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 wonāt lose your schedules or thermostat settings as the E3 has flash memory.
To my knowledge, few thermostats have a battery backup (and usually itās for saving their settings only) . You must live in an area with a lot of power outages to have this requirement.
1 Like
Itās 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 canāt afford that, Iām 2000 miles away.
I have had no issues with reconnecting. If WiFi is working, then the ecobee reconnects without issue.
Never heard of wifi reconnection issues eitherā¦
I have never had any issue with my two ecobees reconnecting after they have lost power. By the way, why would you want a battery in them when the power is out anyway? Your HVAC will not have power so the thermostat is useless anyway.
Also a note about ecobee with smartthings, this is an awesome smart app to use with it. I use it and itās great!
Of course the HVAC goes out of commission when the power goes out, it goes without saying. However when the power comes back on or worse if the power cycles on / off like it has a tendency to do in a storm, itās the reconnecting to the router thats the issue. Stuff like that seems to wreak havoc on flash memory. To cover the bases I have already put the router and ST hub on a battery backup.
There is no doubt that many people have no problem with their Ecobee reconnecting but there is always 2 sides to every coin. This is a vacation rental and I have to get control back when the power comes up. I may still try it, I like what I see of the Ecobee. I can get one from Amazon and then do some testing by cycling the HVAC power switch.
Unlike Nest, I see Ecobee can connect directly through the ST marketplace. This is very important. Considering I only need a few things like temp control, modes, and the ability to change these via ST automation I suspect I wonāt need anything else but the basic interface.
Example:. 3 hours before Renter check in
- I activate an automation called Renters Arriving
- Thermostat mode goes from Away to Home
- Thermostat is set to 67 (from 50)
- Water heater goes from Vacation to Hot
- Alarm goes from Away to Disarmed
Thatās it, nothing elaborate. Automatically scheduling these events would be convenient, but not mandatory. ST automations unfortunately donāt have a calendar function (everything but).
Hi, if reliability is key to you (as your secondary residence is far away), you should consider the E3 with my custom ecobee integration which includes some resiliency attributes not found in other thermostat integration such as disconnect protection (contrary to Nest, for security purposes, ecobee requires to refresh the auth tokens every hour which sometimes leads to disconnect issues under the ST platform, even for the ST stock ecobee device) and the āreplayā logic in case of ST or ecobee outages.
The āreplayā logic ensures that commands sent to the thermostat will be kept in a queue if they fail in order to āreplayā them within the next hourā¦
This algorithm is not included in the ST ecobee device (under the marketspace) or any other custom ecobee integration.
Also, Iāve expanded the ecobee thermostat capabilities with a unique Amazon echo/Alexa integration (it can give you comfort & energy savings tips based on the indoor/outdoor conditions at your home) by executing a smartapp called ecobeeGetTips or by interacting with echoās voice commands.
Regards.
Thanks for the heads up Yves. āCustom / Unique Integrationā implies battling with the IDE / GitHub / Device Handlers and all the complications that come along with side loading custom apps. Thatās a big āreliabilityā show stopper in itself. Definitely not interested in Echo / Alexa either especially in a vacation rental.
OK. Reliability is usually important (and defined) during operations not during installation, but thatās your choice.
And therein lies the operative word, āOperationsā. What installs fine today through the IDE does not necessarily run fine tomorrow.
The NST Manager is a perfect example of that. I had to give up on it because it just disconnected for the 2nd time for no obvious reason. It says an update is available but performing that didnāt help, yet the first time it worked. I donāt blame the author of the app because in the end there are TOO many variables when it comes implementing and maintaining 3rd party apps through the IDE. Iām sure the problem is me not knowing all the in & outs but that 's exactly the problem. I simply donāt have the bandwidth to research post after post to find a needle in a haystack, I shouldnāt have to and I donāt want to. Reliability and Simplicity are key words and those words are far from describing any app coming through the IDE.
For thermostats go to the Marketplace on your app and look at which thermostats you can connect to directly through the Marketplace. Thereās a total of 15, some are not sold anymore, most are WiFi and I think 3 are Zwave (GoControl, Honeywell, Zen). Stating the obvious here but if your internet is down you lose access to your ST Hub.
Hereās the rub that I see, a Zwave only device is more limited than a WiFi device that has native ST integrations (like Ecobee, unlike Nest). With a WiFi thermostat like Ecobee, when a custom app fails (assuming no wifi connection issues) you can always revert back to the thermostats native app like Iām doing now with my Nest. I still have control through the Nest app even though the ST app (NST Manager) has coughed up a hairball. With a Zwave thermostat if the custom app fails (not sure there are any custom apps) there is no other way to the thermostat unless there is another native ST app you can use.
Bob,
while I understand your reasoning, the problem starts when you have larger SmartThings installations. If for every type of device you have a separate app and separate network, I would have about 20 of those. It just does not make sense to me.
And btw. if the native device cloud failsā¦ there is no way to drive it from SmartThings directly in cloud to cloud integration. Actually since those apps are working from the same cloud, the device can not be run from it either. The case you are describing is because the cloud to cloud integration failed, not native cloud.
I do think Samsung (SmartThings) has to do more work to get native support for devices in place and not rely on some cloud to cloud integration or substandard SmartThings integration that offers just part of the functionality.
Sure the Nest cloud could fail and if it did the ST app would fail too but that has never been the case. I have always been able to access the thermostat through the Nest cloud. The 3rd party apps / IDE integration is the weak point, not the native Nest cloud.
While I understand your frustration this is never going to happen.
It just isnāt viable for ST to have full integration with all the device manufacturers out there.
I have Tado, LightwaveRF, Belkin WeMo, Phillips Hue, Xiaomi, Orvibo, Fibaro, Swiidinter, Sonoff devices connected to my system. Some are cloud to cloud and some need bespoke device handlers to make them work. I use webCoRE for 99% of my automation so local processing is not really achievable for me. My internet is extremely reliable so this is not an issue for me either.
It works extremely well and is a good price point when you look at other bespoke systems.
I think we all need to be realistic about what is achievable for a one off payment of Ā£90 to automate our homes. (Not including devices of course).
This is in no way a criticism of what you are after or your opinions, I just feel we all need to step back at times and look at what we are getting for an extremely good price.
1 Like
Just to be clear, I have never had the Nest cloud itself fail. Although if the internet went down you would lose automation control of any wifi connected device but as long as power was still on it would still heat / cool your home. However to your point, a connected dumb thermostat may be the way to go and in that case Zwave / Zigbee might makes more sense, just not a lot of choices out there.
Yes, but what you need to understand is that z-wave or zigbee thermostats are totally ādumbā, so when your ST hub is down, your schedules wonāt be running as the schedules are driven by the hub.
Contrary to wifi thermostat like Nest or Ecobee, the z-wave and zigbee thermostats lose their scheduling capabilities when connected to the ST hub (or any hub).
For a comparison of the ecobee thermostats vs. other thermostats, see what Iāve compiled (with other ST contributors):
Regards.
At my home, I have the ecobee, Nest thermostat E, the z-wave CT-30 & Stelpro, and the zigbee Sinope thermostats.
Not only I have experience with all those thermostats, but I have also written some DTHs for almost all of them (except the Stelpro and the CT-30).
So, yes, I have good & practical hands-on experience with all of themā¦
Usually, z-wave or zigbee thermostats are good as secondary thermostats, not as the main HVAC thermostat as they lack critical features like Smart Recovery, Humidity Control, advanced Control of 2-3 stage furnace or heat pumps, etc.
It all depends on your needs, but at my home (and many others which explain the popularity of the Ecobee/Nest/Honeywell Lyric), z-wave or zigbee thermostats are not good enoughā¦
1 Like