TLDR; Definitely integrate Ecobee thermostats via HomeKit, if you can.
I purchased an Ecobee 3 Lite yesterday. Originally I had it set up via the ecobee integration only to notice delays (5-10 seconds) in status updates to HA and in me updating desired temperatures from HA. I switched to integrating via HomeKit controller locally after reading some folks recommending that. Not only did this result in much lower latency between HA and Ecobee, but interestingly also much more precise sensor data (e.g., 0.1 vs. ~0.5 temperature precision). Has anyone else observed this improved precision?
I just installed this so time will tell. I have the little temp sensors that come with the ecobee as well as my own sensors in several rooms and thereās been a small discrepancy between the two. Itāll be interesting to see if this helps bring them more in line.
One other thing I noticed between the Homekit Controller setup and the Ecobee Integration is that the Homekit Controller version for the climate entity appears to only show whole numbers for the current temperature (whereas there is a current temperature sensor that shows decimal places). However the ecobee integration climate entity shows decimals.
Is it possible to get the climate entity to report the temperature with a decimal value?
And also, the Homekit Controller version added a Fan Mode entity, but I have not yet determined if it is actually working for me or not.
Following. Very interested in playing with this. Does anyone know if the weather sensor gets added when using the Home Controller Kit? I do utilize that sensor for many things in HA as it seems to be the most accurate for my area. Thanks!
I have both the ecobee integration and the homekit one configured. I would 100% use homekit due to how fast it responds, however one of the main features I use isnāt supported: switching presets. Iām not sure why it canāt do that but itās a deal-breaker for me.
Thanks for the quick response, unfortunately that weather component is a deal breaker for me at this point. Is it possible to run both integrations together?
Absolutely! Thatās what I do currently, but I donāt really use the Homekit one tbh. When you use both it adds both thermostats under the same name so I would recommend renaming the entity or device so you know which is which
Iām not sure if this is voodoo magic happening, because I have heard from many other people that you canāt change the preset, but the entity select.ecobee_3_lite_current_mode appeared when I paired the device to Homekit Controller. It would be interesting if this only worked on Ecobee 3 Liteās for some reason.
I can confirm that changing that dropdown manually does change the preset on the device. It seems to emulate the pressing āAway for nowā or whatever button per preset. You could probably do this via a script or automation, but I am not that adept yet with HA. I donāt know if this is exactly what you are looking for, but I thought I would throw in my two cents.
Iām not exactly sure where a comprehensive guide is, but I had issues initially and eventually figured it out for my case:
Unpaired my Ecobee 3 Lite thermostat from Homekit (I have an Apple TV that acts as a hub)
Once unpaired, in the Notifications on HA it asked if I wanted to pair the Ecobee via the Homekit Controller integration
I believe I followed the instructions from that notification in order to set up the pairing, which I think was just typing in the code displayed on the thermostat manually into HA.
Installed the Homekit Integration in order to have the thermostat appear back on the original Homekit hub (Apple TV)
This was a couple of months ago, but what I noticed is that whenever I unpaired my thermostat from the Apple TV Homekit, HA started to recognize the device and asked if I wanted to pair it. If I remember correctly, HA could have also asked to pair the thermostat after I went into the app and tried to go through the process of linking to a Homekit hubā¦ but Iām pretty sure it was the steps listed above. Hopefully that helps!
Whoa youāre right, I can change my preset with the HomeKit one now!!! I wonder if that was added recently, or if I was just crazy before. I swear it could only change the modes before between heat, cool and off.
This is great news, time to try switching over all of my automations to use the HomeKit integration. Thanks for bringing this up
Right now I have the standard ecobee integration running. To move to homekit, do I have to delete the ecobee integration and just setup homekit? Or do i have to do something on the thermostat to forget the existing integration?
And that notes that they can exist in parallel ā youāll just get redundant devices. As long as you name them so you donāt confuse yourself, should be fine.
I just integrated ecobee3 lite using homekit controller. I see the select for presents in UI. Here is some weird behavior I see
In UI when I change the mode to Away/Sleep, it change the mode on thermostat. However when I reload the page, UI still shows āHomeā. On click āClear holdā thermostat returns back to schedule on thermostat.
From node-red I am able to change the select mode (just like from UI). However setting the mode back to āhomeā doesnāt work. However calling button to release āholdā returns back to schedule. In addition, the status of āselectā always shows āhomeā even I can see in thermostat that it is set to āawayā.
So here are bugs -
In UI, āhomeā doesnāt do anything (even if in away mode, it doesnāt return schedule back to original mode)
In UI, it doesnāt show current mode. If you refresh the page after setting dropdown to āAwayā , it still shows āhomeā.
Setting āhomeā mode from Node-red doesnāt work either.
Root cause off all these might be that HA homekit integration, can call thermostat correctly to change the mode, however it is not able to retrieve it (or sees only āhomeā).
So here are limitations
You are not able to get current mode (either in UI or from NR). Donāt know if any workaround.
You are not able to set āhomeā mode (in UI and from NR , and presumably from all automations). As workaround use āClear holdā button.
Can someone explain, to someone thinking of getting an Ecobee, why there are two different integrations? When I look at the āecobeeā integration, it immediately talks about registering the device at the the ecobee website. When I look at the āHomeKit controllerā integration, I start seeing things about Apple and Siri.
I was hoping to to use an Ecobee completely unencumbered by the cloud, by registering it directly with a local-to-me integration. Is that possible? I thought it was, but now Iām not so sure.
The HomeKit-based integration is local control, but more limited.
The API-based integration requires their cloud service (and still doesnāt give full control).
Honestly, these are ok options if you have an Ecobee. If you want HA control (either local or through a cloud service), Iād recommend something else. The integrations are best if you are using to gather data or make other systems react, or if all you care about are simple home vs. away control.
My problem is that I have steam heat, and very few thermostats have the necessary tuneable parameters to make it work. (In fact, the thermostat Iām looking to replace is a Sinope TH1400 zigbee model that I mistakenly chose about a month ago. It regularly fires my boiler for just 2 minutes at a time. The boiler wonāt make steam for at least 10! :-/ ) The Ecobee apparently has the right minimum āonā time, and cycle rate controls.
The good news is that all I really need is access to the setpoint and current temperature. Anything that works after that will be icing.
The Ecobee setup manual says that the pairing code becomes available after connecting to the internet, which makes me a little leery of the āall localā part, but I guess someone here probably would have noticed by now if the thermostat was phoning home repeatedly.
You canāt get run Homekit Controller without an 8-digit API key.
You canāt get an API key unless you register your thermostat at ecobee.com using the 4 character code that the thermostat shows you, and you canāt get that code unless your thermostat also has access to ecobee.com. So it has to be on the internet for registration, and you have to have an account. Just wifi isnāt enough for the thermostat ā it really needs to talk to the mothership.
Once its registered, it will give you the API key, in the form of a pair of 4 digit numbers atop a QR code. I guess if you had an iPhone or iPad you could just take a picture, but those 8 digits are the API key, even though apparently past ecobee products showed it as NNN-NN-NNN. Just enter it as 8 digits, and it works, even though Homekit Controller tells you about the previous form.
But so far, it seems that after registering and getting and using the API key, I can block my thermostat from the internet, and everything keeps working. At least, everything I need, like setting/getting temperature and setpoint, and getting History graphs in HA. So thatās all good.
My current issue is one mentioned earlier in this thread ā all of the temperatures reported by the thermostat through Homekit Controller are whole numbers. Need to chase that down.
