Home Automation

I've been trying to catch up with the many tasks on my to-do list as the season changes toward winter. One of the things I have been focused on in recent is our furnace since winter is fast approaching. 

I already did some annual cleaning of the furnace... checked and cleaned electrical contacts inside the ignition... and then turned my attention toward our thermostat. Our thermostat has been a little bit of a frustration for quite some time. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. We replace batteries regularly and have to clean contacts inside this old programmable thermostat approximately twice each season. 

Programming that old thermostat is a pain in the butt with tiny switches on the circuit board and a very clumsy interface. Usually, we just avoid changing the programming because it is such a pain in the butt and, instead, just make do with the main programming. Whenever we need a change, we simply manually change the temperature and use the hold button which defeats the purpose of any sort of in-depth programming. 

Another thing about this old thermostat that concerned us a bit was that we never knew if it and the furnace were working while we were out of town. We constantly worried about the thermostat or furnace breaking down, the heat subsequently shutting down, and coming home to frozen, burst water pipes. That is an indication of how often we were having thermostat problems. Being able to monitor the temperatures in the house while we are away was the main reason that I've wanted to replace this particular thermostat for the past few years with a Smart Thermostat. Unfortunately, our old furnace was not compatible with any of the new Smart Thermostats so we put this upgrade off for a couple of years until now. 

I decided that, this year, I was going to figure out how to upgrade our heating system so that we could use a Smart Thermostat. No matter what it took, I was going to figure out how to rewire everything so a Smart Thermostat would work in our home.

After a few hours of research and learning to understand our furnace, inside and out, I came up with a plan for upgrading the wiring and controls. Through this process, I would disassemble the furnace and then run to the computer to do some research... back to the furnace to get part numbers or test current loads... then back to the computer for more research... etc. Through this research, I stumbled upon a few ideas that I could try and I chose one as the most logical for us. After discussing it all with Sheila, I ordered the parts I would need including a new Smart Thermostat. 

We already have Amazon's Alexa in our house so it was a no-brainer to purchase the most highly recommended Smart Thermostat that includes Alexa control. This was the Ecobee4. The good news here is that this is version 4 of this Smart Thermostat so most, if not all, of the bugs should be ironed out in this fourth version. So, it may be good that we waited two years before tackling this upgrade!

The thermostat arrived today and I immediately opened it up. It was packaged well in a new little presentation-style box. I already had all the tools collected in anticipation of this little installation so I was ready to jump right into the installation. 

The new wiring plan was still fresh in my mind from my research a few days ago. Besides, I had taken some notes and drew a quick schematic of the wiring in one of my notebooks (that I carry everywhere) while I was doing my research. Wiring this new thermostat was a piece of cake. Actually, everything about installing this new Smart Thermostat was really quite simple. Once the wires are connected and the unit is powered on, it runs through a diagnostic and set up on its touch screen. Answer a few questions and you are up and running. In this setup, I was able to set up the thermostat according to our particular heating system, our house style and square footage, our comfort preferences, and register it to me and my Amazon account. That was a piece of cake too!

This little thermostat mounted cleanly on our wall right where our old thermostat was mounted in our main hallway above our telephone. And, it looks nice too!

This new Ecobee4 thermostat has a free app that we installed on our phones. We can now view and control the temperature in the house at the thermostat as well as at another sensor in our bedroom right from our phones no matter where we are located... even if we are out of town. The Smart Thermostat will average out the temperatures between the two sensors. Down the road, we may add more sensors to this new system.

The Ecobee4 thermostat knows when at least one of our cellphones is in the home and will then heat the house to our pre-determined comfortable temperature. If our phones are in a different location, for example, out of town, then the Ecobee4 thermostat will turn down the heat to a pre-determined "Away" setting. The great thing here is that we can monitor and control the heat in our house from anywhere. If we see the heat isn't working while we are out of town, we can call someone to fix the issue. 

Since the Ecobee4 is connected to our WiFi, it also tracks the weather. This weather is viewable from the Ecobee4 display or on our phones within the Ecobee app. 

Below, is a view of the desktop control of the Ecobee4. This makes programming and setting preferences a piece of cake! We have this loaded into our desktop computer as well as both of our tablets. 

Additionally, the Ecobee4 comes as an Amazon Alexa device so there is all of Alexa's added functionality. We can control all of our home automation from this thermostat or any other Alexa device in the house. 

So far, we're really liking this new home automation feature!



POST EDIT:  October 2, 2018 - We have had a day to learn more about this thermostat and some more of its features. The more we explore within the app, the more we like this thermostat!

This thermostat tracks the furnace usage too which is a nice and handy feature. In the middle of the winter, when we are experiencing sub-zero temperatures and have an 80-100 degree difference between inside the house and outdoors, we can more closely and more easily monitor the number of cycles the furnace completes in an hour. There is a bar chart showing the exact times the furnace is running. I can then adjust the temperature spread before the furnace kicks on to heat the house. I think the general rule of thumb is that you do not want more than six cycles within an hour otherwise you are being too demanding of the furnace and its ignition system. So, we can monitor that very easily now.

Having Alexa right at the thermostat is great too. We can talk to Alexa from our living room or kitchen and she can understand us. We can set multiple kitchen timers, ask for recipes, and, most importantly, we can control all of our other smart home devices with Alexa. 

Alexa can also control the thermostat. If we don't want to get our lazy butts up off the couch, or if we are busy with something that would be difficult to put down, then we can simply say, "Alexa, set the thermostat two degrees higher..." and it is done. We now have voice control over the thermostat as well as lights.  

When Alexa first was announced, I have to admit that I was not too impressed with what Alexa could do. Amazon is now into third generation Alexa devices and they have added a lot of functionality over the years. More manufacturers are making smart products which work with Alexa too. Integrating Alexa into this Smart Thermostat was a great idea too and we are enjoying the simplicity and functionality.