ecobee3 Smarter Wi-Fi Thermostat with Remote Sensor, 2nd Generation

I am nearly 1 month into the ecobee3 and I have to say that it has performed exactly as I had hoped. Our raised ranch home has 1 zone upstairs which includes all bedrooms, kitchen and living room. The thermostat is in the hallway. The problem we have had since day one is temperature regulation in the bedrooms that are directly over the garage. Those rooms get extremely cold in the winter and hot in the summer, as compared to the rest of the house. Having a toddler in the house, we have been very concerned about the temperature in his bedroom. Rightly or wrongly, we had been using a space heater in his room (I know, I know, you have no idea how much anxiety it caused us).We had a HVAC technician come by the house to see how we could fix this issue. His "best" advise was to add additional radiators to the bedrooms. Cost? "A couple thousand, all in." Will that fix the problem? "Hopefully." What about a remote sensor for our Honeywell programmable thermostat, will that do the trick? "Maybe, but I've never seen that." Needless to say, we were less than pleased with the technician's assistance.Then I saw the ecobee3 at Home Depot and did some research. Remote sensors? Check. Tons of programming features and options? Check. It seemed too good to be true. Could a $250 thermostat really keep our toddler's bedroom warm in the winter and cool in the summer? YES!!In the relatively average New England winter we are currently experiencing (i.e., cold and snowy), the ecobee3 has been fantastic. The ecobee3 looks to the remote sensor in our son's bedroom during the nighttime to keep his bedroom warm and uses the main sensor and bedroom sensor at other times of the day to keep the house at an even temperature. The result has been us ditching the space heater and everyone sleeping much more comfortable. As an added bonus, losing the space heater has meant less winter time sickness for our son since the room is not as dry. It also means a somewhat lower electric bill. But, most importantly, our house maintains a comfortable temperature whenever we are home and drops the temp when we are away to save us money.INSTALL: First off, YOU CAN DO THIS YOURSELF! Don't be afraid, it is just a matter of following a few simple instructions. You'll save yourself a couple hundred bucks if you do it yourself and the included kit makes it a do-it-yourself project that you (yes YOU) can complete in well under an hour. It really was painless. We have an oil burning furnace and central air. The ecobee3 makes installation a very simple process with tags included for all of the wires and clear instructions. TIP: Take a picture of all the wires as they are attached to your old thermostat before you start taking the wires off. It may save your butt if you mislabel a wire or can't remember where one of them goes.TECH SUPPORT: The ecobee support staff is fantastic. I made one mistake with my wiring and didn't know what to do when the ecobee3 thought my system was a heat pump instead of a furnace. Apparently the old Honeywell thermostat I was replacing had the W wire and O/B wire in the same slot (what I mean is that the wire was screwed into a spot that had both a W and O/B label on it) while the ecobee3 has a separate slot for each. I mistakenly put the wire in the O/B slot in the ecobee when it should have gone in the W slot. As a complete layman, I had no idea what the issue was and called tech support. The woman was very knowledgeable and helpful. She really made the process painless. 5 minutes later, I was up and running!OVERALL: This truly is not a puff piece. I am just extremely happy with the ecobee3. My son sleeps through the night which mean we also sleep. And we are no longer concerned about a potential fire hazard in our little guy's bedroom. Also, I have already seen a savings in both my electric and heating bills. The oil man is not coming as often as he was before despite the sub 30 temps over the past month.If you have certain rooms in your home that get too cold while the rest of your house is comfortable, the ecobee3 is for you. If you want a smart thermostat that gives you ultimate control over your heating and cooling, the ecobee3 is for you. If you want to save money on your heating and cooling bills while maintaining a comfortable temperature in your home, the ecobee3 is for you. This is, by far, the best purchase I've made for my family's home in the past few years.

Note: this will likely be an ongoing review as time progresses. TL:DR --- A sleek, well designed, easy to install smart thermostat with a emphasis on external sensors make this a great way to more accurately control temperature in large homes.[Update #1] Well, summer hit with a vengeance, and the AC and ecobee have both been put through the ringer at this point! The ecobee and sensors have been operating exactly as advertised. The "follow me" mode is definitely laggy, but that is clearly by design as described below. More importantly, it works well and is really making the purchase worth it. Ironically, I am fairly certain I am not saving money at this point, but that is because the ecobee is taking into account the fact that I spend more time in my 82 degree bedroom rather than my 72 degree basement. I take comfort knowing the savings will come in winter when it recognizes the same thing and doesn't heat the house. ... There really isn't much to add with the update, and that falls into the "no news is good news" category of life. I am very confident in my purchase and in my original review at this point. Note that I am still waiting to review the Home IQ software still, as the month of May was gorgeous and we didn't use the AC or furnace at all. No data is bad data! To be continued.[Original Review]The ecobee 3 is a stellar device. To start, the installation is painless. You need an absolute bare minimum of electrical knowledge to hook up the wires, and by that I mean "remember to turn the screw in to ensure proper contact. It is great that the devices comes with a c-wire adapter; if your house is like most, you have the wire coming from the AC to the furnace but not up through the walls. This little devices is a "plug and play" kit that does its job well. More importantly, you don't need a specialist to hook it up.Sensor installation is painless as well. Inserting the battery (standard watch battery, included) next to the ecobee triggers the two devices to pair with one another. Once paired, place them where you would like throughout your house. After a week of monitoring, I haven't noticed any dropped signals despite being on separate floors on opposite ends.Once installed, you need to set up an ecobee account. This is where the meat and potatoes of the ecobee starts. You can monitor and alter your thermostat AND SENSORS (very important) through an application available on your phone, the web, or the thermostat touchscreen. All three work well enough, but the web really shines through as the most powerful (see below). In the application, you can set your temperature manually, set a temperature range, and/or set a schedule. Like I said, meat and potatoes; standard stuff.But the ecobee is so much more than a touchscreen thermostat. The gravy here is the sensors. The sensors make the ecobee worthwhile, and from my tests they work great. You can set the ecobee to have the sensors follow you and average the temperature based on rooms detecting motion, or simply average the temperature of the rooms. The motion detection is sensitive, as it picks up my animals. It does provide for some lag time on the back end, so if you leave the room for a few minutes the sensor won't instantly turn off. There is supposedly lag time on the front end as well (for when you walk through but don't stay), but I am not seeing that; the sensitive seems to dominate, which isn't a bad thing.The temperature readings from the sensors are accurate; obviously this is vital. Also, based on my monitoring my house really does have a 5-10 degree difference in room temperature! The whole purpose of getting the ecobee is so you can warm an otherwise cold basement and cool an upstairs even when the thermostat is different, without running the fan constantly. I will update this as I have more knowledge, but as far as first impressions go it seems to work quite well.Underneath the hood there are algorithms running to make the whole thing tick. I'm not going to comment on those because, quite frankly, I would have no idea what I was saying! Ecobee says it takes into account movement patterns, outside weather, and other things, and I have no reason to say differently at the moment.What I can say is there is an impressive amount of data collection going on that is available to you. It can be viewed graphically on the web, or downloaded into an Excel spreadsheet. Just for comparison: One day's worth of data with my setup is about 300 cells long by 26 wide. While I still don't know how it is being used, it is certainly nice to see something on the inside.There is also a "Home IQ," but that requires more time. To be update ASAP!So, after but a few days, I am comfortable recommending the ecobee. I prefer the hands-on abilities to something like the Nest, and I love the fact that the sensors work as advertised. I am looking forward to the hot season to really put it through some tests! That said, I wouldn't use this for a single story house or apartment. I doubt you will see much of an energy drop. I would research other products in those situations.