Thermostats with good SmartThings integration

I have an Ecobee3 using the official ST integration and it’s been solid. I love asking Google Home what the temperature in the house is and adjusting. Very cool. I only wish ST would have added the motion sensor on Ecobee3 itself. Not sure why they left that out and only integrated the remote sensors. Seems like a miss. I wonder if I should just open a ticket and see what they say.

if you want to ditch the cloud with a stat, then just get a stupid zwave or zigbee stat and save your self a few hundred…
I have a Perl and a Zen, they do the job for me.

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I have the Ecobee3 with three remote sensors and using the basic ST integration. It works extremely well and now I’m able to keep the occupied rooms comfortable. If I need a little more heating or cooling I just ask Siri or Alexa to bump up the temp up or down.

I have the ecobee 3 (6 of them and 14 remote sensors). If I had it to do over again, I would go with a basic z-wave thermostat and leverage ST for control (which is basically what I do now). I like the control that the ecobee 3’s provide, but they’re overkill for how I ended up using them (in my setup ST is smart and the stats are dumb - the setup works great). I use the stock DTH from ST - the latest version is rock solid.

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I have Ecobee 3 with one sensor. Check with your utility companies as mine offered $125 rebate with purchase so it was a no brainer for me. I used the open source version of the DTH:

It is quite full featured.

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Hi,

You should look into my custom integration with Ecobee:

It allows you to do much more than any other connected thermostats under ST…


With the latest release, it even gives you comfort and energy saving tips verbally with Echo/Ask Alexa.

And, it’s more reliable than any other ST connected thermostats because it allows you to use the ecobee scheduling instead of the ST scheduling… If you’re new here, you may want to look into the ST scheduler problems:

Regards.

EDIT: For a comparison ecobee vs. other thermostats, refer to this analysis:

http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=My_Ecobee_Device#Why_ecobee_vs._other_connected_thermostats.3F

My latest versions (in fact, since v5.1) have never been so reliable, and it’s distributed to my active contributors only. Those who don’t have my latest versions cannot compare My Ecobee device to any other ecobee implementation…It’s like comparing an old Ipad from several years back to the new generation of Samsung galaxy tab: not relevant. In software, changes happen quickly.

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I also have the Ecobee3 & it is very stable in ST. Easy setup just set heat temp & AC temp., set on auto & forget
Mike

@dgornik The ST scheduler has a dark past. The new version (Ticker) has been much more reliable. That’s not to say that it hasn’t had its problems, but ST has been able to fix it quicker and truth be told, it has been pretty reliable. All apps, and I mean all apps that use scheduling will likely have a problem if the scheduler fails. That being said, I have not had to reauthorized my ecobee’s for 9 months (even making it through some of the scheduling issues and ecobee server maintenance).

I use the schedules on my 6 ecobee’s (not the ST scheduler), but I use event driven activities to force my ecobee to away mode (and it works great for the four of us in the house). This has been extremely reliable and I am not dependent upon thermostat or remote sensor location/placement to detect when I’m home or away. Plus the pets cannot inadvertently trip the motion sensors on the thermostat or remote sensors and fool it into thinking we’re home. Our schedules varies quite a bit, so I have found this to be extremely reliable and by far the best solution available.

There are three viable options available. I have tried all three. If you have specific questions, please PM me.

Good luck.

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I use a Honeywell RTH6580WF. It is their base WIFI thermostat. I haven’t done much with it yet, but I have controlled each and every function while playing with it. It integrates via the Honeywell Total Home Connect system so feedback can take a bit of time.

http://yourhome.honeywell.com/en/products/thermostat/wi-fi-7-day-programmable-thermostat-rth6580wf

@Mike_Maxwell
Can you share the details of the thermostats you are using?

Zen and peq (centralite pearl) are two examples of dumb smart thermostats. If you are serious about automation a thermostat of this type is all you need as all the functions (set points modes, schedules ect) are then controlled via your automations. I used to own echobees, and while nothing wrong with them I found it difficult and more complicated to override the built in scheduling they contained. My preference for ha thermostats being those that offer no cloud integrations as the manufacturers cloud control points tend to be difficult to disable and synchronize, besides, why pay for something that you aren’t going to use.

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I inherited a NEST thermostat when we bought a vacation home. Integrated it with Smartthings hub using “Nest Manager”. Nest Manager was a pain to setup and an even bigger pain to keep operational. In addition, the Nest thermostat has disconnected from the WiFi several times and I have no way to get it back online unless I fly 2000 miles to take care of it. I am now using just the Nest native app as Nest Manager has stopped working and correcting the problem / updating it has proven more difficult than launching an electric car into space.

Needless to say I’m done with Nest and the Nest Manager. In fact if it doesn’t have Smartthings supported integration I’m not using it (IE: listed in the ST app marketplace). I have wasted too many hours searching for solutions to 3rd party apps and I do not recommend 3rd party apps for anyone managing a vacation home via long distance.

Thanks @rontalley your setup is what I’m after and your comments confirmed what I’m thinking.

Hi, there is a reliable alternative for the Nest thermostat and other Nest products. I’ve worked more than 3 years to achieve this kind of resiliency for MyEcobee and now MyNextDevices.

I ask for a small contribution given the amount of design, development & test to achieve this kind of resilience and the added features. You can ask @slavazagromov for more feedback about MyNextTstat and zoned heating/cooling solutions:

Regards.

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@siam Does the E3 have a “lock” feature like NEST? I want to limit where my rental folks can go with the temp.

Yes, there are different level of “locking” for the ecobee settings…

EDIT:

See article below:

depends what you are trrying to do… I have honeywell, and their professional prestige is very nice
i have sensors in all the ducts and it alerts me if ther e is an issue in performance and also outdoor sensor.

As far as i know this is one of the best to also control a whole house steam humidifer… Their own integration is nice and their app is good.

That being said their Smarthings integration sucks!. Not only did they block our 3rd party integration which was great and also had many morer features than their official integration (ie outdoor temp, humitdity etc)

They now broke the official integration it no longer shows operating state for anyone… They keep blaming it on one issue or another but it is broken. I only use it to monitor temps which is reliable.

Thanks. I found a video on YouTube that shows exactly what I needed. I was about to pull the trigger on the E3 Lite until I learned none of the Ecobees have a battery backup. Simply amazing! Back to square one.

Hi, just curious: Why would you need a battery backup? Even if there is power outage, you won’t lose your schedules or thermostat settings as the E3 has flash memory.

To my knowledge, few thermostats have a battery backup (and usually it’s for saving their settings only) . You must live in an area with a lot of power outages to have this requirement.

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It’s for WiFi connectivity. Ecobee saves their settings in flash but it seems worthless when it comes to reconnecting to the network after a power failure. Plenty of Ecobee complaints of people losing their connection after a power failure. I can’t afford that, I’m 2000 miles away.

I have had no issues with reconnecting. If WiFi is working, then the ecobee reconnects without issue.