Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium
To, co najlepsze Holiday Guide 2023 Inteligentny dom Smart Thermostats & Smoke Detectors

Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium

Ecobee
Wi-Fi Bluetooth

Data recenzji: 1 listopada 2023

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Mozilla badała przez 8 godzin
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Według Mozilli:

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Według użytkowników: Nieco przerażające

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.

Co się może stać, jeśli coś pójdzie nie tak?

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.

Wskazówki, jak się chronić

-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.

  • mobile

Czy może mnie podsłuchiwać? informacje

Aparat

Urządzenie: Nie

Aplikacja: Tak

Mikrofon

Urządzenie: Tak

Aplikacja: Tak

Śledzi położenie

Urządzenie: Tak

Aplikacja: Tak

Czego można użyć do rejestracji?

Jakie dane zbiera ta firma?

Jak ta firma wykorzystuje te dane?

Privacy Policy

"We will not sell your personal information
...we will never sell, rent or otherwise share your personal information (including email address) or device data to a third party without your consent."

"ecobee will only disclose your Personal Information or any of its log file information when required by law or in the good-faith belief that such actions are necessary to: ...
With your explicit consent: We may share Personal Information such as e-mail addresses when authorized by you. This can include promotional offers by our partners. on your behalf and you can change your mind at any time.
With your explicit consent: We may share Personal Information as part of your registration and/or participation in eco+ or other Utility Program. ..."

"Your ecobee Device will collect environmental data such as temperature and humidity as well as operational data such as temperature set points from your HVAC equipment. Some Device models may include additional types of data such motion sensing (i.e., “occupancy sensing”). Depending on your Device model, your Device may also collect data from remote sensors in addition to the Device itself. Using machine learning with both on-device and remote processing, environmental, operational HVAC and occupancy sensing data and is used to optimize the heating and cooling algorithms on your Device to minimize energy usage when you are home or away. Collectively, this is known as Device Data. For ecobee Smart Security users, occupancy-sensing data can be used to arm or disarm your home monitoring solution."

"Video Services
ecobee SmartCameras can stream and store recorded audio and video in the cloud. No one can see your video without your permission or a court order. Video is processed directly on your SmartCamera and recordings and snapshots are stored securely on the cloud for 14 days. All recordings and snapshots that are saved to the cloud are visible in the ecobee mobile app, so you know exactly what clips have been sent and saved. When you delete a video from the ecobee app it will also erase that video from the cloud. For ecobee Smart Security customers, your SmartCamera can also be used to help determine occupancy and when to enable or disable your home monitoring system."

"Third Party Apps and Integration
ecobee Devices are capable of communicating and integrating with a growing number of third party devices, applications and services such as Apple HomeKit and IFTTT. If you enable integration with a third party service, you agree to share your ecobee Account Data and Device Data with that third party. Differing privacy policy terms may apply."

"We use both Device Data and ecobee Account Data to make more intelligent decisions about how to manage your heating and cooling, and to reduce your energy bills. We may also anonymously aggregate your Device Data with Device Data from other homes in order to create reports, benchmarks and allow you (and others) to compare energy usage, on an anonymous basis, with similar homes. ecobee may also send you information and reports regarding your Device’s operations, software updates, energy-savings opportunities or promotions directly onscreen in the web portal, or via email."

"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."

"Voice Services
Certain ecobee Devices are Alexa Enabled Products, meaning they are capable of being voice-controlled using the Alexa Voice Service (AVS) provided by Amazon Digital Services LLC (“Amazon”). When AVS is enabled on your ecobee Device, your Device continuously listens for “wake words”. When the ecobee Device hears one of these wake words, it will initiate a brief audio recording and transmit that recorded message to Amazon for voice recognition processing. Use of AVS and third party services via AVS are governed by the Alexa Terms of Use (as provided on the Amazon.com website). Any information you provide to Amazon will be treated in accordance with the Amazon Privacy Notice (also available on the Amazon.com website), not the ecobee Privacy Policy. ecobee does not have direct access to, or retain any copies of, your recorded voice messages to AVS. When your Alexa-enabled ecobee Device is in Private mode, it is not listening for wake words, and no recorded messages are sent to Amazon."

"ecobee Devices are capable of communicating and integrating with a growing number of third party devices, applications and services such as Apple HomeKit and IFTTT. If you enable integration with a third party service, you agree to share your ecobee Account Data and Device Data with that third party. Differing privacy policy terms may apply."

"Your California privacy rights
You have the right to opt-out of the sale your Personal Information by ecobee. Since we do not sell your Personal Information, you are deemed to have opted out."

Jak możesz kontrolować swoje dane?

Ecobee Privacy Policy

"You have the right to have a copy of your Personal Information and Device Data at any time, and to be forgotten if you so choose. If you would like to get a copy of your ecobee data, please fill out our Data Request form. If you would like to delete your data, please visit Profile settings in your ecobee mobile app."

"You can delete your ecobee account and associated ecobee Account Data, as well as Device Data by deregistering your Device(s) using the web portal or directly on the Device."

"If we don’t have your data, we can’t lose it or mishandle it. That's why we will only collect what is needed to deliver our services. We have strict policies and technical measures to prevent unauthorized employee access to your data (including sound and video recordings). And when your data is no longer needed for a particular purpose, we will delete it."

"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”. If you would like to delete your data, please visit Profile settings in your ecobee mobile app. 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."

Jaka jest znana historia tej firmy w zakresie ochrony danych użytkowników?

Średnia

No known incidents in the last 3 years.

Informacje o prywatności dziecka

No children-relevant policy found.

Czy ten produkt może być używany bez połączenia z siecią?

Nie

Przyjazne dla użytkownika informacje o prywatności?

Nie

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".

Odnośniki do informacji o prywatności

Czy ten produkt spełnia nasze minimalne standardy bezpieczeństwa? informacje

Tak

Szyfrowanie

Tak

All network traffic is encrypted.

Silne hasło

Tak

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

Aktualizacje zabezpieczeń

Tak

Zajmuje się problemami z bezpieczeństwem

Tak

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

Zasady ochrony prywatności

Tak

Czy produkt wykorzystuje sztuczną inteligencję? informacje

Tak

Czy tej sztucznej inteligencji nie można ufać?

Nie można ustalić

Jakie decyzje sztuczna inteligencja podejmuje o Tobie lub za Ciebie?

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.

Czy firma jest przejrzysta w kwestii działania sztucznej inteligencji?

Tak

Czy użytkownik ma kontrolę nad funkcjami sztucznej inteligencji?

Tak

Features such as eco+ are opt in.
*Prywatność do nabycia osobno

Dowiedz się więcej

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  • Donate your data
    Ecobee Odnośnik otwiera się w nowej karcie
  • Amazon tried to coerce Ecobee into collecting private user data, the WSJ reports
    The Verge Odnośnik otwiera się w nowej karcie
  • Ecobee’s smart thermostat now supports Siri voice control
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  • Generator company Generac announces plans to buy Ecobee
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