The Ecobee3 appears to be a very highly rated thermostat and I must admit it does have a lot of good features and user controlled parameters. My reason for purchasing one was my geothermal vendor recommended it. The standard ClimateMaster thermostat, and many others, operate on a 1 degree Celsius differential. As a result our system was taking an extremely long time to recover that one degree and get back to set point. During that time we sometimes sensed some discomfort. The Ecobee can be set to as little as .3C differential and this resulted in a more even temperature at the beginning. Something has changed and we began to notice that the house would get a degree or so warmer than desired. Using the thermostat, 3 remote sensors and two weather monitors, all in the same area, we noticed that the thermostat was reading lower than all the other monitors and by the time the tStat reached set point the house was a bit too warm. Using the Temperature Correction parameter I adjusted the thermostat to +1.1C. This resulted in set point being more accurate but now we noticed that while all the other sensors in the room had reached 21.7, the point for a call for heat, the thermostat itself read higher and did not call for heat. As a result the house would get a degree or so cooler than desired before the heat kicked in. Ecobee insists that the thermostat is working correctly and is designed with a margin of error of +/- 1C. Does this seem reasonable? How can you get an instrument that is sensitive to a tenth of a degree but has a margin of error of 1 degree. I have a ton of data that shows my three remote sensors all within .3 degrees of each other while the main thermostat is as much as 1.3 degrees different than the sensors. I find it even more interesting that the two weather stations within the room are more in line with the remote sensors suggesting they are the more accurate. The question has been raised about my expectations before. Are they too high and should I be content that my system runs for a significant extra amount of time and over heats the house or that I shiver (exageration) through an hour or so before my system kicks in? I look forward to any comments, especially from other Ecobee users. By the way, for the purpose of monitoring the room temperature, all three remotes were disabled, so as not to introduce any averaging effect, and brought into the same location as the tStat.
Is there a large gap behind the thermostat that is exposing it to different temperatures? I've seen suction pull cold air down a wall void and give a offset reading on the tstat. Plumbers putty works for this. That being said, I've also had EcoBee's twice give inaccurate readings. I've never had a comfortable reason why. I currently have one in operation that is offset 3.2C to give an accurate reading.
Thanks urthbuoy. it ceartainly would appear that something in/on the wall could be affecting the tStat however the cavity inbehind is stuffed with a chunk of unsulation and then sealed up with plumbers putty. I did wake up this morning to a bright light and it occurred to me that since the sensors are reading much higher i just put them back on line and let the higher readings figure into the average. Not satisfactory but it works. My system finally shut off after more then 36 hours of continious running. Mind you it has been cold; -32C plus the wind. I would expect a bit better from what is supposed to be the best tStat around. It does appear to be the only tStat with 10ths of a degree sensitivity and the user set parameters can give you a lot of control over your system. Again, thanks for your input.
I have one in my house, 3 years old, with connectivity issues etc. Was disappointed, can't comment on the newer ones. Moved on to customized control solutions for hydronic systems.
I have 6 sensi wifi tstats for our house and an additional 3 for our business. I've had them for almost a year now with no problems or connectivity issues. They have 3 cycle rates as follows. Fast cycle rate has a swing of 0.2F above and below the setpoint (a total swing of 0.4F) Medium cycle rate has a swing of 0.3F above and below the setpoint (a total swing of 0.6F) Slow cycle rate has a swing of 0.85F above and below the setpoint (a total swing of 1.7F) There are also a lot of nice things you can do when paired with the wink app.
