Nest or Ecobee for new home?

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farscapesg1

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We are moving into our new home just after New Years and one thing the family has agreed on is that we want some "smart thermostats".. especially with the house being all electric (AC, heating, water, appliances, etc.) to try to control costs better. After years of living in a house with bad thermostat placement (right outside the office where I had all my computer gear so it ran about 10 degrees warmer than the rest of the house) and other AC issues like a single unit feeding a dual-zoned setup resulting in poor AC flow in some rooms we were leaning towards the Ecobee units with the remote sensors. Luckily the thermostats in the new house are in better locations and we have separate units for the upstairs and downstairs which should heat/cool more accurately.

With that said, what are people's thoughts or experiences between the Nest and Ecobee units? A big factor for us is the issue of random schedules. I can be in the office Tues-Thurs one week, or Wed - Fri another, and only Tues and Thurs the next, so I'm not sure how well the "learning" features would work. When home, I'm likely to spend 2-3 hours in the office without even stepping out, so anything with a movement sensor wouldn't pick me up and may think the house is empty. Ideally I would like a "geofencing" option, but it needs to be tied to multiple users and not just one phone.. and it can't rely on jailbreaking/rooting devices because that isn't allowed with my corporate phone.

Placement in the new house may not be ideal for anything with a movement sensor. The current thermostat placement is on a wall facing the front door in the "foyer" area by the stairs. The living room/kitchen/majority of living space is on the other side of the wall behind the thermostat, so any motion detection would only detect when someone comes in or out of the house or goes up or down the stairs. If the family is hanging out in the living room/kitchen for several hours it won't ever detect anyone is around.

It sounds like with Nest's Home/Away Assist that would cover the geofencing concerns as well a motion detection. Ecobee's remote sensors should do the same if placed in the regular traffic areas but seem to be more subject to delays in determining away status without multiple-user geofencing (I think IFTTT can work there.. but not sure how well that works out with non-jailbroke iphones for example). I've read it takes about 2 hours to go into away mode after not seeing any activity.

Thoughts, opinions, advice on which one would be better?
 
I went with the Honeywell Lyric. Was $100 less expensive and had all the features i need. I use the built in scheduling, but it does have geofencing capability.
 
I'm a big fan of Nest and have used them in my last 2 homes. The scheduling capabilities are pretty impressive.
 
I have been an HVAC tech for 29 years, I have tried all 3, I had 3 nests fail ,the last one failed and would bring the heat and a/c condensor on at the same time in the winter, lucky I was home or it could have killed the a/c unit.Also the temp swings always made you feel too hot and then 10 minutes later, too cold.
I liked the Lyric at first, but the Geo fencing never worked consistently and after a year it went dark and also failed.
I am very happy with the Ecobee 3 and have 1 on each floor, works well temp wise, the included remote sensor helps keep the room temp consistent. It controls my on furnace humidifier in the winter and ( I am Lazy) it works well controlling it thru my Amazon Echo via voice......Most importantly, after 2 years , it has not failed...Also for your application, because it comes with a wireless remote sensor, you can put it in your work area and it will sense that you are home.....I had the same problem you are worried about, wife works at home, Nest was in hallway and it would not sense any movement and turn the temp to energy saving....She is happier now too. It does take 2 hrs to go into energy saving, I agree, I would like to make that 1 hr, but overall, I still think it is the best option.
 
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Thanks for the detailed info. One extra note is that our new house uses electricity (heat pumps) for heating which is completely new to me. I don't know if that really makes a difference. The house doesn't use "dual heating" so I don't have to worry about connecting any secondary heating sources... if I want that I have to bring wood in for the fireplace :p

From what I'm reading, it seems like it is fairly simple to set up IFTTT and Life360 to work on multiple devices for the ecobee. Not sure how much of a battery drain that will be compared to the Nest app and it's inherent geofencing. If I can get geofencing working correctly that would probably solve the 2 hour delay issue. I guess I could pick up a couple extra ecobee sensors to put one in the office (already planned on putting one in the master bedroom and living room).
 
farscapesg1 said:
Thanks for the detailed info. One extra note is that our new house uses electricity (heat pumps) for heating which is completely new to me. I don't know if that really makes a difference. The house doesn't use "dual heating" so I don't have to worry about connecting any secondary heating sources... if I want that I have to bring wood in for the fireplace :p

From what I'm reading, it seems like it is fairly simple to set up IFTTT and Life360 to work on multiple devices for the ecobee. Not sure how much of a battery drain that will be compared to the Nest app and it's inherent geofencing. If I can get geofencing working correctly that would probably solve the 2 hour delay issue. I guess I could pick up a couple extra ecobee sensors to put one in the office (already planned on putting one in the master bedroom and living room).
Click to expand...

The electric heating doesn't make any real difference, however, you will have to hook it up as primary and aux heating ( multi stage). The heat pump is the 1st stage and the heat strips ( aux heat ), are the 2nd stage. Make sure you read up on the connections before you hook it up. It is not really that difficult, but if you are unfamiliar, it will take a little reading.
Sorry,I am not familiar with IFTTT or life360, so I cannot help you there.
 
OK, so I was curious and did some reading on both of those apps, IFTTT looks pretty slick ! I will have to set it up and try it out. If this works and enables geofencing, then it will eliminate the Ecobee's only short coming.
This is what I love about this place, I wanted to share my experience with you and provide some help, and I ended up learning something also...Very cool. Thanks.
 
are you using a hub?

I have an Ecobee Smart SI connected to a Smartthings hub, the hub handles geofencing and presence(thru the phone) for multiple people(phones and/or presence sensors)
 
86 5.0L said:
are you using a hub?

I have an Ecobee Smart SI connected to a Smartthings hub, the hub handles geofencing and presence(thru the phone) for multiple people(phones and/or presence sensors)
Click to expand...

I don't have any "smart home" devices yet.. this will be a new experience for the new house :p We do have an Echo Mini that we got for Christmas and may pick up another 1 or 3 :p

I'll have to play around with the Life360 app a little more. I downloaded it to my phone and my daughters just for testing and she complained about her battery draining while we were driving from Houston to Nashville in separate cars. My understanding is it will use more battery when driving constantly since it is relying on GPS.. just like if using Waze or another GPS app. I'll have to test it a little more since she disabled it from running in the background to save her battery.
 
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