The orange bars are the daily run time (hours) for my heat and the black line is the daily average temperature. - Smart Home Generation, How To Lock Your Ecobee Thermostat? I will never advertise for something I dont think is freaking amazing. Understand how Smart Recovery works for the right temperature, at the right time. According to the Mayo Clinic, the ideal humidity will be between 30% and 50% for most indoor environments. For example, if you routinely wake up at 6 a.m., Smart Recovery will automatically preheat your home as you sleep so its comfortable when you get up. If you want to enable Apple HomeKit, go to the Ecobee app then to menu > Setup HomeKit > Get started > Create Home setup > Done > select home > Next > scan the HomeKit code with your phone or enter it manually > OK > Done, then your thermostat will work with your HomeKit, here are the steps with pictures. Set the Ideal Fan Settings. This really just involves setting high and low temperature warnings . The general consensus is that 68 degrees Fahrenheit is ideal. Tip 3: Use IFTTT and connect it to other home devices. No, thats not a life-changing number, but its still free money. Best Thermostat Settings for the Cold Months In cold months of the year (fall and winter), the best and recommended settings for your thermostat is 70 F during the day when your home is empty. (Not super high seer, but also not old and inefficient)? + I have a crazy goal to directly create 6000 Millionaires by 45. Pick a date range and download your energy history as a .csv file. I just maintained it since. This is where the hold feature comes in. How to Run Your Own DNS Server on Your Local Network, How to Check If the Docker Daemon or a Container Is Running, How to Manage an SSH Config File in Windows and Linux, How to View Kubernetes Pod Logs With Kubectl, How to Run GUI Applications in a Docker Container. It might be good to have this data in a table with comfort/eco/recommended settings. I believe I have provided a decent list of recommendations with, most importantly, explanations. For example, if I want the bedroom to be the area of the house where the temperature needs to be perfect, I can tell the Ecobee to only use the sensor in the bedroom for its temperature reading. - Andrew Gaichuk, senior director, technical operations, ecobee. Now that you are able to get more out of your ecobee thermostat, learn how to use Home IQ, our powerful, easy-to-use web dashboard, to monitor how much you saved each month and save even more. Youd be surprised by how many people are letting money escape through their vents. Your thermostat reading can be affected by external factors; the most common one is referred to as wall draft. Compressor Min Cycle Off Time: 900sec Compressor Min Outdoor Temp: 25F (or disabled which was recommended by ecobee) AC Overcool Max: Disabled Heat Diff Temp: 1.5F Heat Dissipation Time: 30sec Aux Min On Time: 5min (default) Cool Diff Temp: 1.5F Cool Dissipation Time: Auto Compressor Min On Time: 5min (default) Compressor to Aux Temp Delta: 3F While the exact specs on the ecobee humidity sensor are kept secret, we can make some inferences using the available information on the temperature sensor. To learn more about how paid advertising works go here . This setting will also be the percentage that the Overcool Max setting uses to determine when your AC can put in some extra work to fight off the humidity. Personal considerations like health come into play as certain conditions can be triggered by the wrong humidity. Are you looking to keep your cool on a hot day? To see when Smart Recovery has been active, sign in to the web portal, then select Home IQ > System Monitor. This means that you can make sure that your ecobee is always within a few units of accuracy. I live in the desert. RELATED: How to Manually Select Which Ecobee Sensor to Use. It can also lead to serious problems such as rot and water damage if the humidity gets severe. The ecobee thermostat is accurate within +/- 1.0F according to official documentation. You have a little range for what you can do with nighttime cooling temps. Summer: 78 degrees during the day with nights at 72 degrees. We'll walk you through the advanced settings on your Ecobee so you can be an Ecobee Pro Pro. As I touched on earlier, you cant game the system by suddenly cranking up your air conditioning or heat. This device also integrates with all of the latest smart home apps and hubs including: One of the biggest questions that homeowners have is in regard to how well the ecobee can control humidity. It should only be turning on if absolutely necessary. The ecobee measures humidity by using a built-in sensor within the thermostat itself. RELATED: How to Automate Your Favorite Apps with IFTTT. By then, you will have undone all of your savings for the month. After Christmas, I bought a smart thermostat. Micromanaging your indoor temps by stopping and starting your air conditioner and furnace is going to cause them to run inefficiently. You can easily lock it with a PIN code the PIN acts like a password preventing other people from gaining unauthorized access to your thermostat and you can use it to lock all the devices or some features on it. This can be set in .5 degree increments. The maximum outdoor operating ambient in cooling mode is 125_F (51.67_C).4. All Rights Reserved. Please note that all comments go into a moderation queue (to prevent blog spam). So while you could prevent people from changing the temperature, you could still allow them to set up a vacation mode. Thanks for sharing your experience too, it definitely seems like a bug with Ecobees software (or a design issue with the sensor, although that might be less likely) which is frustrating. Adjusting your temps by 10 degrees for 8 hours per day will easily put you on the road to maxing out at savings of 5% to 15% annually. In general, we recommend letting your ecobee thermostat manage these settings automatically. If you have feedback, please send it. Protect your family from break-ins, fires, and rising energy costs with your ecobee For example, you can set the heat pump to automatically turn off and use the furnace when the outdoor temperature falls below a certain number. You might get as much as 3% per degree if your system is ultra-efficient. This reminds me of the guides that some of the smaller local utilities produce - example. Tap the flame-shaped heat icon. Tip 8: Install Ecobee Remote if you are a Windows user. RELATED: How to View Your Ecobee Thermostats Usage History. This is one of the premier options for people who are searching for the right smart thermometer. Tristan owns close to a dozen Amazon Echo devices, way too many Philips Hue bulbs and lightstrips, a boat-load of Ring Cameras and Doorbells and a bunch of other smart home devices too (from Reolink, Google Nest, GLEDOPTO and others). 1. Want to become an ecobee expert and understand ALL your smart thermostat's capabilities? Im certainly no expert but it seems it really depends on your equipment. Then turn it up. In order to proceed with this guide successfully, your ecobee Smart Thermostat must be fully installed and functioning properly. At the time I changed it, it was 21 now it is 18. All ecobee thermostats include threshold settings that let you customize how your thermostat uses your HVAC equipment. Thanks Guy, this has been updated now. The ecobee app is great for a quick glance at your schedule for the day. My recommended settings will tend to favor longer runtimes, but a leaky house will likely have a big impact on that. Installation And Setup Configuring your ecobee thermostat for the first time Upon powering up the ecobee, it will provide step-by-step prompts to assist with the HVAC equipment configuration. As part of my sqlbee project and due to the ever-present desire from the community, I've put together a brief wiki on "optimal" settings for heat pump/electric aux users. That's not necessarily abnormal when the outdoor temperature is right. Heres how to get the most out of your Ecobee smart thermostat. A great way to do that is to look at your usage habits when it comes to heating and cooling your house. Regardless, I would make it run longer. What this setting does, essentially, is give your HVAC system permission to get cooler than your set temperatures to regulate your humidity. Come May to October humidifier is not required in Alberta and we normally shut it off. 2 degree stage 1 to stage 2 threshold (stage 2 will fire up immediately if greater than 2 degree difference between indoor temp and set point). The ecobee comes packed with features that can min/max your ability to control your home, but if your HVAC system is outdated or flagging it will naturally limit what your ecobee is capable of. YI Camera Not Scanning QR Code? Your ecobee will primarily regulate humidity by making granular adjustments to your homes AC: Having all this power is all well and good, but how accurate is the sensor we are working with? How to Use Your Ecobee Smart Thermostat with Alexa. It is possible to use your Ecobee thermostat to show the outside temperature and weather information displayed on its screen, or get a more detailed weather forecast in the thermostat app. And when one of the family members comes back inside those borders, the device turns on the HVAC system to find the best atmosphere when you get home. The amount of mental space it clears is worth it on its own, but if youre saving $400 or more on heating and cooling this gadget will pay for itself pretty fast. So, how do we get in control of our humidity? Tip 12: Display temperature on the screen. Compressor Min On Time I would prefer to be higher than 1 minute. Handsfree temperature control with virtual assistants. Basically, auto fan lets your HVAC cycle out unwanted humidity while always on slowly builds humidity back up. This way you will not miss anything that happens in your home while youre away and avoids all potential problems with your heating and cooling system. Tip 5: Track energy consumption. Balance the temperature throughout your home. Tristan also has an academic background (in Math & Computer Science), and so he enjoys digging into the technical ways that smart home devices work. Are you a sunbathing hot weather all-star? 31+ Gifts for Busy People + Gift Ideas If YOU are too busy, Best Trading Platform Canada Start Investing in Stocks, If you drop the temperature in your house by just a degree for the 8 hours youre at home , If you drop the temperature by 10 degrees for the 8 hours youre at work youll save up to. Related Reading: ecobees Frost Control Feature (& Does It Work Properly?). Now that winter is here I was wondering if there are any user adjustments or tweaks to Ecobee3 Lite settings I should make regarding furnace control. I have a 2-stage Trane and and found these to be the optimal settings: 2 degree stage 1 to stage 2 threshold (stage 2 will fire up immediately if greater than 2 degree difference between indoor temp and set point). The process is similar to any other HomeKit product, where you scan or enter in the HomeKit code. Obviously, this is subjective based on your local climate and energy costs. Motion sensors will allow the thermostat to turn off the AC or the heater when no one is inside the room. If accessories are installed, identify what is installed and reference the ecobee 3 installation documents to promote optimal performance. Whats more likely to happen is that you will forget to turn the setting back down until your home is either frigid or boiling a few hours later. Tip 9: Activate HomeKit if you are an IOS user. I literally set it and forget it. With only a 2 degree window, both heating and cooling will be fighting each other. devices. Yes its frustrating but it does seem like Ecobee need to do a bit more work in this area. Here's a screenshot of my runtime report from last Fall. Anyway around that? The second $100 is my bonus money to spend however I want. To see your energy history, sign in to the web portal and select Home IQ. Lets look at it another way. By default, your Ecobee takes temperature readings from all of its sensors and averages them out to come up with one temperature that it uses in order to decide to heat or cool your house down. On the thermostat screen, navigate to Main Menu > Settings > Installation Settings > Thresholds Depending on how your ecobee is configured, the thresholds you can adjust to reduce aux heat usage will differ depending on whether the Configure Staging threshold is set to Automatically or Manually. The humidity sensor in the ecobee is typically very reliable. Does Ecobee even adjust things? Thanks for the comment! Keep in mind that Overcool Max will turn off either when the temperature setting or the humidity percent is reached. Not only is this about comfort, but if your HVAC system isnt properly handling this build up of moisture, you could be looking at some serious repair costs down the road. But all that pain disappears with the right thermostat. Not only does the ecobee come with all of the standard features any regular thermometer should have, it also comes with plenty of smart features that let you get the granular control smart home enthusiasts are looking for. This really just involves setting high and low temperature warnings, so when your house ever reaches these temperature levels, youll be notified about it. But it can only work with what you give it. Within the thermostats settings, you can set up a four-digit security code that prevents others from making changes. It looks like outside temp between 20 - 25 is when my heat pump cant do anymore but just run to maintain the temp. Anyone know what the best temperatures are for when you're away (either on vacation or just daily away) to save money but keep the house at a temperature that's ok for the house itself, and won't cost extra to return it to the normal temperature? If youre away from home for any extended amount of time, you probably wont know about any problems with your HVAC system that happento arise. You can also now select which sensors are participating in this Comfort Setting. Finally, select Schedule in the left-hand column. My Ecobee Keeps saying 71%. After youve paired your SmartSensor to the thermostat and it is participating in your Comfort Settings, you may be surprised to find that the temperature reading on your thermostat differs from the actual room temperature. How-To Geek is where you turn when you want experts to explain technology. You can configure your ecobee thermostat to display the temperature values in Fahrenheit or Celsius. How does the geofencing feature work with your Ecobee? UGH. For example, by default, the compressor is locked out below 35 degrees F, which is likely inappropriate for your Carrier system. What should you use all this power to set your humidity to? Smart Home Point 2019-2023. Those specific cases are resolved now (thanks again), but I agree that a proofreader of sorts will also be important to explore. Most of its power to control your humidity comes down to your HVAC system. How To Get The Most Out Of Your Ecobee Thermostat? I have 3 ecobee thermostats on 3 very different units both in age and sophistication. This is why you tend to get dryer skin in the winter. ecobee's smart thermostats are ENERGY STARcertified and can save ecobee SmartOwners up to 26% annually on heating and cooling costs. RELATED: How to Receive Ecobee Alerts If Your Furnace or A/C Breaks Down. If you have any questions, feedback or suggestions about this article, please leave a comment below. If youre deeply enthralled in Apples HomeKit platform, then it might be worthwhile to enable HomeKit compatibility on the Ecobee, as its not enabled by default. Lets save on energy costs this year with these recommended thermostat settings for summer and winter! Assuming a modern-middle-of-the-line heat pump? Do Lutron Caseta Switches Work With Philips Hue Bulbs? Lets keep in mind that your heating and cooling costs alone account for half of your total energy costs. I would generally choose a lower value for Aux Heat Max Outdoor Temperature. I disagree though because at 35 the compressor is still going to be moving heat for cheaper than the aux can. Since joining ecobee as our fifteenth employee and first tech support specialist in 2009, Andrew Gaichuk, senior director, tech operations, has supported eight generations of ecobee thermostats and fielded every HVAC question imaginable. I live in Orlando, currently I have the schedule set to 62/84 when away, 69/80 when home, and vacation 60/86. For example, you can have your thermostat automatically turn off when the outside temperature is warm or cool enough to have windows open, sending you an alert whenever this happens. I haven't actually see anything like that before; I like what they're doing. Heat/Cool Differential Temperature of 1.0F is fine. In short, your ideal humidity percentage will be somewhere in that 30% to 65% range depending on your comfort, your home, and your needs. The app is available on Microsoft Store and it is free for 30 days. Nest vs. Ecobee3 vs. Honeywell Lyric: Which Smart Thermostat Should You Buy? Manually changing the Comfort Setting on ecobee thermostats His work has been published by iFixit, Lifehacker, Digital Trends, Slashgear, and GottaBeMobile. Home IQ can help you make more informed choices in setting your schedule and temperature preferences. Day and Night Air Conditioner Temps: Whats the Best AC Temperature for Sleeping? After that, humidity is pulled from the house and the air coming out of the vents is much cooler. You can use applets to set geo-fence on IOS using applets like If you enter the area Then turn on the living room ACs or If I leave the area Then Turn off all the HVAC system. I was looking for 70 in my house but it seemed to be stuck at 68 for the longest time with the heat pump running without the extra help from auxiliary electric heat. Select Thresholds. I might get paid for click-throughs or signups on some links to pay for the site. The problem is, fresh air is usually humid air. Now, each time you manually adjust the temperature, youll be able to choose how long the hold lasts. How do I Adjust/Lower the Humidity on My ecobee? Heres the science behind it. By accepting all cookies, you agree to our use of cookies to deliver and maintain our services and site, improve the quality of Reddit, personalize Reddit content and advertising, and measure the effectiveness of advertising. My personal thermostat settings: Winter: Set my home for 70 degrees Fahrenheit during the day before letting it drift down to 66 at night. When you purchase through our links we may earn a commission. Thanks for the helpful comment, and youre quite right its not good for me to publish articles with typos. You can also use an auto-schedule to set different temperatures throughout the day. how to set a PIN code on your thermostat. ecobee can alert you of serious issues such as low temperatures and remind you when your HVAC system needs maintenance. Dont think you can trick the system by cranking your air conditioning all the way up to try to cool your home faster. You can activate it on the thermostat menu or the mobile app by going to the main menu then going to reminders & alerts and activating the feature you want. The ecobee can be connected into a variety of home environment accessories such as dehumidifiers. Did you know? Then it begins to adjust the differential up to 1 degree I believe. This may cause your furnace or AC to run longer than it needs to as the cold or warm air reaches the thermostat and affects its reading. The ecobee smart thermostat has built in settings that can fine tune your home's humidity. Additionally, when on vacation should I set a minimum minutes per hour for the fan, or will the ecobee take care of that when it thinks it's necessary? What do I do? Whats better than saving money? Another setting to look out for is the ever useful, but much less awesomely named, fan settings. To also avoid short cycling and increase equipment efficiency, you can go to MENU > SETTINGS > INSTALLATION SETTINGS > THRESHOLDS > HEAT DIFFERENTIAL TEMP > and change this to a higher value so that the system turns on for a bigger temperature drop and reduces short cycling. You can disable this feature by going to the main menu, clicking "Settings" and then "Preferences". From there, choose the start and end times and save it. The temperature sensor uses the last two measurements to create an average that it uses to stay calibrated. After three years, I will have saved at least $600. Humidity build up can cause your HVAC system to work overtime, so it can overcome rapidly changing moisture levels in the air. Your ecobee, by default, is already plugged into the most powerful dehumidifier money can buy, and thats your AC system. I like most of this! All you have to do is log in to the web interface and enter in your location. Nuhearas Earbuds Deliver Personalized Audio for $200 Off, 2023 LifeSavvy Media. The ecobee manipulates this combination very very well. But sometimes, and for some reason, you need to adjust the scheduled temperature to get a higher comfort. The ideal relative indoor humidity is a percentage, and it varies pretty wildly based on your needs, where you live, and your home. Yes! These settings range from fan controls to HVAC settings. The right section of the screen will now display two numbers. 2. Hive geothermal compatibility ecobee smart thermostats intelligently adapt to your day-to-day life. Its only a matter of a single degree in some cases. Placing a hold is simple: just adjust the temperature with the slider in the app or on the thermostat. By rejecting non-essential cookies, Reddit may still use certain cookies to ensure the proper functionality of our platform. This is a long game with consistent periods of higher and lower temps based on your personal habits. RELATED: How to Enable HomeKit on the Ecobee Thermostat. If you saw the latter scenario on your thermostat and didnt know about Smart Recovery, you might think that something is wrong or that the thermostat isnt following the schedule. If youre used to 70 degrees, you probably wont even notice that small difference after a day if youre properly dressed. This is what I have observed on my stats. Lately Ive been trying to make sense of how much heat pump has been running. The highest priority aux setting is Aux Heat Max Outdoor Temperature. We have no pets so animal comfort is not a concern. It just depends on your settings, the temperature outside, and how fast your home loses or absorbs heat. 1 [deleted] 3 yr. ago [removed] fields_g 3 yr. ago This is totally normal! Keep your finger on the screen and slightly move it upwards or downwards to raise or lower the preferred temperature. What Is a PEM File and How Do You Use It? I disagree though because at 35 the compressor is still going to be moving heat for cheaper than the aux can. So thats up to $420, or 21% of your heating bill and you wont even notice the difference if youre gone for work for a big chunk of the day! You can go bone dry or tropical based on your needs. I am not an HVAC professional and I can make mistakes, but I have done a lot of research in my own quest to achieve acceptable comfort with minimum aux usage. So, when it came to putting together a post about recommended thermostat settings, we didn't have to look far for inspiration. Makes sense. Yet on the page that offers definitions on these settings, it says this is used for air-to-air compressors, which is what I have. Thank you. You can enable or disable Smart Recovery in the settings menu on your ecobee thermostat or by signing in to the web portal. Frankly if your compressor only needs to be on for a minute you need to increase your Heat/Cool Differential Temp. By logging into the Ecobees web interface, you can view a detailed history of how youre using your thermostat, like when it turns on and off and how long its on for. You dont have to spend the money on anything else. My settings are: Away: 62/78 Home: 65/76 Sleep: 65/72 (8pm - 12am) Deep Sleep: 65/74 (12am - 5am) The fan circulates 5 mins/hr only in the "winter". You can now open your thermostat data in your spreadsheet application. Adjust the set points for heat and cool, as well as fan mode as required. The code can be set only from your thermostat, not from the mobile app, and here is how to set a PIN code on your thermostat.