ecobee venturing into indoor security cameras, could add Apple's HomeKit

AppleInsider

Best known for its smart thermostats, ecobee is reportedly working on an indoor security camera likely to support Apple's HomeKit.

The camera is a tall unit with a cone-shaped base, and four lights up top that can at least flash yellow or blue, Zatz Not Funny indicated on Friday. It's likely the camera will not only support Amazon Alexa but work as an independent Alexa speaker, given similar functions in the ecobee4 and ecobee Switch+.

Those products are also HomeKit-compatible. Offering the platform in a camera will probably depend on whether or not it's wireless, since Apple has so far kept HomeKit off of battery-powered cameras, presumably because of power drain.

Other unknowns include pricing and a launch date. Zatz speculated that the camera could serve as a room sensor for ecobee's thermostats, which can sense presence and help keep temperature and humidity consistent.

Years after HomeKit's launch, relatively few security cam makers have enabled it. These include brands like Arlo, D-Link, Logitech, Netatmo, and Somfy. The technology is also in just two video doorbells made by Robin and Netatmo, and the latter company has yet to ship.

red oak

No way I will have an Alexa microphone in my home 

hammeroftruth

Ecobee’s service has been very poor lately. Their network has been down a lot in the past few weeks which prevents you from accessing your thermostat. What makes it worse is that the thermostat makes you think there is a problem with your hardware and not that it cannot connect to ecobee. Plus, whatever updates have been going on has made the auto mode more of an inconvenience because it won’t let you set a range of temps that is only around 5 degrees. It will either make the temp colder or hotter. That doesn’t play well here in the Southwest. 

rainmaker

I’m still waiting on the supposed Arlo Ultra HomeKit compatibility— promised at the end of quarter one which is now gone. I find it amusing that so many publications repeated this, even though it is well known that Apple does flint allow HomeKit usage with wireless cameras. I am no longer spending good money for bs promises (looking at you Ring) that never come to fruition.

hmurchison

hammeroftruth said:

Ecobee’s service has been very poor lately. Their network has been down a lot in the past few weeks which prevents you from accessing your thermostat. What makes it worse is that the thermostat makes you think there is a problem with your hardware and not that it cannot connect to ecobee. Plus, whatever updates have been going on has made the auto mode more of an inconvenience because it won’t let you set a range of temps that is only around 5 degrees. It will either make the temp colder or hotter. That doesn’t play well here in the Southwest. 

Thinking about ditching smart thermostats personally.   The job is to manage my home's heating and cooling system.  Without a connection to the cloud the system should be as graceful as a non connected thermostat.  

22july2013

Ecobee should hurry because I'm already waiting for an Apple camera based on the fact that Apple bought the patents from a defunct camera company: https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/03/04/apple-buys-patent-portfolio-from-defunct-home-security-camera-maker-lighthouse 

hmurchison

22july2013 said:

Ecobee should hurry because I'm already waiting for an Apple camera based on the fact that Apple bought the patents from a defunct camera company: https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/03/04/apple-buys-patent-portfolio-from-defunct-home-security-camera-maker-lighthouse 

They could do AMAZING things with this IP 

edited April 2019

galfridus

red oak said:

No way I will have an Alexa microphone in my home 

You actually have to turn it on--it's off by default.

libertyforall

Don't even get me started on the Canary HomeKit vaporware!!!  Announced long ago, and then nothing...

sirozha

hammeroftruth said:

Ecobee’s service has been very poor lately. Their network has been down a lot in the past few weeks which prevents you from accessing your thermostat. What makes it worse is that the thermostat makes you think there is a problem with your hardware and not that it cannot connect to ecobee. Plus, whatever updates have been going on has made the auto mode more of an inconvenience because it won’t let you set a range of temps that is only around 5 degrees. It will either make the temp colder or hotter. That doesn’t play well here in the Southwest. 

I’m really surprised at this comment, as I’ve been using ecobee thermostats since 2015 and haven’t experienced the issues that you described in your posts. My thermostats are always accessible. 

sirozha

red oak said:

No way I will have an Alexa microphone in my home 

Ecobee 3 and ecobee 3 Lite have no Alexa microphones or speakers in them. 

hammeroftruth

sirozha said:

hammeroftruth said:

Ecobee’s service has been very poor lately. Their network has been down a lot in the past few weeks which prevents you from accessing your thermostat. What makes it worse is that the thermostat makes you think there is a problem with your hardware and not that it cannot connect to ecobee. Plus, whatever updates have been going on has made the auto mode more of an inconvenience because it won’t let you set a range of temps that is only around 5 degrees. It will either make the temp colder or hotter. That doesn’t play well here in the Southwest. 

I’m really surprised at this comment, as I’ve been using ecobee thermostats since 2015 and haven’t experienced the issues that you described in your posts. My thermostats are always accessible. 

I’m equally surprised that I had to write it because for at least 2 years the thermostat worked great. Now there are issues with the server that periodically prevent acces to the thermostat from your device. At first I thought it was my thermostat since it would say it wasn’t connected to the internet. I tried reconnecting it and it showed a good IP address, but still wouldn’t connect. It wasn’t until I went online and saw on Ecobee’s twitter feed that there is a lot of people who couldn’t access their thermostat because the app wouldn’t show their thermostat. 
Then I looked at Downdetector and saw a huge spike in responses that they couldn’t connect to ecobee’s server. 
The weird thing was it was only affecting different parts of the US. 

It could be that my thermostat is almost 3 years old. I’m not sure what the average lifespan is for smart thermostats. The last time I had to replace a dumb thermostat was about 15 years ago. 

macpro

AppleInsider said:

Best known for its smart thermostats, ecobee is reportedly working on an indoor security camera likely to support Apple's HomeKit.

They would do better in the Apple user market if the settings allowed for an Apple set up separately from an Alexa set up.  Of course in Alexa mode, it is conforming to Amazons protocols.  In 'Apple Mode' it could be a good HomeKit enabled system that is 100% conforming to Apple standards of privacy.  I'd buy the system then.  Perhaps that is how it works, I'd like to know more for sure as I love our ecobee thermostat and its satellites we purchased after trashing the now Google-owned Nests.

edited April 2019

jrflyerscoach

As an ecobee user. The past month the ecobee's have been down every 2nd to 3rd day. If not an outage it was "scheduled maintenance" I was reporting outages and the timing was very frustrating to my 3rd shift work schedule.

macpro

jrflyerscoach said:

As an ecobee user. The past month the ecobee's have been down every 2nd to 3rd day. If not an outage it was "scheduled maintenance" I was reporting outages and the timing was very frustrating to my 3rd shift work schedule.

I see it's your first post.  Welcome.  My ecobee and satellite have never faltered since I installed them.   Weird, how can they be down?  The ecobee works on the LAN even if the WAN goes down, doesn't it?  Where is the outage or maintenance to which you refer to occurring?  

edited April 2019