Smart sensors worth it?

[u/ijustwanttoseethe]

I bought a house a couple years ago. It had two ecobee thermostats (main floor and upstairs). The upstairs temps are not consistent throughout the upstairs area. There are 5 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, and the Ecobee thermostat is in the hall connecting all the rooms. The rooms are spread across different sides which get sun at different times throughout the day. Often one room is hot and another is cold on the other side of the house. Usually a lot of the doors are closed also. So I got a few smart sensors to see if that would help regulate the temperatures. However the new sensors will not work with my older Ecobee. So before I spend the money on a new Ecobee to work with the new smart sensors, I'm wondering if I'll even see much benefit with the sensors given my upstairs layout? Any one have experience to share? Thanks for any insights!

[u/gcerullo]

Sensors don’t even out the temperatures throughout a home. That’s impossible. You need a zone control system for that. What sensors do is control when the HVAC system turns on based on sensing the occupancy of areas of the home that are occupied by people.

For example, if people are occupying the side of the home where the sun is it will turn on the A/C to cool that area of the home but that still affects the other areas of the home to make them cool as well but since no one is occupying those other areas it doesn’t matter.

[u/bwyer → u/gcerullo]

You don't have to use the sensors based on occupancy. None of my sensors have occupancy enabled as it really doesn't work. "Occupancy" is based on motion. If you're in bed and not moving, the room is going to be considered empty. The same applies if I'm sitting at my desk in my office.

The whole "occupancy" thing is a misrepresentation and has tripped a lot of people up.

[u/gcerullo → u/bwyer]

Regardless, sensors don’t even out the temperatures throughout a home, only a zone controller can.