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Disclosure: The Ecobee people did send this unit to me and did arrange to have it installed in order for me to review it.  They did not require anything of me, they are not paying me, and I am not holding back anything in my review.  You can purchase the Ecobee Smart Thermostat on their website and it currently is listing for $469.

The package itself only consisted of three pieces of hardware and product literature:

a smart thermostat (this is the touchscreen unit) and small battery an equipment interface unit (this resides next to my furnace and is the go between with the furnace and smart thermostat a 12-Volt DC power adapter (which powers the equipment interface unit) product literature – this includes a quick start guide, a user manual and an installation manual

Unlike a lot of electronic products, the literature is very clear and has nice pictures.  You know how sometimes you get instruction manuals and you know the person writing them didn’t speak English.  Luckily this isn’t one of those times.  I like how they split up the installation manual and user manual as two separate pieces.

If you don’t care about the installation steps I went through, and it is a pretty long section, skip to the Using the Ecobee section.

***If you want to install the Ecobee smart thermostat yourself, go ahead, but dont use this blog as a reference because I dont want to be held liable for you blowing something up or shocking yourself.  It is probably worth the time and piece of mind to ensure a professional installs this. All I am trying to do is relate the steps that took place when my unit was installed, but I have been known to get things wrong (I got something wrong once back in 1987, but I was only 4 so it was excusable.  I haven’t been wrong since).

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