Ecobee 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 SmartThermostat 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. Back 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.
What could happen if something goes wrong?
Can it be?? A smart home device maker who cares about environmental sustainability AND privacy? Ecobee (who hails from Canada), has been quietly working on making smart things smarter for a long time, and is doing their part to support the rumor that things are just a lil’ nicer in Canada -- that large landmass this privacy researcher just so happens to call home. 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). Plus, they're Canadian!
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.
Tips to protect yourself
-Set up two-factor authentication
-If you connect to Alexa, delete your historical voice recordings from time to time, by saying “delete what I just said"
- Before connecting your device to third parties, be aware that the third-party privacy policy applies.
- 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 necessary)
- 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.
Can it snoop on me?
Camera
Device: No
App: Yes
Microphone
Device: Yes
App: Yes
Tracks location
Device: Yes
App: Yes
What can be used to sign up?
Yes
Phone
No
Third-party account
No
What data does the company collect?
Personal
Name, address, email, telephone number, online identifiers such as IP addresses and device IDs Geolocation data Home details (like house age, number of floors, etc.); Motion sensing (i.e., “occupancy sensing”) Environmental data such as temperature and humidity as well as operational data such as temperature set points from your HVAC equipment. Inferences (created by your ecobee Device relating to your energy usage)
Body related
Biometric information (gathered from your ecobee Devices) Audio, electronic, visual, thermal, olfactory, or similar information
Social
How does the company use this data?
How can you control your data?
What is the company’s known track record of protecting users’ data?
No known incidents in the last 3 years.
Child Privacy Information
Can this product be used offline?
User-friendly privacy information?
ecobee's privacy policies are generally good, but they are set up in such a way that it makes them hard to search through for key words, which we like to see to help consumers review privacy policies for words like "sell" and "children".
Links to privacy information
Does this product meet our Minimum Security Standards?
Encryption
All network traffic is encrypted.
Strong password
A password is required for the web portal and mobile app.
Security updates
Manages vulnerabilities
Ecobee runs a bug bounty program, which means that anyone who finds a security issue and discloses it responsibly may get paid.
Privacy policy
Dive Deeper
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Ecobee’s new thermostats are its best yetThe Verge
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The Privacy Risks of Your Smart ThermostatVPN Overview
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ecobee vs Nest: Don’t Overlook These 9 Crucial DifferencesThe Smart Cave
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Generac Announces the Closing of Its Acquisition of ecobee Inc.Ecobee
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Donate your dataEcobee
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Amazon tried to coerce Ecobee into collecting private user data, the WSJ reportsThe Verge
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Ecobee’s smart thermostat now supports Siri voice controlEngadget
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The Best Smart ThermostatNew York Times
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Generator company Generac announces plans to buy EcobeeCNET
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