****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
I am writing this review after considerable research into the smart thermostat market, and a week's experimentation with both the Nest and Ecobee Smart Si. Some background:I initially purchased the Nest because while I thought the Ecobee presented a stronger set of features, I had a 4-wire (no common) system and the Nest was the only one that promised quick/seamless installation. To make a long story short (longer version on my Nest review) the Nest was incompatible with my system, and part of the troubleshooting involved me connecting that 5th C-wire, thus making the Smart Si installation even faster and easier than the Nest!Big Picture summary:Nest was designed by the guys from Apple who designed the iPod. It was designed to sell an elegant, simple to operate product to the masses, with promises of changing their lifestyle. This means its "smart" features are designed more toward elegance and simplicity: simple install, simple operation, elegant looks, a standard price point no matter who you buy it from, and smart tech support people when you're in the 5% of buyers who runs into problems. It does have some snazzy sounding features but its "smartest" energy saving feature is only available to a small number of people who get the Nest through their utility provider, and most of the other features are available on other competitors.The Ecobee smart thermostat line was designed buy a guy who wanted to save energy in his factories. It was not built to sell to an adoring fan base, but to save energy. It might not be as simple to operate but it has more flexibility in its programming options, more data available to analyze results, and the energy saving features are available out of the box , no matter who your utility company is. If you care more about saving energy than having a snazzy Apple-like device on your wall, you should consider the Ecobee line.The Smart Si thermostat looks almost as capable for the "simple" user (if you don't want/need remote sensing or other bells and whistles) as the Smart thermostat, and at a significant price savings over the Nest.Some specifics:INSTALLATION: I initially chose not to buy this thermostat because I only had 4 wires to my system. As it turns out, the wire bundle in the wall had 6 wires on it, with two unused, so running the 5th wire to the common terminal was trivial. Even if systems don't have a common terminal in the board, there are aftermarket add-ons for about $25 that let you easily add that wire if needed. Don't let the requirement for a C wire scare you away from this thermostat if you like it for other reasons. Actual installation was actually faster than it was for my Nest.PROGRAMMING: The Nest claims to use smart, automatic programming. What that actually means is that you "program" it by turning the knob to your desired temperature at the desired time of day for a week. Yes, seriously. It doesn't copy from one day to the next, you actually have to stretch out your "programming" process for a full week. And let's hope your schedule is reasonably consistent, because it may tweak a little bit in subsequent weeks but is really just building a schedule you could do almost as easily on the web interface. And be done in 7 minutes rather than 7 days. Want a manual schedule? No problem, but switch from automatic and you have a blank slate to start with. Switch back and you've erased everything. While the Ecobee programming may be a bit more complex at the thermostat than turning a knob, the online web interface is actually much simpler and more intuitive than the Nest's web option. What took 7 minutes on the Nest website took about 7 seconds on Ecobee's. It's that simple and easy. And it's flexible, down to 15-minute granularity, key for people like me looking to optimize for time-of-use rates where I want to cool the house before rates go up, but not too far before.Also, manual temperature changes (hold/override) on the Nest will stick until the next program change; while manual changes on the Ecobee have a limited (2 or 4 hour) timespan, putting you back on your energy saving schedule if/when you forget to re-adjust it (or in the Nest's case, it "learns" your new energy wasting preference).AESTHETICS: Most modern thermostats are rectangular and white/cream colored. Nest broke the mold with a black circle on the wall. Which, while it sounds cool and might fit well in a "modern" decorated home, actually looked out of place on our wall next to oak furniture. Also the Nest didn't display the temperature all the time, you had to walk up to it to 'wake it up' and see the current temperature. Small white rectangles are unobtrusive and I don't miss the Nest's look and actually prefer the Ecobee, which shows me the temperature at a glance.ENERGY SAVINGS: I can't speak to this one, as I've had each one only for a week, and during a moderate time of the year. But comparing the features indicates a few key differences. The Nest's "smartest" feature is auto tune, which tweaks and adjusts your schedule automatically. Unfortunately, it is only available through 8 utility companies in a handful of states, and if you're taking advantage of those, your utility company probably subsidized your Nest anyway. (The marketing line about not passing on data storage costs to consumers who paid full price is a bit weak.) The Ecobee, on the other hand, includes "smart" features right out of the box: learning your home's energy response, synchronizing with local weather forecasts, offering alerts, and gradually changing temperatures rather than abruptly changing them at setpoints. The only feature on the Nest that I wish I had on the Ecobee is auto-away, which isn't actually very useful to those who work from a home office as it can take up to 2 hours to trigger; I can just use the manual "away" feature .DATA: The Nest tells you you earned a leaf. The Ecobee gives you a wealth of data you can use to analyze and find spots to improve your energy savings (or dollar savings for time of use).CUSTOMER SERVICE: I did have one small issue after install: the weather forecasts appeared quite off from reality. I emailed the customer service line about it, and got a response within 4 hours adjusting something about my thermostat location, which resolved the problem.Conclusion:I'm glad the Nest didn't work out for me, and I couldn't be happier with the Ecobee. I believe it will probably save me more energy, more money (with time of use rates) than the Nest would have, and it cost $100 less. Wins all around.
