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Ecobee4 Smart Home Thermostat Review | Amanda Blain

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Installation of EcoBee 4

Setting Up Your EcoBee 4

Creating your Smart Home Environment with the EcoBee 4

A Built In Amazon Alexa Speaker

One of the draw backs to many starting on their smart home journey is which hub or main system to go with. Thankfully most smart home devices have excepted that Amazon Alexa Or Google Home seem to be the winners in this area. If you have either of these devices you can use them to control your smart home. If you get the Ecobee 4 it includes a fully functional Amazon Alexa Speaker right in the device. You can ask Alexa to turn up your temperature, the weather outside, set a timer, tell you a joke or any other Alexa features and the EcooBee 4 will answer you. This works great if you have the Ecobee 4 in a living room environment, not so great if it happens to be in an off hallway. As mentioned you can also use Google Home to voice control the EcoBee 4 (but for some reason you need to have the Alexa feature enabled). The Ecobee 4 also works with IFTT , Apple Home Kit, Microsoft Cortana, and Smart Things.

Schedule Your EcoBee 4

If you have a typical work and sleep schedule then all you need to do is program that into the website. Get up at 8am every day. Away from work till 6pm. Sleep at 11:30pm. The Ecobee will now respond to this time and heat and cool your place automatically. Because I work from home and my schedule tends to be a little bit more flexible than most, I found this to not work the greatest for me. Instead I used the “Follow Me” option.

Follow Me EcoBee 4

The EcoBee 4 Comes with an additional room sensor for your house. I placed this in a bedroom while the main thermostat is in the main living room area. When you turn on the Follow Me feature the Ecobee can see how hot or cold those rooms are. It also can tell if you are in those other rooms.  So if i am in the bedroom and it is not my desired tempature the heat will turn on. If i’m not in those rooms and its not the desired temperature, there is no need for the heat to come on. A great money saving device. You can purchase more sensors if you have a larger home, but I found the 2 were perfect sized for my Condo.

Mobile, Geofence,Vacation Mode, Alerts and More

Final Thought on The Ecobee 4 Smart Thermostat

The EcoBee 4 has all the features and then some that you are looking for in a smart thermostat. With it’s built in Amazon Alexa controls it extends the functionality of your smart home without adding additional devices. You can control your temperature from anywhere and it learns how to keep your house the right temperatures saving you money. The features are a little confusing and there is a large difference in what you can control from the mobile app vs the online site. I haven’t seen the Home IQ report yet to see how effective the thermostat was for my first month. The ability to voice control the temperature from anywhere in my house as well as having an additional Alexa device without adding in any other device has been a real plus.

85%

Awesome

If you are in the market for a smart thermostat I recommend checking the EcoBee 4 out.

Pros
Cons

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Google Nest Hub Max Smart Home Assistant (Chalk, Refurbished, Plain Box) – EXPANSYS Japan

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Which Smart Home Heating Should You Choose?

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Not all smart heating control systems are suited for every lifestyle and home, with some more and less beneficial than others. SMART stands for ‘Self-Monitoring Analysis & Reporting Technology’, and differs from standard heating controls by allowing you to control every aspect of your heating schedule from either a phone or tablet. Although room thermostats and timers allow you to control each room instead of your whole home, as long as you have internet access, smart home heating devices let you control your heating from your phone, no matter where you are in the world.

Today, we’re running through 7 of the best smart heating thermostats and systems, comparing features, benefits and what type of home they’re most suitable for.

– 7 day, & 5/2 day scheduling with a pre-configured schedule included
– Choice of up to 4 time periods a day
– Minimum On-Time & Cycle Rate settings ensuring compatibility with many boilers
– Table stand for ease of positioning
– Alert messages to assist fault-finding with a fail-safe mode
– Wireless technology makes upgrading easier and the installation time shorter with less wiring involved

Best for:

– Homes that require high levels of automatic control that provide significant energy efficiency for a wide range of boilers and systems.

– Single Heating Zone Control
– 7 Day, 5/2 Day, or 24 Hour Control
– Programmable Room Thermostat
– Easily Programmed With The Associated App

Best for:

– Homes that are just starting to take the first steps into using smart home heating
– Homes that need a single heating zone control
– Homes that have either combination or standard boiler systems

– Touch-screen interface simplifies scheduling, changing and overriding temperature
– Location-based programming (geo-fencing) adds an automated layer of control, adjusting the customer’s home heating based on their location
– Scheduling features include 7 and 5/2 day bespoke scheduling with up to 6 time periods a day
– Simple flip-up wiring bar for easy access and an easy-to-install boiler or zone valve interface
– Direct wall mounting or wall-box mounting
– Optimisation features include optimum start and stop & delayed start boiler control. Allows the thermostat and boiler to work more efficiently together

Best for:

– Homes with any boiler and almost every heating system
– Homes with 230V on/off OpenTherm appliances (gas boilers, combi boilers and heat pumps)

– Ability to control water temperature and heating
– Self-learning functions to make every experience a unique one, helping it to understand your home’s needs
– Using a smart weather compensation feature and weather data, the vSMART can tell your boiler how hard it has to work to get your home to your required temperature
– You can connect multiple vSMART controllers to one app

Best for:

– Homes with Valliant ecoTEC system/open vented boilers
– Households that want to be able to control water temperature from anywhere too

– A 7-day full programmer that gives great flexibility offering up to three on/off switchings per day
– LoT display, providing text feedback that gives help and programming hints
– Automatic Summer/Winter 1 hour time change
– Choice of 3 different built-in programmes
– ‘Holiday’ button

Best for:

– Homes with heating and stored hot water in complete systems
– Homes with older gravity circulation stored hot water systems, where there’s no interlocking control valve
– Households with different heating needs from day-to-day

– One channel thermostat system with two radiator thermostats to start zoning your system
– Smart heating & hot water control
– Quick & simple to install using an industry-standard backplate
– Easy Zoning with the addition of extra Wiser Radiator Thermostats

Best for:

– Homes with combination boilers
– Households that want to start a zoned system to control individual zones within the home

– Automatic time and temperature control of domestic heating premises
– Optimum Start, Optimum Stop and Delayed Start
– No installer links or switches on the back of the unit means no adjustment is required for combi boilers and most central heating systems
– Scheduled maintenance alert
– Automatic Summer/Winter time change
– Up to four independent time & temperature settings
– Auto, manual, holiday, override and off (frost) modes

Best for:

– Domestic premises
– Most central heating systems and combi boilers

For more smart home heating controls, check out our full range today at MonsterPlumb. If you’re not interested in smart technology when it comes to controlling the heating and water temperature in your home, take a look at our selection of heating controls and valves.

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Purina to Take Guesswork Out of Pet Nutrition With IoT ‘smart Bowl’ – Smart City

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“Our Purina Chekr smart bowl is managed by our Purina intelligence engine built on and powered by AWS IoT services. “This system allows pet owners … To Read More, Please Visit Source

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