Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium

Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium

Ecobee
WLAN Bluetooth

Überprüft am: 9. November 2022

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Mozillas Meinung

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Abstimmungsergebnis: Ziemlich unheimlich

Ecobee now has three smart thermostats in their line up -- the Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium, Smart Thermostat Enhanced, and the Ecobee3 Lite. Their Premium version comes with all the bells and whistles and can basically do it all -- change the temperature, call your friends, play music, control other smart devices, and adapt to your routine.

Ecobee's Smart Thermostat Premium can also do smart thermostat things like adjust the temperature from your phone, monitor the air quality in your home, and save energy with smart algorithms. It has Amazon Alexa built in, a way to control it with a flick of your Apple Watch clad wrist, and occupancy sensors so it knows which rooms are in use and which aren't. Is it possible for a thermostat to be too smart? If so, you can get the cheaper Ecobee3 Lite and make calls from, you know, your phone. In 2021, Generac bought Ecobee as part of their plans to expand into the “intelligent home energy ecosystem.” So far, this acquisition doesn’t seem to have changed Ecobee’s strong commitment to privacy. Here’s hoping it never does.

Was könnte passieren, wenn etwas schiefgeht?

Hey look, a smart home tech maker that seems to value their users’ privacy. It’s nice to see. The first point in Ecobee’s privacy policy is what we wish all companies would say and do: “Your personal information and data belongs to you.” Good work Ecobee! They also say, “If we collect it, we safeguard it.” Another good work Ecobee! The thing is, many companies crow about how much they care and protect their users’ privacy. Too many times this crowing is empty words written by PR departments. For Ecobee though, we really do think they are pretty good at protecting and respecting their users’ privacy (especially compared to many of the Big Tech companies out there).

Ecobee does collect personal information on you. Things like name, address, email, telephone number, online identifiers such as IP addresses and device IDs, location information, as well as things the smart thermostat learns about your home like thermal and olfactory information. That’s potentially a lot of information gathered. The good news is, Ecobee says they never sell your personal data. And they don’t seem to share your personal information with third parties for targeted, interest based advertising, which is also good. So, all that data this smart thermostat collects on you probably isn’t going to be shared around the internet to target you with tons of ads to buy sweaters because you keep your house so cold all winter long (we hope).

The biggest privacy concern you’ll likely find with this smart thermostat is with the third party voice assistants you can use it with. The voice requests you make of Amazon’s Alexa, Google Assistant, or Apple’s Siri through your smart thermostat will let Amazon, Google, or Apple know more about you. But hey, Amazon, Google, and Apple probably know way too much about you already.

Ecobee reportedly also stood up to Amazon when they demanded Ecobee share more user data with them. From The Verge, “...the online retail giant asked Ecobee to share data from its Alexa-enabled smart thermostats, even when the customer wasn’t actively using the voice assistant. Ecobee reportedly refused to have its devices constantly report back to Amazon about the state of the user’s home, including data on which doors were locked or unlocked and the set temperature. The reasoning being that enabling its devices to report this data to Amazon would be a violation of its customer’s trust.” Good Ecobee. Bad Amazon.

Ecobee does ask users if they would like to donate their anonymized data from their smart thermostat to share with energy scientists to help “design more efficient and sustainable homes.” That seems good on a couple fronts. First, Ecobee asks users to donate their data with an opt-in rather than opt-out option. Second, the goal of this data sharing is a good one, not to target you with ads, but to help scientists save the planet. Again, good work Ecobee!

What’s the worst that could happen with your Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium? Well, this thermostat does come with a smart speaker/microphone built-in and listening for those Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant voice requests. And it can play music on Spotify or make calls. It would be weird to make a phone call through your smart thermostat (it feels like this sentence should end here…but I’ll keep going) and have a hacker hack your smart thermostat and listen in to your phone calls. Or adjust your thermostat up really high and raise your energy bill hundreds of dollars. Or monitor those radar sensors to know when you are home and what room you’re in. All this probably isn’t likely to happen. Still, good to remember it could. All in all though, Ecobee is one of the best smart thermostat makers out there from a privacy perspective.

Tipps zu Ihrem Schutz

  • If you connect to Alexa, delete your historical voice recordings from time to time, by saying “delete what I just said"
  • When starting a sign-up, do not agree to tracking of your data.
  • Do not sign up with third-party accounts. Better just log in with email and strong password.
  • Chose a strong password! You may use a password control tool like 1Password, KeePass etc
  • Use your device privacy controls to limit access to your personal information via app (do not give access to your camera, microphone, images, location unless neccessary)
  • Keep your app regularly updated
  • Limit ad tracking via your device (eg on iPhone go to Privacy -> Advertising -> Limit ad tracking) and biggest ad networks (for Google, go to Google account and turn off ad personalization)
  • Request your data be deleted once you stop using the app. Simply deleting an app from your device usually does not erase your personal data.
  • mobile

Kann es mich ausspionieren? Information

Kamera

Gerät: Nein

App: Nein

Mikrofon

Gerät: Ja

App: Ja

Verfolgt den Standort

Gerät: Nein

App: Ja

Was kann zur Registrierung verwendet werden?

Welche Daten sammelt das Unternehmen?

Wie nutzt das Unternehmen die Daten?

Ecobee does not sell nor shares personal data for advertisement.

"If you agree to participate in ecobee’s Donate Your Data, you will be anonymously sharing your Device Data with ecobee’s research partners. Your Personal Information will not be shared. ecobee’s research partners will protect your data in accordance with this Privacy Agreement. For more information, see ecobee.com/donateyourdata."

Wie können Sie Ihre Daten kontrollieren?

It is unclear if all users regardless of location can get their data deleted.

"If you do not wish ecobee to have a copy of your Personal Information, you can request its removal by visiting Profile in your ecobee mobile app, where you can select “Delete my account”. Or you can request its removal by contacting ecobee Customer Service at 1.877.932.6233 or by submitting a request on our Personal Information Management page. In order to protect your access to the ecobee Services and to guard against mischief or theft, ecobee may contact you to confirm your request and may request additional Personal Information solely for the purpose of authenticating the legitimacy of the request. Following such a request, ecobee will delete all Personal Information that it is not required to retain for the purposes of regulatory, tax, insurance, litigation or other legal requirements. ecobee may also retain such data for the purposes of safety, security, fraud prevention and detection.

As your Personal Information may include your email address, any ecobee Account Data associated with this email address must also be deleted. Due to the nature of Internet-connected devices, deletion of this ecobee Account Data will remove the ability to remotely control your ecobee Devices via the web or mobile app. Some of your ecobee Devices’ smart features may also be reduced or removed. ecobee Devices will continue to provide basic functionality (i.e., as a thermostat or light switch), but without remote access or smart features. Remote access and smart functionality can be restored by creation of a new ecobee account, but all previously-collected Device Data and settings will have been permanently deleted."

Wie ist das Unternehmen in der Vergangenheit mit den Daten über seine Verbraucher umgegangen?

Durchschnittlich

No known incidents in the last 3 years.

Kann dieses Produkt offline genutzt werden?

Nein

Benutzerfreundliche Informationen zum Datenschutz?

Nein

Links zu Datenschutzinformationen

Erfüllt dieses Produkt unsere Mindestsicherheitsstandards? Information

Ja

Verschlüsselung

Ja

All network traffic is encrypted.

Sicheres Passwort

Ja

A password is required for the web portal and mobile app.

Sicherheits-Updates

Ja

Umgang mit Schwachstellen

Ja

Ecobee runs a bug bounty program, which means that anyone who finds a security issue and discloses it responsibly may get paid.

Datenschutzrichtlinie

Ja

Verwendet das Produkt KI? Information

Ja

Ist diese KI nicht vertrauenswürdig?

Nicht zu bestimmen

Welche Entscheidungen trifft die KI über Sie oder für Sie?

Ecobee smart thermostats have a feature called eco+. It leverages AI to tailor temperature settings, transition to clean energy when available, and optimize cost savings.

Gibt das Unternehmen transparent an, wie die KI funktioniert?

Ja

Hat der Benutzer die Kontrolle über die KI-Funktionen?

Ja

Features such as eco+ are opt in.
*Datenschutz nicht inbegriffen

Tauchen Sie tiefer ein

  • The Privacy Risks of Your Smart Thermostat
    VPN Overview
  • ecobee vs Nest: Don’t Overlook These 9 Crucial Differences
    The Smart Cave
  • Generac Announces the Closing of Its Acquisition of ecobee Inc.
    Ecobee
  • Donate your data
    Ecobee
  • Amazon tried to coerce Ecobee into collecting private user data, the WSJ reports
    The Verge
  • Ecobee’s smart thermostat now supports Siri voice control
    Engadget
  • The Best Smart Thermostat
    New York Times
  • Generator company Generac announces plans to buy Ecobee
    CNET

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