Toronto-based home automation tech company Ecobee has launched its newest line of smart thermostats: Smart Thermostat Premium and Smart Thermostat Enhanced.
Ecobee’s latest products were previously leaked online, with the Premium model initially appearing in a retail listing from Canadian Tire. The Enhanced model was reportedly first seen in a Reddit post.
Both of the new thermostats are built with radar, which Ecobee claims is the company’s most advanced sensor technology to date. This feature is used for improved temperature readings, as well as occupancy and motion detection.
Ecobee touts its Premium thermostat as the only smart thermostat with both an indoor air quality monitor and an embedded smart speaker that can be paired with Siri or Alexa. With an air quality monitor built right into the device, the thermostat can display important data about indoor air quality, including volatile organic compounds, estimated carbon dioxide levels, and relative humidity.
The Premium option also comes with Ecobee’s signature SmartSensor, which can be placed anywhere inside a house to detect motion and to provide a more accurate reading of the space’s occupancy and temperature.
By using Ecobee’s Energy Star-certified smart thermostats, the company claims that its products automatically help customers save up to 26 percent on annual heating and cooling costs. Ecobee has been named ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year for the second year in a row.
Since it was founded in 2007 by Stuart Lombard, Ecobee said it has helped customers across North America save more than 25 terawatt hours of energy, which is the equivalent of taking all the houses in Los Angeles off the grid for a year, or 3.8 million cars off the road for a year.
As of December, Ecobee became a subsidiary of Generac after initially announcing the $770 million acquisition deal in November.
Ecobee was presented with several options when it came to getting acquired, receiving offers from Amazon, which has invested in Ecobee through its Alexa Fund, according to The Globe and Mail. Ecobee was also reportedly engaging in merger talks with special purpose acquisition company Canaccord Genuity Growth II Corp for a deal that would value the combined entities at $490 million USD.
Lombard told BetaKit that Ecobee considered all of these options and decided Generac was the best fit for getting to market faster. Ecobee currently has 520 employees, and with Generac’s help, Lombard expects the company to grow to over 600 by June 2022.
RELATED: Ecobee aims to leverage Generac’s energy products, global presence post-acquisition
With the launch of its upgraded smart thermostats, Ecobee positions itself in a competitive home automation market comprising big companies such as Google, Amazon, and Apple.
Google currently offers Nest Thermostat, which Google claims is the first thermostat to get Energy-Star certified. Both Amazon and Apple also provide their own smart thermostat offerings.
Despite the heating competition that includes the likes of Big Tech corporations, Ecobee maintains an open ecosystem. Like all of its latest products, the new smart thermostats can also be integrated with Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit, Google Assistant, and IFTTT. The Premium model can be controlled by built-in Amazon Alexa or Siti.
The new smart thermostats is only one of the latest products that Ecobee has launched since officially becoming a Generac subsidiary in December.
In April, Ecobee also launched its smart security system with professional monitoring in the United States. Previously known as Haven, Smart Security was initially announced in November with a beta version available, prior to the completion of the acquisition.
Featured image from Ecobee.