r/ecobee

This has probably been asked before but my wife and I just purchased our new home and currently have a standard doorbell wired with the chime on the insider. My wife does not want a new doorbell because she likes the sound of our current one. My question is: If I purchases the hard wired smart doorbell, will it still utilize the current bell we have in the house??

Also: What is the difference between the standard wired door bell and that one that comes with the smart security?

Our house is old and we live in a four seasons climate. I really wish ecobee had seasons that you could associate with different comfort settings. The shoulder seasons don’t need quite so much heat but they also sometimes need AC. Auto mode is great but I don’t love adjusting my comfort settings during these shoulder seasons. Would be ideal to just switch to “spring mode” and have different comfort settings associate with it. Same with fall. Still need more AC in the fall than heat but need a little heat overnight or early in the morning.

Posting in case anyone else runs into something similar.

I have a 24 year old contractor grade gas furnace controlled by an Ecobee3 Lite for the last 6 years. A few months ago it started locking out for up to 12 hours at a time without heat. It was short cycling like a flame sensor was going out or something was blocked. Had a tech come out and despite its age they couldn’t find any issues with the furnace. Talked to Ecobee support and they were certain it was the furnace. Eventually they did have me switch some wiring (use W2 instead of W1) and that seemed to help for a few months but then it started again

I decided to try replacing the thermostat with a Honeywell T6 Pro and the furnace has not locked out once in the last month so far. I still hear short cycles I think, but the house has remained heated like nothing is wrong. I’m guessing something really is going out in the furnace and the Ecobee handles it differently, but in case it’s all the Ecobee’s fault I wanted to share my experience.

So last month, an ecobee smart thermostat was set up in my house, replacing my old non-smart one, without my knowledge by the HVAC guys. My AC unit, also ancient, was on the way out and needed a replacement. I protested, but they cajoled me into trying it out because "it's great and never gives anyone problems," apparently.

A day later, I had to call out a different heating and air company because the thermostat wasn't running at all despite saying it was and it was over 80 degrees inside; nothing I tried on troubleshooting it was working. They managed to get it going, and, since it was a late night call and I didn't want to trouble them any further, I decided to forego insisting on a replacement and see if this thing would finally work.

It hasn't. Every week there's some issue with it, and now it seems to have just gone out again despite it claiming to be working to cool the house. No air is coming from the vents. I have it set to 70 degrees, but the unit is still showing that it's 78 and it's boiling inside. I live in the Deep South, where it's insanely hot and humid for much of the year, so having a working AC and thermostat is a must.

I've put the ceiling fans on in an effort to keep myself and my poor pets cool, but I've already informed the air company that when they come out tomorrow, I want them to get rid of the ecobee and install a non-smart thermostat that won't fight me every step of the way.

And looking around, it appears my problems are more the norm for ecobee owners than the exception. To anyone thinking of getting an ecobee, save your money and get a non-smart thermostat instead. They aren't worth it.

I saw they had finally launched monitored security in Canada and signed up yesterday. Everything went (mostly) smoothly until the permit process - my city requires the security company to apply & pay for the permit, which ecobee won't support. This isn't mentioned until deep into the activation process after you've already paid & set up the system. It also took me a few hours back & forth with support to figure out why the system wasn't working. They ended up refunding the subscription cost but it was a huge hassle that took me a good part of the day to sort out, and a back-and-forth conversation with my home insurance about adding and then removing the monitored security discount.

Moral of the story - check first and see who pays for the alarm permit in your city before signing up. Ecobee is happy to take your money even if they won't support it in your city. They know where I'm located & they know the bylaws in Canadian cities. They really should refuse service from accounts located in these cities.

I'm replacing six old programmable devices with Ecobee for my six-zone boiler heat system. I installed my first Enhanced in my basement so that when someone goes downstairs, Eco+ (follow me) automatically resumes the schedule.

But for Bedrooms, we're really in them for sleep/dress/showering. Kids do homework in there. Would you use the Eco+ in there or just stick with Essential?

For the main floor where I have two thermostats, I am going with one Enhanced and one Premium so I can connect our humidifier to it and remove the old Humidistat from the wall.

Thoughts from other Ecobee users?

I have an Ecobee 4 that has randomly turned off and back on twice in the last two weeks. Before I call a tech out, wondering if there's anything I can try to solve the issue.

Some background: We installed the Ecobee ourselves. Our wiring includes a C wire, but it's so far down in the wall we were unable to pull enough out to connect it to the unit, so we used the PEK instead. That worked until the summer of 2022, we started having issues with it doing this same thing. We called Ecobee and they had us do some rewiring and that got it working again.

Fast forward to two weeks ago, I was going to bed and noticed the Ecobee was black. I turned off the breaker and turned it back on and it did not restart. I went to bed and sometime in the middle of the night the AC kicked on, so it turned back on on its own. The next day I went into the crawl space to inspect what may have kicked it off, suspecting it was the float switch, only to discover the float switch does not work. Due to our rewiring a few years back, it is not hooked up to anything (so that alone may be reason to call a tech). Could not find any other obvious issues with the unit and everything was working again, so I dismissed it as a one-off issue.

Come to today, the AC kicked on this evening and immediately off. Checked and Ecobee was black. This time we turned off the breaker and pulled the unit from the wall to look at the wiring and see if anything seemed off. Looked normal, plugged it back in, turned on the breaker. A few minutes later the AC kicked back on and has been running fine since.

As I mentioned, it's not the float switch, since that's not connected, and we replace our filter every month, so it's not from a clogged filter. I suspect that there's something amiss with the wiring or the Ecobee itself. Any ideas on what's going on or if there's anything that may be causing this that I can try to solve on my own?

Edited to add link to previous post.

I recently bought a home that has an ecobee system. when we moved in, the warm air wasn’t working in mid feb. we called HVAC they cleaned the filter, looked at it all and said everything should be good, though it wasn’t. I did some reddit searching and manuevred something (what, idk) and the heat worked feb - april, great!

come april in new england, it’s now hot some days so I go to turn on AC from ecobee. no cool air pumped out for 2 days.

back to a cold day here and I want the heat. heat won’t go on.

there’s gotta be something I am missing. something.

any insight on tricks to make air of any temp come out as long as it’s the one i’m asking for it helpful because right now it’s just room temp air that wont turn off.

Just received the following email:

We want to give you plenty of notice about an upcoming change to your ecobee Smart Security plan. Most importantly, as a loyal customer, your services and pricing will remain unchanged until January 2027.*

What’s new

• New plan name: Your ecobee Complete plan will now be called ecobee Advanced.
• 24/7 Professional Monitoring will now be offered as a separate paid add‑on, giving you more flexibility to choose the level of protection that best fits your needs.

 

Pricing and timing

Your subscription with the 24/7 Professional Monitoring add-on will have a new price of $200/year, but as one of our most loyal customers, we’re providing savings to help make this transition easier:

• 2026: You’ll stay at your current price of $90/year until your renewal date in 2027.
• 2027 renewal: Your plan will have a discounted price of $135/year ($65 in savings), including 24/7 Professional Monitoring.
• 2028 renewal: Your plan will be $200/year ($100/year for the plan, $100/year for 24/7 Professional Monitoring).

Before any pricing changes take effect in 2027, you can customize your plan to choose the protection that works best for your home. We’ll check in again before the end of the year to remind you.

No action is required on your part with these changes.

This is the first time we’ve changed our pricing since introducing our plans in 2020, and it allows us to continue to improve our service, with exciting updates coming soon.

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Looks like I will be shopping around for a different service that actually has cellular and battery backup and can integrate properly with Apple Home.

Every device in my house states 70 degrees +/- 1 degree. Ecobee thermostat says it’s 76 and running the a/c. I even directed a fan blowing in 69 degree outdoor air at it for 30 minutes and it didn’t budge. I hate this thing. I fight the schedule and the thermometer all freaking day long. HATE IT. I’m renting, have installed the app, but if you only knew how many new apps I’ve been deal with (moved, new devices, and gadgets all the apps. It’s a dystopian app hell).

Get feedback/opinions from like 4 customers, fire everyone in software, and then use Claude to fix the problems everyone’s been complaining about for 4 years in 22 minutes for like $800.

Monitored security is now available in Canada, which I’m very happy about.

However, I already have a Logitech doorbell/camera and a Schlage smart lock. Can ecobee work with them?

My ecobee is set to only use one sensor at night (for our baby's room), but it keeps using all of the sensors combined! I can tell because our house has a big temperature difference and her room will get much colder than it's set to.

It was working well a few weeks ago, and now it's not. What can I do to make it obey the sensor schedule again? Everything is showing right. It says it's in sleep mode, and when I check her room sensor it says it's the only active sensor during sleep. But when I go to the main app screen it shows the average temp, and all 3 sensors are white (like they are when activated).

Follow me is not on, and all rooms show unoccupied.