ecobee3 Lite Smart Thermostat - Programmable Wifi Thermostat - Works with Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant - Energy Star Certified - DIY Install, Black

My A/C Technician recommended this thermostat so I purchased it. I called ecobee tech support before I ordered the ecobee thermostat to see if it would be compatible with my HVAC system. He explained that the wiring was the important thing. Their live support hours are M-F 8am to 11pm and Sat-Sun 9 to 9. My installer could call any time during those hours for questions. My A/C installer also said ecobee had great tech support. He installed it with no problems. I received a text from ecobee telling me how to link the thermostat with my smart phone, and gave me a link to install the app. I'm a senior and I managed to do it without needing to call support, just by following the directions on the app and the thermostat. It also guided me to register my thermostat and apply for a $75 rebate. It works great with my android phone. It worked great manually, also, before I set up the app and link.

I had a Nest learning thermostat in my old house, and to be honest, I wasn’t crazy about it. When I bought my new home in 2019, it had a simple, non-programmable digital thermostat with zero features.I haven’t been happy with the way that my AC has been cooling in this hot Texas summer. Even with the fan running 24/7, it still always felt stuffy and a bit too warm, and my electricity bills were always a bit higher than I’d like.I took a chance and chose this one over a Nest, and it’s been the best decision that I could have made.I’m using the huge, white wall plate until I repair and repaint the holes from the other one. It looks a bit out of place, but it just barely covered the old holes. If the plate was any smaller, it wouldn’t cover them.Anyway, in the two weeks that I’ve been running this ecobee, I’ve seen a huge improvement in both my comfort levels and in energy reduction. I didn’t see much of a difference in the first week, but then I started figuring out how it worked with some of the advanced settings.When you can see all of the performance of your system on the website, you can see how everything is working. I initially set it so that it was more or less the same as my old, dumb thermostat, with the exception of changing the home/sleep to different values. My home is mostly one story, with just one upstairs bedroom that my oldest son uses. They system isn’t zoned, so it always gets really hot up there in the summertime. To help combat this, I’ve changed the fan from Auto to On so that air is always being circulated.What I didn’t realize is that actually makes things worse. When I could see the data on the webpage, I could see that the humidity in the home was going up and down like a roller coaster. It would go down when the AC compressor was on, but it would shoot right back up when the compressor turned off but the fan was still blowing through the system. I changed the fan setting back to Auto, and immediately, the humidity went down and stayed down. Previously, I was seeing the humidity in the house going up and down from 65% to 85% several times every hour. With just one setting change, spotted by the system data, I got it to stay at 65%.That still seemed a bit high to me, so I started researching getting a home dehumidifier. Pretty quickly, I found out that this thermostat has a dehumidify feature all ready to use. It uses something called Overcool, where you can set a target humidity and how many degrees you will allow the AC to go below the set point to further reduce the humidity. I set a target of 60% and gave it two degrees to work with. Right away, using the app, I could see that it was working.It still ranged between 62%-65% for the first day, but I could see it trending lower over time. After two days, it was maintaining 60% at the AC set point. Then I lowered it to 58%, and it took about another day to settle there. I repeated this every day until it is now at 50%. It’s holding this humidity level at the regular set point, but it feels much cooler and comfortable in the house now. I’m going to keep going to see if I can hit 40%.Everybody in the house has commented on the difference, and I’ve even bumped the temperature up a little because my wife has started wearing sweaters.What’s even better about this is that the website also graphs how many hours the compressor runs compared to the outside temperature. Over the last week, I’ve seen the ratio of compressor hours vs temperature go down by at least 1/3. Coupled with the fan only being on while the compressor is running, I’m expecting to see my electric bill go down substantially. I wouldn’t be surprised if this pays for itself over the summer.I’m going to invest in a couple of the remote sensors to make the occupied rooms the temperature that I want.Bottom line, this thing is awesome.

In reality it only took 5 min to wire after understanding why my set up was different.Pros:Excellent product, easily affordable. Smart purchase. I did many reviews of many products and kept coming back to ecobee. They provide all you need for an install. If you are on the fence - go for it. My final push was I went on vacation for the first time in many many years. I realized it would be nice to control house temp while I was away. Now I can. Hooray technology.Take images of thermostat connections and furnace control board connections before you remove anything. You should call ecobee support for help but this may help you also.Super small Con: Con is only due to my particular wiring - not the device.I did not have a "C" wire at the thermostat, only White, red, green and yellow so this install is with using the PEK device supplied with thermostat purchase, my colored wiring set up and my pre existing connections. If you have questions - Call ecobee support - they sent me images and instructions(3 of the included images) for my set up.Per the wiring image. I had a separate red and white harness in my furnace going to my AC compressor and had to tie it into the PEK device supplied with thermostat which is used with 4 wire cable with no C wire at the thermostat end. If you have 5 (or more) wires you may have a C: wire or other wires for 2 stage heat or AC. I had a single stage everything. Your wire colors may be different it is more important to know what color wire goes to what connection. You should use the supplied stickers to label the wires. For example my yellow wire could be orange or blue in your set up. Put a Y label on it This based more on where you disconnected the cable from more then color though. If you dis connect a orange wire from Y or Y1 - label it Y or Y/Y1Original Thermostat connections and wiresI had a Red wire going to Rh with a Jumper to Rc (which can be ignored)Green to GYellow to YWhite to WFurnace end controller boardRed to RGreen to GYellow wire tied to red of seperate 2 wire cable to my AC compressor (Not to Y on furnace controller board) 2nd white wire of AC comporsser tied to wire nut then a white wire (shown as blue in wiring diagram) to C connection on controller boardWhite to WConnections for ecobee thermostat with No C wireThermostat endRed to RcGreen to CYellow to PEKWhite to W1PEK is magnetic and sticks to wall inside furnace in between wiring from thermostat and furnace control boardWiring from thermostat (4 wires) to PEK device suppliedRed to PEK "R"Green to PEK "G"Yellow to PEK "Y"White to PEK "W"PEK to furnace and AC compressor and furnace control board (5 wires on the other end of PEK device) If you happen to have 2 wires to any one terminal - Only disconnect the wire that went to thermostat. Leave the other wire connected as this may go to another device you have such as a humidifier. Leave any other wires on the furnace control board connected. Again - only remove the wires that went direct to furnace.Red (R) to furnace control board "R"Green (G) to furnace control board "G"Yellow (Y) to AC compressor red (with wire nut).White (W) - label looks Grey) to furnace control board "W"Blue (C) to AC compressor wire nut tying AC compressor white wire - PEK blue (C) wire and my short white colored wire (shown as Blue wire in wiring image) to furnace control board "C"Note:My original wiring connections on the furnace control board had no wire to "Y' since my original yellow wire connected to wire nut with Red AC compressor. With ecobee I had to plug the yellow wire to PEK "Y" and the opposite end of PEK device went back to wire nut with Red AC compressor wire.The wiring image shows white AC compressor white tied with wire nut to PEK Blue wire AND a white wire(Shown in blue on Right wire image) to "C' on furnace control board. - don't let color confuse you it could be any color, where it comes from and where it plugs into is more important.