Google Assistant support comes to ecobee smart home products, expanding ecobee’s compatibility for smart home control through digital assistants to every voice platform available that can currently control connected devices, including Amazon’s Alexa Voice Service, and the Apple HomeKit. Google Assistant support is also just the newest form of connected home control integration, as ecobee already has partnerships with other companies besides Amazon, Apple, and Google, such as SmartThings, IFTTT, and Wink. With Google Assistant now on board, those with a Pixel device or any other smartphone that has Google Assistant built-in, or any one of Google’s smart speakers like the Google Home or Google Home Mini, will be able to use their voices to control anything from ecobee.
ecobee says that Google Assistant can now be used to control various actions on the ecobee3 lite, the ecobee3 and ecobee4 smart thermostats, so no matter which model you have in your home you shouldn’t be left out of the mix when it comes to having a little more convenience. Using the ok Google command through their smartphones or Google Home speakers, users can raise the temperature, lower the temperature, and perform other tasks or requests, though ecobee doesn’t explicitly mention all of the supported actions that can be initiated.
As smart home products expands, so too do the digital assistants that would seek to allow the user to control those products just by speaking to them, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that even companies like ecobee who compete directly with companies like Nest, which is a company owned by Alphabet alongside Google, would partner up and introduce integration with Google Assistant on the products that compete with Nest’s own offerings. Earlier this year, ecobee launched the ecobee4 smart thermostat bringing with it the most advanced features that the line of devices had yet to offer, while boasting that it could potentially save customers up to 23 percent in energy costs every year, all at a price of $249. At the time it was compatible with Amazon Alexa, and Google Assistant wasn’t available until just this week, so there was certainly a little bit of a wait for those who wanted ecobee’s thermostats but already had Google Assistant-powered products with which they would hope to use. That said the wait is now over and anyone who may have held off on a device like the Google Home or an ecobee thermostat can confidently purchase either or both knowing that they will work together.