allow the AC to go below the set point to further reduce the humidity. I set a target of 60% and gave it two degrees to work with. Right away, using the app, I could see that it was working.It still ranged between 62%-65% for the first day, but I could see it trending lower over time. After two days, it was maintaining 60% at the AC set point. Then I lowered it to 58%, and it took about another day to settle there. I repeated this every day until it is now at 50%. It’s holding this humidity level at the regular set point, but it feels much cooler and comfortable in the house now. I’m going to keep going to see if I can hit 40%.Everybody in the house has commented on the difference, and I’ve even bumped the temperature up a little because my wife has started wearing sweaters.What’s even better about this is that the website also graphs how many hours the compressor runs compared to the outside temperature. Over the last week, I’ve seen the ratio of compressor hours vs temperature go down by at least 1/3. Coupled with the fan only being on while the compressor is running, I’m expecting to see my electric bill go down substantially. I wouldn’t be surprised if this pays for itself over the summer.I’m going to invest in a couple of the remote sensors to make the occupied rooms the temperature that I want.Bottom line, this thing is awesome.