Ecobee's New Lower-Priced HomeKit Smart Thermostat Now Available - MacRumors
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Ecobee's New Lower-Priced HomeKit Smart Thermostat Now Available

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The smart home thermostat company Ecobee today announced that its new Smart Thermostat Essential is now available to order on its website, and at select retailers in the U.S. and Canada. The thermostat was unveiled at CES 2025 in January.

Ecobee Smart Thermostat Essential
In the U.S., the Smart Thermostat Essential is priced at $129.99, making it Ecobee's most affordable smart thermostat.

Ecobee's smart thermostat can help you save money by intelligently optimizing your home's temperature. For example, the thermostat can reduce energy usage while you are away from home. When paired with Ecobee's SmartSensors, the thermostat can detect occupancy and optimize comfort in certain rooms throughout the home.

Ecobee claims the thermostat can pay for itself by helping you spend up to 23% less on annual heating and cooling costs.

The thermostat supports Apple's smart home platform HomeKit, and it can be controlled with Ecobee's app on the iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. It also works with Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Samsung SmartThings, and more.

Compared to Ecobee's highest-end Smart Thermostat Premium, priced at $249.99 in the U.S., the lower-priced Essential model lacks features such as a built-in occupancy sensor, dual-band Wi-Fi, a built-in indoor air quality monitor, hands-free calling and intercom functionality, built-in Siri voice control, and a few other things.

Tags: Ecobee, HomeKit Guide

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Top Rated Comments

Rychiar Avatar
Rychiar
16 months ago
paying full price for a thermostat is crazy. I got the premium Ecobee for under $100 from my power company
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Le Big Mac Avatar
Le Big Mac
16 months ago

Well this sounds great, because the intercom and calling system and all those other doodads are things I’d never use.

I wonder if it’s more accurate now. I bought an Ecobee in the past and ended up having to return it because it was showing the temperature in the house as like 10 degrees off what it actually was.
I haven’t had that problem with them, and have found them rock solid.

Biggest disappointment is all the HVAC cos making systems that work only wit their proprietary thermostats, which generally are overpriced and suck from a functionality standpoint. (Lennox dropped HomeKit support from its newest ‘stat).
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
QuarterSwede Avatar
QuarterSwede
16 months ago

We just had our furnace replaced so took the opportunity to also update our 25 yo thermostat. The ecobee Enhanced has been great so far and the temp seems accurate. We only have heat, no AC and a simple single stage gas furnace. The best part is being able to have different schedules each day. If I set the temp for 67 degrees at 5AM, it will fire up the furnace before that time to have the house at the correct temp when I get up. With the old thermostat, I had to set it to start 15 minutes or so prior to wake up time and it only had two schedules for M-F and Sat-Sun. Being able to control from my phone is nice and may come in handy. It is on Wi-Fi but on our IoT network so I can't use HomeKit. Still debating putting it on the same network as our AppleTV. Thoughts?
When I had my thermostat on HomeKit I never adjusted it. If you find that you want to adjust manually from time to time then it might be worth it.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
techmuscle Avatar
techmuscle
16 months ago

Yes I've seen it for as little as $15 with rebates from the utilities. I got my ecobee3 lite (essentially the same thing as this renamed one) for $40 each under the rebate deal at the time, still not bad.
Unfortunately with PG&E, you have to have both heating and AC to qualify for a rebate for a smart thermostat.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
J
jetsam
16 months ago

Similar position - on the one hand, the app does what I need so not sure what HomeKit would add. On the other hand, not sure how large a risk running through HomeKit is (vs. other devices with more questionable origins I put on IoT).
As per my previous reply, I've been using ecobee with HomeKit for years.

The advantage of having ecobee on HomeKit is that when the ecobee servers go down, the app stops working. And they go down all too often. If your thermostats are on HomeKit, you can still control them remotely.

And, being a worry wort, I like the reassurance that my house is staying warm while I'm on vacation, even if I don't need to make any changes to the settings.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
J
jetsam
16 months ago

We just had our furnace replaced so took the opportunity to also update our 25 yo thermostat. The ecobee Enhanced has been great so far and the temp seems accurate. We only have heat, no AC and a simple single stage gas furnace. The best part is being able to have different schedules each day. If I set the temp for 67 degrees at 5AM, it will fire up the furnace before that time to have the house at the correct temp when I get up. With the old thermostat, I had to set it to start 15 minutes or so prior to wake up time and it only had two schedules for M-F and Sat-Sun. Being able to control from my phone is nice and may come in handy. It is on Wi-Fi but on our IoT network so I can't use HomeKit. Still debating putting it on the same network as our AppleTV. Thoughts?
I've had my two ecobees on HomeKit since 2017 - no issues. I trust ecobee.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
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