Replacing one smart thermostat (Lennox iComfort M30) with another (Ecobee Smart Enhanced), because the iComfort is—how would you put it—bad.
@chipotle Best of wishes with your replacement!
I recently assembled several quirks and tips I've discovered over the past 4 months of exploring my ecobee thermostat. Optionally, if you're interested, I can share them with you?
@chipotle Here ya go!
* The app and thermostat UI won't tell you when Smart Recovery is causing heat/cool to start early
You have to check beestat.io (more convenient, mobile friendly) or ecobee website's Home IQ -> System Monitor page to know why it's heating above/cooling below your setpoint if you have an upcoming setpoint change.
* If you're responsible for filter changes, having ecobee measure the filter life by hours of actual runtime may make more sense than going by days elapsed (the default)
For "90 day" pleated filters, I'm trying "200 hours" and I'll adjust depending on when they get dusty.
* eco+'s "Adjust temperature for humidity" might think it's warm/cool enough too early if your thermostat is near the air return vent (System Monitor and beestat.io show large humidity swings when equipment turns on/off)
It's been fine at a relative's house, but caused issues here.
* beestat.io suggests a 1.0°F temperature differential, but depending on your living space you might be more comfortable with ecobee's default "automatic staging" that aims for 2-3 cycles per hour (differential varies from 0.5-1.0°F)
The automatic staging is supposedly influenced by eco+'s energy savings slider, so I've set that to Maximum.
* If your air handler has an ECM motor (iComfort is a fancier Lennox setup, your system probably does?), try connecting up a thermostat wire to the dehumidify/dehum terminal, if it exists
The ecobee can be configured to send a signal to this wire when calling for cooling to tell your air handler to run the fan at a slightly slower speed for better dehumidification. And when it's not as humid, it'll run at full speed for more efficient temperature control.
It's a bit non-intuitive to set up - you need to ensure "Dehumidify with fan" is set to "No" since this isn't a dedicated dehumidifier.
https://hvacrschool.com/ecobee-thermostats-dehumidification/
The Enhanced can only control 1-wire accessories via PEK+ terminal, but that should be compatible.
(Even my system from 2005 would have this option if I had the fancier air handler. More recently, energy-efficient ECM fans have become more common even for single-stage systems.)
* The minimum fan runtime splits into either 2 or 4 periods in an hour of the fan running.
15 minutes = 2× 7m30s periods
30 minutes = 4× 7m30s periods
Other runtime settings get split up less evenly.
(I'm using 0 since I've got an old, energy-hungry PSC motor, but if you have an ECM, it usually draws a lot less power.)
* ecobee's Internet-based outdoor temperature uses DarkSky's API (soon to be WeatherKit), and it may be inaccurate, but I've heard that you can contact ecobee support to ask about other nearby online weather stations to choose from if needed
Personally, I've noticed some inaccuracy compared to a local budget weather station sensor I have outside, but nothing large enough for me to want to contact support.
I was reminded of this by seeing someone's guide on how they found the heat pump cut-off temperature/balance point between electricity for the heat pump and natural gas for their furnace, posted recently:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ecobee/comments/zdb5nb/comment/iz36pj9/?context=3
@chipotle In hindsight, I forget if micro.blog handles DMs. There was one private post in the thread; I can send that via IRC or such instead if needed.
@digitalfox Well, TIL that while Micro.blog doesn’t support DMs, it recognizes when a Mastodon user sends one to an M.B user and sends it in email! So I did indeed get the DM. :)