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The verdict in 90 seconds
Buy the ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium for one reason: your house has rooms that are never the right temperature at the same time. The included SmartSensor is the only mainstream feature that genuinely fixes that, and ecobee does it better than anyone. The rest of the premium package — built-in Alexa, an air quality monitor, smoke alarm detection — is where the owner rating softens, because those extras are the parts people describe as approximate or unreliable. If the sensors are what you want, the cheaper Enhanced plus a sensor is the better-value route.
Best for houses with a cold bedroom and a hot living room
- Ships with a remote SmartSensor for temperature and occupancy
- Built-in air quality monitor and smoke alarm detection
- Alexa and Siri built in; works with Google Home
- Includes a Power Extender Kit for homes with no C wire
Why buy it: remote sensors let the thermostat regulate the room you are actually sitting in, which is the only real fix for an unevenly heated house.
What owners consistently praise
The SmartSensor system, without qualification. This is the feature owners come back to in long-term reviews. A thermostat measures the air where it hangs, which is almost always a hallway — so a bedroom above a garage or a west-facing living room gets regulated by proxy, badly. Drop a sensor in that room, tell the app to prioritise it overnight, and the problem that no amount of scheduling could touch is simply gone. Owners describe it as the first time their house felt evenly conditioned.
The Power Extender Kit. Every ecobee includes the module that manufactures a common wire from existing conductors at the furnace board. In a category where wiring surprises cause more returns than anything else, shipping the fix in the box is a substantial advantage, and owners of older homes say so repeatedly.
Build quality and the display. The glass front, the responsive touchscreen and the flush wall plate get consistent praise. It is the one thermostat here that owners describe as looking expensive in a way that matches the price.
eco+ and the scheduling engine. Community energy savings, smart recovery that starts the system early enough to hit the target on time, and time-of-use awareness for households on variable rates. Owners on time-of-use tariffs report the clearest measurable savings of anyone in the review record.
What owners actually complain about
The price, and specifically the price relative to the Enhanced. The most common substantive criticism is not that the Premium is bad but that the extras do not justify the premium over the Enhanced plus a sensor. Owners who bought both for different floors of a house say this most bluntly.
Built-in Alexa is the weak link. The microphone struggles across a room, the speaker is thin, and a recurring pattern in reviews is owners disabling the voice assistant within weeks because it either misfires or responds when the Echo in the next room should have. Smoke alarm detection depends on that same microphone, and confidence in it is mixed.
Air quality readings that drift. The sensor estimates rather than measures, and owners describe values that jump after cooking, hold high for hours, or disagree with a separate meter. It is treated with visible skepticism throughout the review record.
Menu depth and configuration. There is a real learning curve. Threshold settings, staging, sensor participation rules and eco+ options are spread across nested menus, and owners with multi-stage or heat pump systems report getting staging wrong at first and seeing short cycling or unnecessary auxiliary heat until they fixed it.
Wi-Fi and cloud dependence. Occasional disconnections requiring a reboot are a steady low-level complaint, as is the fact that remote features and some automation stop when ecobee's servers have an outage. Local temperature control continues, but the app goes dark.
Sensor batteries and range. Coin cells last roughly a year and a minority report shorter life or a sensor dropping off the mesh at distance in larger or older houses with dense walls.
Who it suits, and who should buy something else
Buy it if your house is unevenly heated, you want the sensor in the box, and you value the glass-and-touchscreen presentation.
Buy the ecobee Enhanced instead if the sensors are the point and the voice assistant and air quality monitor are not — see our ecobee Enhanced review. Adding one SmartSensor still lands below the Premium.
Buy a Nest instead if you want auto-scheduling or you live in Google Home — our Google Nest Thermostat review covers the budget model and its compatibility limits.
Buy a Sensi ST55 instead if every room in your house is already comfortable and you simply want remote control on old wiring — the Sensi review explains why it installs where others fail. The complete ranked field is in our best smart thermostat guide.
Specifications
| Spec | ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium |
|---|---|
| In the box | Thermostat, one SmartSensor, Power Extender Kit, trim plate |
| Display | Colour touchscreen behind glass |
| Remote sensors | Up to 32 SmartSensors, temperature plus occupancy |
| Air quality | Built-in VOC sensor with estimated CO2 |
| Voice | Alexa and Siri built in; works with Google Home for control |
| Safety | Smoke and CO alarm detection via microphone |
| C wire | Not required — Power Extender Kit included |
| Systems | Conventional, heat pump with aux, multi-stage, dual fuel |
| Certification | ENERGY STAR |
| Warranty | 5 year limited |
The bottom line
The Premium is the best thermostat here for an uneven house and a mediocre value proposition for anything else. Its five-year warranty, sensor ecosystem and Power Extender Kit are real advantages; its microphone and air quality sensor are the parts owners quietly switch off. If the sensors are why you are here, price the Enhanced with one sensor before you commit — a meaningful number of owners wish they had.
Check price on Amazon → (paid link)
Next: work out the payback in how much a smart thermostat saves per year, plan the install in can you install a smart thermostat yourself, understand the mechanism in how smart thermostats save money, or start from the heating and cooling hub.