need to take the plunge, just had a new AC installed at the house and the wifey wanted wifi thermostat, etc...

Nest or ecobee? GO!

 

I vote Nest. Never had a problem with either of mine (old house and new). Since I knew the Nest worked with my old Trane HVAC, I knew it would work with the new.

Does your power company offer a deal on them?

 

I think one of the coolest features of the Nest is that it partners with local energy services to raise the temp so that it puts less strain on the grid. during these "rush hour rewards", I know I'm doing my part to lower the strain on the grid while saving energy usage.
Of course, you can lower the temp at anytime you want, but the gamify effect makes one want to continue to bear the heat. lol

 

We have 2 EcoBee in our house. Older models, house as built in 2013.

No experience with Nest, but the EcoBee has been fine for us. Set up a temperature schedule on both & they work well.

 

This has been annoying the fuck out of me right now.. I signed up for my parents house and had the Nest there, but when I got my place, i took the Nest and it's still connected to their utility provider so they've been trying to throttle my temps based on demand.. screw you big government, I'm doing what I wanna do.'




But still Nest > Ecobee. Pairs perfectly to my Google Home integrated smart home.

 

Been a while Stogie!

I have a Nest.

Pros:
- Programmable schedule, easy to do on phone app
- Links to my Google Home to change the temp "Hey Google, make it 75 degrees."
- Control temp by phone

Cons:
- Can't see history until the next day
- App UI pretty crappy overall

 

there's gotta be a way to unlink?
as one has to opt into the program.

Edit* ohh, you have to call the energy provider to opt out. no simple way to opt out from the nest or nest app.


if I get too hot, i just turn down the a/c anyway.

 

It's a well documented point of contention. I have to contact the utility company as Nest doesn't have an opt out from their end.

 

they pushed that out to everyone for a few weeks in July. I enabled it and after it finished it made changes to schedule to enable it year round.

 

ecobee for the last 3 years, the remote sensors are nice. No complaints here!

 

I have a first generation Nest that was purchased when they were first released. Never had a problem with it. The only thing I don’t like is that it doesn’t track how many hours the blower has run. My old $50 unit was capable of this. 🤬

 

Thanks for the input Gents. I was leaning toward the Ecobee (partly on looks, partly because a remote sensor is included), but the consensus here seems to be Nest. Thoiboi, you rated Nest>Ecobee, do you have any experience with Ecobee or are youjust happy with the Nest?

I can get a small rebate for any of these, and if I wanted to allow my energy provider to have control, either unit will do it but there is no way in hell I would allow that. Ev. Er.

 

Admittedly, i don’t have any experience with Ecobee so i may be biased.

Nest also has temperature sensors you can buy and set in separate rooms and have a schedule to use different sensors at different parts of the day (e.g. at night, i set my Nest to use the sensor in my master bedroom so it adjusts the temperature accordingly when i sleep). I think Ecobee can probably do the same.

 

Not sure if our Ecobee has remote sensors....

 

To be clear, when I purchased my house, the Nest was already installed. And yeah, there's no monthly/annual reporting on your a/c run time. Your phone app will carry a week's worth of data and after that you're on your own. Also, the data will show if someone manually changed the temperature but it won't say if done via thermostat/phone. You will receive a monthly email from Nest on your monthly run times though and potential factors why your hours +/- from the prior month. This all goes to my point that the UI could be better.

 

for what it's worth, I wouldnt mind trying the ecoboee....afteralll they are just thermostats..

 

I think our Ecobee(s) are a lower end model. Has a phone app & can set schedules, which is a step up from a traditional t-stat. But they're not 'smart' in any capacity that I've seen.

 

The lack of integration with the Apple home app annoys me about Nest.

 

^Agree


^yup. the online ecobee home portal seems to be the only "smart" thing about it along with the remote sensors... I also guess that being able to control the temp from the ecobee app on my phone or from the widget is a "smart" feature

 

A plus to Nest is if using Nest smoke/carbon monoxide detectors they will shut off the furnace if CO or five is detected.

 

Looks like it will be the Ecobee Smart (latest one). I currently have an email to their support with a picture of the thermostat wiring to make sure it's compatible. If so, I will probably do the thermostat (comes with one remote soreness) and then likely a two pack of the remote sensors. Gotta have the right temps in the "loo" when I am in there... It has Alexa built in to the thermostat. I am on the fence about this, as I have generally avoided the assistants, but I guess I am getting over it... Maybe I will shout "VIAGRA" loudly for a week or two and see what happens to my online "suggested" ads to see if anyone is listening.

 

what thermostat do you have now? So long as it has a C /common wire, you should be good. It usually is blue but sometimes i've seen it be brown as well.

 

Currently have the Trane one that came with the system...



CUT THE RED WIRE!!

 

You're good, I believe it's the one plugged into B/C.

 

I think you are right, but the RH/RC bridge and one other wire tripped the "configurator" on the Ecobee page to ask for a picture for them to review before I drop a few hundred on the thing.

 

I am late to the party but I have Ecobee at my house on both floors and have installed them for both my parents. Been extremely happy with them. The thing I love most about Ecobee is the fact you get the remote sensors. I don't use the thermostat as a sensor unless I need to cause many times they are in places I don't care about the temperature. I also prefer the analytical data you can get for system run times compared to how it at least used to be displayed by Nest. Nest also used to only fluctuate on a +/- 3 degree scale whereas Ecobee is +/- 1 degree. I don't like to let my temperature in the house fluctuate too much. It connects to my Google Home so just like Nest you can use voice to change temp.

I like that most of my setup is based on a schedule and uses specific remote sensors depending on the time of day or mode. I use SmartThings and IFTTT for more of my smart control though than I do Ecobee so Nest might possibly be better if you don't have that already. I have one temp for day, one for evening, and one for sleep. I have created alarms based on remote sensors for if something were to go wrong and the room our dogs are kenneled in while we are gone gets above/below a certain temp. Also, have the second floor where our guest room is set to only use the remote sensor in that room so that guests get to pick whatever temp they would like.

Think you will be happy with the Ecobee. Will be happy to answer any questions you may have if I can.

 

That bridge wire should have been done in red to be code I believe. I think you can tell the setup you had a bridge wire and it just does it internally then. Pretty sure I had one in my original thermostat as well.

 

Ecobee replied and said I am good to go. I just want to wait for a refund from the HVAC company that installed the garbage Trane thermostat. Also, Amazon is not selling this themselves (onl ythird party sellers) yet. Not sure why. I may buy directly from Ecobee but that seems so "2010"...

 

If your birthday is coming up sign up for a bestbuy account and get a 10% off coupon for your birthday month! Plus best buy is usually the same price as amazon. If you have AMEX or a CC that does offers, see if there is any available for best buy or local store. I've been using AMEX shop small (works at advance auto funny enough) spend $10+ and get $5 back statement credit upto $50 dollars (10 transactions). Hope you can save some $$$$.

 

Ecobee is installed and seems to be working MUCH better than that Trane garbage one. It came with a single remote sensor, and I have two more arriving today. Overall, happy so far.

 

Filter is one month old. It looks like I will get four month filter life.

 

Nest monitors filter condition?

 

Posted in wrong thread. Remember, I’m nuts. It’s from the Filtrete Smart Filrer app.

 

Filtrete app sounds like a joke, how are they knowing the % health of the filter?? What sensors/input do they have other than time..

 

Maybe it factors average time to cool given an outside temperature. Sure there are various factors on why not cooling.

 

wait a minute.. they say their air filters are bluetooth-enabled



BRB... just got a set and will test... i may have to rescind my comment

 

It is the Filtrete App. The filter has a sensor on the outlet side. I think it measures the pressure drop as the filter ages?

https://www.texairfilters.com/compar...-hvac-filters/

 

Thought i bought a set of smart filters but turns out they were just cross-listed the same as the non -smart filters on amazon. looks like the “smart” ones connect to the app via bluetooth. If you don’t have the smart functionality, it’s just a simple date reminder.

 

It tells you when it's time to change the filter. How it does that is up for debate.

 

My first generation Nest has never reminded me to change the filter