Ecobee’s schedule is the most important feature to me. The current version is the best that it’s ever been. It’s what makes home automation possible with your thermostat. Basically, you tell the thermostat the temperatures you are comfortable with and the time to do it. Truly, it’s that simple.
It took me a while to figure this out, only because the first version was missing some features. Originally, you could only do “Away”, “Home” and “Sleep”. It made it difficult to program because it was holding onto a temperature at times when it wasn’t beneficial. Now, they put in a feature where you can add your own customized setting.
I added one called “Awake” that I use at 6 am that warms the house up to 70 degrees. It’s just enough to where the house isn’t freezing inside. My wife likes it to be cold when we are sleeping so at that time it is 66 degrees. She tends to wrap herself up in blankets and gets hot in the middle of the night. This temperature holds for only about an hour and a half. It’s right when we wake up to the time we leave for work.
While at work the ecobee’s schedule goes to “Away”. It keeps the house at 69, not letting it get too cold because we don’t want the dog to be freezing. It usually holds it pretty steady here for a couple of hours unless our neighbor comes and checks on the dog. If the neighbor comes the home automation kicks in and puts it on “Home”. This is why you want to purchase the “sensors”. The sensors are what tell the system someone is in the house and modify the schedule.
Before purchasing sensors and having a schedule I realized that I was always going up to the thermostat and manually changing it. After a while, it became a little annoying. Partly because without the sensors you are only getting a temperature based on the location of the thermostat. Most thermostats are in the hallway where the temperature is usually drastically different than the rest of the house.
The sensors will measure the temperature at each room they are located in. I’m assuming then the system uses that to understand the average temperature in the home. Now it’s a little more accurate making the house feel really comfortable.
