ecobee, today, launched a new smart themostat that is simply named “SmartThermostat” (without any spaces). This new $249 smart thermostat supports virtually every smart home platform that is currently available. And that’s a good thing.
The SmartThermostat looks very similar to the ecobee4 that it released a little over a year ago. It’s a black thermostat, with a touchscreen which has a dark background. So it looks like the text and objects on the screen are floating there. It also has a blue light at the top, which lights up when it is listening to you.
ecobee has brought support for Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit, Google Assistant, SmartThings and IFTTT. Now, unlike the ecobee4, the SmartThermostat doesn’t work like an Amazon Echo. So you can’t ask your new smart thermostat for the weather or to turn off your smart bulbs. However, you can use it for controlling music, as there is a built-in speaker in the new SmartThermostat. Which works with Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn, and iHeartRadio.
But it is integrated with all of these platforms, which is a big deal. Especially for IFTTT and Samsung’s SmartThings, which will allow for better home automation.
In a press release today, ecobee’s President and CEO stated that “we see the smart home emerging as an oasis where great technology can fade into the background and free you from the chaos of everyday life.” Stuart Lombard went on to say that ecobee has “designed the new SmartThermostat with voice control to be the foundation of that vision.”
As with older ecobee thermostats, the new SmartThermostat can be used and controlled by the ecobee smartphone app, and on the smart thermostat itself. But ecobee has given users the ability to adjust the SmartThermostat using their voice. Making things a bit more accessible for those that may have accessibility issues.
ecobee also touts that the SmartThermostat will save you up to 23-percent on your energy bill, that means that it could pay for itself within the first year. This all depends on how much you pay for electricity and the weather climate, etc.
ecobee uses sensors to figure out how hot or cold other rooms in your home are. As there are always some rooms that are going to be colder, since they are further away from the furnace or air conditioning unit. With these sensors, ecobee is able to keep all of the rooms in your home the same temperature and turn itself off when it hits that temperature, or adjust it so that it is more comfortable. Thus saving you more cash. And no one would complain about saving money each month.
The ecobee SmartThermostat is priced at $249, as mentioned earlier. That’s the same price that its previous smart thermostats (ecobee3, ecobee4, etc) started out at. It’s pretty incredible that ecobee has been able to keep its smart thermostats at these prices, even while providing many more features and design changes. The ecobee SmartThermostat is available today, and you can pick one up from Amazon using the link below.
ecobee SmartThermostat - Amazon - $249
