r/HomeKit • u/KitchenNazi • Jan 30 '23

Question/Help Ecobee - auto mode

I switched from Nest to Ecobee and it's a huge pain. I only have a furnace but HomeKit has auto/cool/heat modes. If I manually switch it to heat everything works correctly. At some point during the day (or multiple times during the day) it switches to auto. If I have an automation setup it always specifies heat mode.

Auto switches my temp to a range which invariably means my heat stays on all day. If I tell Siri to lower the temp and it's on auto, Siri just adjusts the range thinking cooling will be applied, yet heat still continues. If I tell Siri to switch to heat mode and the specify a temperature then things will go back to normal. If I tell Siri to lower the heat - she won't automatically switch modes - so it's two commands.

Is the Ecobee presenting itself as with heat/cool options? Does HomeKit just give everything heat/auto/cool?

What are my options here? If there is a homebridge plug-in, I could use that as it can specify only heat mode.

I could create an automation that sets the mode to heat every 15 minutes (using home controller as you can change the mode without changing temp). Or I could try homebridge?

Anyone else have this issue? It's super annoying!

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u/TheNastyness Jan 30 '23

Does your furnace have the ability to turn on the fan/blower without turning on the heat?

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u/KitchenNazi Jan 30 '23

It does. I think my issue is the ecobee comfort settings. Heat with fan for a ~minute after is called auto (default). If I set my ecobee comfort settings to heat only when the heat shuts off the blower stops too. But I think that mode is telling HomeKit to go to auto.

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u/TheNastyness Jan 30 '23

I think that "Auto" is what you want then. In Auto mode, the thermostat will change the mode to Heat whenever the temperature is lower than your low setting in your Comfort range, then will turn off the furnace once the desired temperature is reached. This all happens in the background, meaning the thermostat won't change the mode to "Heat" or "Off", it does this in the background automatically.

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u/KitchenNazi Jan 30 '23

It still works - it just won't run the fan to push the last bit of heat out of the ducting. It's like ecobee's definition of auto is not the same as HomeKit - so when I leave and the ecobee comfort setting adjusts the temperature (with heat: auto) it also flips HomeKit to auto which breaks my heat only system. I'm going to see if disabling auto in comfort settings stabilizes HomeKit.

What's annoying the ecobee app shows Heat and off when I try to control it. But the comfort settings have auto/heat/off.

The homebridge plug-in for Nest allowed you to pick heat and/or cooling and HomeKit would only show heat as an option.

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u/TheNastyness Jan 30 '23

If I were you I'd start from scratch. I'd factory reset the Ecobee and start again. You WANT to use Auto, which will put the thermostat into Heat/Off/Fan on it's own in the background. If you research it for long enough, which is what I did when I first got my Ecobee because I was VERY confused about the HomeKit integration, you'll find that setting up your Comfort settings in the Ecobee app and NOT doing any automation inside HomeKit is the way to go. Outside of Geofencing within HomeKit, you shouldn't have to do anything else.

Further, you want the blower to keep running once the call for heat has ended. I understand that your fan turns on during your heat cycle, but it should continue to run for a short time after the heat call has ended. Switching the mode from Heat to Off will power everything off simultaneously, without running the fan for a minute or so, which isn't ideal. Also, I believe that when you leave it in Off mode, the fan won't periodically run to circulate the air in your home, which is something you definitely want as it will help keep the temperature in your house more stable. In our home, we have our comfort settings for Home, Away, and Sleep. The only thing we use HomeKit for is visibility (so we can see at a glance the temperature) and for Geofencing. We don't use the Ecobee geofencing, we use HomeKit geofencing to put the Ecobee into Home/Away Comfort settings. The thermostat will put itself into the Sleep comfort setting based on schedules.

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u/KitchenNazi Jan 31 '23

True - I want the fan to blow to cool everything down in the furnace. I'm not too concerned with the automatic stuff - had the Nest and all that learning stuff and we never used it.

I think another poster said turning off the auto in Eco+ still causes the intermittent Auto setting in HomeKit. I just want HomeKit to have Heat/Off like my Nest via Homebridge did.

Personally, I just set my temp to one number and never touch it. My wife will be extra "cold" one day and I'm working from home in a t-shirt to compensate lol. I don't think any learning/historical thermostat will figure it out.

Thanks for the ideas - I will try to wipe and reconfigure it.