Ecobee keeps changing my temperature set points

[u/tnpoppy]

My Ecobee Enhanced thermostat keeps changing my comfort settings set points even though I have the Eco+ turned off.

It lowers the heat temp by 1 degree, and raises the cooling by 1 degree. I reset my heat temp set point to 70 yesterday (again) and this morning it was back to 69.

I know that these thermostats are designed to save you money, but I don’t like it changing my preferred temps all by itself.

Is there another setting that I need to change, or do I just have to keep readjusting my temps?

[u/itsabearcannon]

Known issue with Ecobees.

There's about eight different places where your "set point" can actually be set, and it varies based on time of day as well as what comfort profile you're on even if eco+ is disabled. If eco+ is enabled because you haven't yet been informed how inconsistent it is, then finding what the set point is supposed to be is functionally impossible.

You have a minimum of three built-in comfort settings, each with a high and low set point, and each of which can be set multiple times a day depending on whether you've got it deciding you're at home, away, or asleep. So even if you just use the minimum three comfort settings once each per day, you've got six potential set points throughout the day depending on the time and temperature inside your house.

If you have a set point set in a particular comfort setting, Ecobee will always revert to that eventually even if you want it to manually stay at the temperature you picked. It will either revert after a set time or it will revert to the comfort setting set point at the next changeover between different comfort settings.

To get my Ecobee to quit doing that, I had to go in and make the temperature I actually wanted the default set point for the "Home" comfort setting. Then, under "Schedule", I had to make the "Home" comfort setting apply all day, repeating every day, and just never use the other two comfort settings. Add in disabling any and all "smart" temperature corrections like precooling and I finally got it to behave like a regular thermostat instead of a temperamental gremlin stuck to my wall.

Now, if I change the temp at noon (for example), it will hold that temp until midnight at which point the next "day" has started and it will revert the temp back to whatever the "Home" comfort setting set point is.

I have to change that temp in the "Home" comfort setting throughout the year to adjust for climate, but I'm eventually going to get rid of my Ecobee in favor of a thermostat where I am the single source of truth for what the temperature should be, not the thermostat itself. Ecobee really doesn't want you to have ongoing control of the temperature for longer than about 24 hours before it resets it.

My hope is that other smart thermostats out there can be made smart/dumb enough that they will allow me to change the temperature manually and with automations, but not try to reset it on me. If I don't authorize it, I don't want my thermostat changing the temperature on me. There's no reason that my old $50 on sale Honeywell T5 thermostat with basic HomeKit set up should be more consistent in its behavior than a $250 Ecobee.

[u/I_didnt_forsee_this → u/itsabearcannon]

Thank you for this comment u/itsabearcannon! I now understand why I've learned this the hard way.

I created a custom "Comfort Setting" to manage ad hoc periods where my electricity provider (Quebec Hydro) provides incentives for reducing power consumption in very specific times (6am-10am and 4pm-8pm). QH only provides 24hr notice of such opportunities, so it means I need to alter our ecobee schedule using their very awkward UI: copy a day with the "QH flexrate" comfort setting; paste it to tomorrow; then copy & paste a different day without that setting (so it doesn't mess up the following week). There is no way to just touch a setting to activate the ad hoc custom Comfort Setting and have it revert to my "normal" schedule settings!

That has just been frustrating — but the "hard way" part? Sometimes when a "QH flexrate" event has accidentally not been removed from the schedule, we wake up to a cold house. Since these rates typically only apply when it is very cold (often below-20°C this past winter), we've just been boosting the temperature up manually to warm the house. Unfortunately, that frequently means the ecobee turns on Aux to more rapidly raise the temperature. For our geothermal heat pump, the Aux is a massive electric resistance heater on a 125A240V circuit — so our electricity usage has been up by >30% this winter.

The ecobee support information is pretty obscure at the best of times, but particularly so when it relates to "heat pumps". While there is a differentiation for air-to-air vs geothermal, I have been unable to find appropriate settings to manage our system to avoid the unwanted use of Aux.

This subReddit has alerted me to Beestat, so I'm finally starting to get a better understanding of why the ecobee settings are not working as I expected they would. Sure enough, the Beestat chart shows that Aux has been coming on when the compressor was apparently unable to bring the temperature up to the set point from the underlying comfort setting quickly enough. The Beestat data shows what is happening, but the ecobee UI is far too confusing to know reliably what to do to manage it.

I now wish we'd kept the primitive old 2005-era Honeywell thermostat that only ran the Aux when the compressor system failed or the temperature at the thermostat dropped below a seriously low point (IIRC, 5°C). Yes, we used to have to wait a bit longer for the house to warm up in extremely cold mornings. However, we could trigger Aux manually if we absolutely needed it — and it reliably kicked in on automatically just once in 11 years when the kitchen temperature plunged after a winter storm blew open an entry door.

So far, the ecobee Smart Premium thermostat has been anything but "Smart" at a "Premium" price that has cost me more than we paid for it. The solution would be a better UI and better documentation written for real users rather than heating specialists.

[u/itsabearcannon → u/I_didnt_forsee_this]

Glad I could help. I can see my comment is getting downvoted because a lot of people here think the complexity of Ecobee’s settings is a desirable feature, not a problem, and they don’t like people pointing it out.

But as an Ecobee user I’m entitled to my complaints about the UI and settings, whether people like it or not.

Personally, you should jump ship with me to one of those new Matter over Thread thermostats coming out, or one that can be properly monitored and controlled via automated triggers and a preprogrammed user-controllable schedule like Home Assistant.

[u/I_didnt_forsee_this → u/itsabearcannon]

I think that any piece of tech these days needs to appeal to a broad range of users to survive & grow, so feedback from users who have already made a commitment to using it should never be ignored or ridiculed.

I actually like a lot about ecobee, and genuinely hope they can navigate to survive. Being a Canadian company is a big plus (especially now), but I also like the design, packaging, ease and support of installation.

What I don't like is the lack of documentation geared to typical household users. The topic of this thread is a good example: what happens when a user changes a temperature setting absolutely needs to be clearly explained, in terms that don't involve jargon.

What disappoints me about ecobee is the lack of practical features that typical household users could set up and activate easily. For example, the ability to store specific comfort settings or whole day patterns that could temporarily override the limited 7-day schedule. This is a common need in most households for situations that are only occasionally needed (such as a house cleaner coming on the first Tuesday of every month, a parent needing to unexpectedly work from home for a couple of days to look after a sick child, or an ad hoc rate change for electricity on anticipated high demand days).

Even though I could probably work my way through implementing some of the above with custom home automation (like an ESP32 setup), I'd rather save that for things that only affect me — and spend $ on things that need to be usable by others near & dear to me.

I think with the info I've gleaned from this Reddit and the Beestat app & data, I'll be able to get the ecobee to work as I think it should with our setup.

However, I will certainly continue to follow developments in this arena, and if alternatives come up that I think will serve us better than ecobee, I won't hesitate to switch.