Nest vs Ecobee! The BEST Smart Thermostat is

I'm comparing the new Nest fourth gen thermostat against the Ecobee Premium. Let's see which of these thermostats comes out on top. All right, first, one of the main purposes of a smart thermostat is to help you save money. So which of these are gonna cost you more right out of the gate? Well, the Nest costs $280 right now on Amazon and the Ecobee Premium normally costs 250. So they're pretty close. But as I was making this video, the Ecobee Premium was $30 off. So definitely check out the links in the description. But I don't know if I would just buy whatever's the least expensive. You could have this thermostat on your wall for the next 10 years. You know, what if you hate it? What if your family hates it? What if your spouse never speaks to you again? All right, all right, that's taken a little too far. The point is you wanna love it for years to come. That's why you have to watch the entire video. With all that said, let's compare the design of these thermostats, how it looks on the wall and what it's like interacting with it. Starting first with the new Nest 4th Gen. It's available in three different styles, gold, silver and obsidian, which is kind of black. I personally like the look of the obsidian one the best, but I bought the silver version. And the reason for that is to get the closest look to the Ecobee Premium for this comparison, which the Ecobee Premium only comes in one color to choose from and the metal is more of a brushed nickel versus the silver on the Nest. How a thermostat looks on the wall is ultimately gonna come down to personal taste. Like, I'm not gonna judge if you want the gold thermostat to match your toilets. Maybe you're a Saul Goodman. When I saw the Nest 4th Gen in New York a few weeks ago, I was initially liking the design over the Ecobee. It's not just an ugly box on the wall and it kind of looks like a pixel watch on the wall. But after using both thermostats in my home, I now like the look of the Ecobee Premium now so much more. Here's why. The Nest thermostat has a really cool curved glass screen, but it picks up tons of reflections. Seriously, it's horrible. There are certain spots where I can't even see the screen at all and I could easily see the Ecobee from the same spot. I would have to move around to the perfect angle to see the screen clearly. Also, if I'm standing close to the Nest thermostat, it doesn't help since I'm kind of looking down on it and again, tons of reflections, which are just so ugly. Wait, is that reflections of me? Ah, great. The Ecobee has a flat display and it makes the reflections less of a big deal. It's much more rare for me to walk by the thermostat and not be able to read the numbers. Not only that, but there isn't a way to change the brightness on the Nest thermostat. So if it's in a bright room like mine is, it'll be washed out. And with the Ecobee, it gives the option to change the brightness and I didn't even have to have it full brightness and it was fine. So I made it dark in the room to see if I can view the Nest screen better, but it made it worse. The screen dimmed automatically and made it even more difficult to see. Now I wouldn't be surprised if Google made some firmware updates in the future to fix this issue, because right now, it's pretty bad. But what might be a bigger deal is how these thermostats are designed for you to control them. They're very different. And with Ecobee, it's a touch screen and the controls are intuitive. To change the temperature, you tap on the temperature, use the arrows to change it and then tap on the screen to select it. Ecobee used to have this slider and it was terrible. And a couple of years ago, Ecobee updated to this new design and it's so much better. And going into the settings and making changes is also very easy to do on the touch screen. The new Nest fourth gen is not touch screen. Instead, it uses the ring on the outside to make changes by rotating and pressing it. This is the classic Nest design that you might've seen over the years and a lot of people love this. I like that the Nest thermostat is less likely to get fingerprints on a screen, but it definitely takes longer to make changes in the menu. This isn't a huge deal since 99% of the time I interact with the thermostat, I'm just adjusting the temperature. And the Nest thermostat is just as fast as the Ecobee for a quick temperature change. Both thermostats come with a trim plate to cover drywall damage from the previous thermostat. I've been too lazy to patch the drywall since it's a massive hole my builder left. Thanks guys. So I'm using the trim plate and I think they both look fine. All right, on the surface level, both thermostats look great on the wall and they're easy to make a quick temperature change. But for me, the slight edge on design goes to Ecobee because it's way easier to see on the wall and it's touchscreen. But if your spouse wants the Nest because it looks pretty, well, it sounds like your decision is made. Design isn't everything though, because these are smart thermostats after all. So most of your interactions will be with the app or with automations. Which brings up the question, how good are the apps and are they easy to use? Well, the Ecobee Premium uses the Ecobee app and the Nest 4th Gen uses the Nest app? Nope. It uses the Google Home app. You can not add this to the Nest app. Anyways, using the apps is pretty standard and what you would expect. You can adjust the temperature, add presets and schedules and both are easy to navigate and use. There are a few key differences though. When making a schedule, Nest requires temperature changes to be at least 60 minutes apart. But with Ecobee, they can be 30 minutes apart. So say you wanted your heater to turn on at 7 a.m. to help you get out of bed and then turn off at 7.30. Well, you could do that with Ecobee. But with Nest, you have to wait till 8 a.m. to turn off. This might seem nitpicky, but little things like this with Nest can add up. Another difference is the learning capabilities. Both Nest and Ecobee can learn your schedule and automatically make changes. But Nest took this up a notch. You see, Nest used to have two options for their learning mode, on or off. But with this new Nest 4th Gen, there's a third option, suggestions. So say my thermostat always gets manually changed in the morning because it's too cold. I can get a notification on my phone to add this to my schedule or ignore it. To me, this is the best of both worlds for a learning thermostat. It can help me improve my schedule without giving full control to the thermostat to make decisions. And I've accepted the fact that AI is taking over, but I wanted to ask politely first. With Ecobee, the only options are on or off. And I don't want my thermostat making all the decisions, so I keep this off. The other big difference in the app is viewing when the system was running or not. Nest has an energy dashboard, and it's okay. Not tons of details, since it just shows how many minutes in the hour it ran. Ecobee, on the other hand, has a much better dashboard. It shows when the system is running more precisely, the temperature as a line graph, and the weather all right there. Okay, if I had to say which app is better, I would say it's a tie. The learning suggestions on the new Nest thermostat are pretty sweet. But the Ecobee does have more precise schedules and more data, so it kind of evens out. But what really makes a difference is how the thermostat integrates into your smart home. And for this one, they're not the same. One of the headline features of the new Nest 4th Gen is that it works with matter out of the box. You know, right there on the back of the box, it says matter. So just like other matter devices, there's gonna be a QR code in the box, or like a sticker attached to the back of the device. But nope, you have to use the Google Home app to set it up. I was shocked when I saw this. I thought at least I could set up the thermostat using the controls on the actual thermostat. Nope, I had to use the Google Home app. This is super disappointing because the whole point of matter is that I don't have to use a company-specific app to use the device. What's the matter with you, Google? This matters. That's not a matter pun. It literally does use matter. Once it was set up, I was able to add a Nest 4th Gen to the Apple Home app and Home Assistant using matter. But that was also very disappointing. The only controls available were to change the temperature or the modes of cool, heat, or off. No temperature presets, fan, or even see the remote temperature. Those were not available. But if I was using the remote temperature sensor, the average between the two would show up in the matter connection, but still, not great. Compare this with Ecobee, and it's so much better. Using the HomeKit device integration into Home Assistant, I have access to way more info, like motion and occupancy from the thermostat, the default temperature presets, the fan, and I can see the remote temperature sensor. The HomeKit device integration into Home Assistant is completely local, and I can set up the Ecobee thermostat without an app. I can just use the on-screen controls with the touchscreen. It's so much better. So I think it's clear who wins for smart integration, Ecobee by a mile. Both the new Nest 4th Gen and Ecobee Premium come with a remote temperature sensor in the box. Google has made a lot of updates to make the remote temperature more usable, like being able to average out the temperature between multiple sensors and the thermostat. Also, the option to choose which sensors to use with each temperature preset for the schedule. Great to see. Ecobee's like, pfft, so what? I've been doing that for years, and my remote sensors have occupancy detection, which the Nest remote sensors do not have, and here's why that matters. Because of the occupancy detection in the Ecobee sensors, I can enable follow me mode. This will not only average out the sensors, but can only use the rooms that are currently being occupied. I really wish Nest would have added this feature, so again, the winner in this category is Ecobee. There are a couple of extra features each of the thermostats have that you might need to know. First is a C-wire. Some homes don't have a C-wire installed, so if that's the case, then Nest is the only option since it does not need one. The Nest thermostat has a rechargeable battery inside that it can recharge off your system, and that's how it's able to make it work. But it's a lot better for your system to have a C-wire if you're using a smart thermostat, and if you're not sure if you have one, just pop off your thermostat and check. The next feature is the temperature swing. This is the threshold of when the thermostat will turn on the cooling or heating. Say you set your AC to 74 degrees. If you have a two-degree temperature swing, it'll wait till it's 76 degrees before it turns on the AC and cools it back down to 74 degrees. And having a larger temperature swing can make the air conditioning turn on and off less frequently, which can extend the life of your system. Nest is set to one degree, and this cannot be changed, but Ecobee lets you change the temperature swing, and I have mine set to two degrees, and it works well for my house. Nest does have a feature Ecobee doesn't, though, and that's farsight. When walking up to the Nest thermostat, it can show things like a clock or the weather from a distance. Then when standing right in front of it, the display will change again to show more info. This can all be configured on the thermostat, and it's nice to have this option. Feels like a smart premium feature, and I really like the weather displays on here with different animations. Here's the problem, though. If the Nest thermostat doesn't detect me, even though I might still be standing right there, the screen can turn off, and I can't see the thermostat anymore, and I can't find a way to disable this. With Ecobee, it just shows the temperature from a distance, and when walking up to it, more info shows. It's not as flashy, but that's all I really need, and the display never turns off unless I want it to, like in the middle of the night. This is what I like, so I can always see the temperature no matter what. Ecobee can also show the Ecobee doorbell on the screen and has voice assistants built in. I don't use the Ecobee doorbell, so that feature is pointless to me, and I've never, ever wanted to use my thermostat as a voice assistant, but hey, it's there. Ecobee definitely wins for the extra features. So who wins overall, and which one should you buy? Well, I would only get the Nest 4th Gen if you want something that looks different, want suggestions for setting up a schedule, or don't have a C-wire. But in my opinion, the clear winner is the Ecobee Premium. It's way easier to see, I love the touchscreen, I can dial in the settings better, the remote temperature sensors can detect occupancy, and it integrates better into my smart home systems. It just feels like the smarter option. Ecobee also has some less expensive versions too, but they're missing built-in occupancy detection, so you would just have to use the remote sensors for that. I'll have links to everything down below, and hopefully you found this comparison helpful. Thanks for watching. Reed, what are you doing? Oh, hey, it's my new Pixel Watch. Oh, no, that's a Nest thermostat. Well, they said it looks like a Pixel Watch, so I made it happen.