As foreshadowed by FCC documents, seemingly displaying a rear-firing speaker, ecobee4 product marketing materials that have come my way and a premature Lowe’s listing confirm the presence of Alexa… to not only adjust one’s temperature via far-field voice recognition, but leverage many if not all of Amazon’s voice assistant capabilities. Hey, look there’s even the signature blinking blue Alexa light pipe up top. The move isn’t entirely surprising given Amazon’s sizable investment in ecobee and their new program that makes microphone technology available to third-party partners.
Beyond Amazon integration, the ecobee4 smart thermostat appears somewhat sleeker than my existing ecobee3 – an upgrade as they continue to fight off the more well known, though less capable, Nest (that, to this day, still lacks remote sensors). Interestingly, Apple HomeKit capabilities remain and we expect the new model to launch within the next couple months given the abundance of leaks and steep ecobee3 discounts.
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I should add that Amazon is an investor in ecobee and given their hostile Chromecast/Apple TV actions why I find it interesting to see the parties retain Apple HomeKit support (in addition to SmartThings) -- obviously they decided an open, agnostic approach would be better business in this category. Wonder how the Apple Store will handle it.
I'm more excited with this than I probably should be.
"I should add that Amazon is an investor in ecobee and given their hostile Chromecast/Apple TV actions why I find it interesting to see the parties retain Apple HomeKit support"
Well, that's a very specific issue for Amazon. They're setting a massive pile of cash on fire for Prime Video, and they understand it lets them operate from a place of strength in the video lean-back market.
They know you have to give them a full Amazon Video app on your STB that lets them do commerce, or you'll have serious trouble competing with them there. They don't care which way you let them win, but they're not going to let you let them lose.
Those dynamics don't exist elsewhere, so it's a one-off product category.