ecobee WiFi enabled Smart Thermostat Part 1: The Installation

For the home network, an internet enabled thermostat can be one of the more rewarding, yet more intimidating things you can install. On the surface internet enabled thermostats may seem to blur the line between necessity and a home network device that is simply cool to have. This blurring often comes without knowing the power of what can ultimately be done with a thermostat hooked in to the grid of your home network. To get this three part home networking series underway ecobee has sent me one of their Smart thermostats (EB-STAT-02) with Remote sensor module (EB-RSM-01), that I will install and set up, give a comprehensive review of its features, and look at some long-term projects that can be accomplished, highlighting how it can be an effective and money-saving home network device.

The test mule for the ecobee Smart Thermostat will be an Amana Air Command 80 SSE High Efficiency Gas Furnace, model # GUIA115A40, with a White-Rodgers 50A50-298 controller board and a Goodman VSX130361AA air conditioner. This is a single stage heat and single stage cool setup and one of the more straightforward HVAC installs. What can make the ecobee Smart Thermostat a little more intimidating than just installing a replacement thermostat is the fact that it requires an "equipment interface" to go between the furnace controller board and the ecobee Smart thermostat. These fears proved to be unfounded however when you look at it simply as a matter of the equipment interface being wired from the furnace the same as your present thermostat, and 4 wires running from it to the actual thermostat. In most cases you can even simply reuse the wires which presently connect your furnace to your thermostat.

Jumping right in to the install we first have to open the box, included in the box are manuals, the thermostat itself, and the equipment interface.


The instructions provided by ecobee are excellent and should really be all you need, pictured below is the example I used to wire up our furnace/air conditioner combo, with extra options for humidifer and dehumidifer that I did not use.




Our furnace to thermostat combo had 5 wires and then 2 wires out to the AC. Y for 1st stage cooling, W for first stage heating, G for fan control, R for transformer return, and a C wire for 24VAC, which could be used to power other items or thermostats. Additional items to note were that the "R" wire was run with a water pump in series before the thermostat, as we have no close floor drain for AC usage, too much drainage and it cuts power. The "C" wire off the furnace ran up to 2 temp switches on the AC line and then out to the AC compressor, presumably as safety mechanisms should the line get out of temperature range. The "Y" off the furnace also then ran out to the AC. Wiring it all up was simply a matter of noting how everything was connected, mounting the equipment interface, and then moving wires. As noted before, the old thermostat wires were left in place to connect the equipment interface to the new ecobee Smart thermostat and I ran about 2 feet of new 5-wire thermostat wire to connect the furnace controller board to the equipment interface.





ecobee equipment interface mounted to the furnace. The equipment interface needs 12VAC, I could have used the C and R wires off the furnace, but since I had an outlet nearby and ecobee included a power adapter, I just used that.


ecobee Smart Thermostat mount, sans thermostat. The 4 wires on the ecobee thermostat simply connect to the 4 connections on the equipment interface.



Once the equipment is installed and wired and you place the thermostat in it's mount, the equipment interface should light with just one light for power, any more indicate a fault of some kind. As it boots up, the thermostat will display an elegant bee fluttering it's wings and first boot will bring you to a screen asking to enter your wireless SSID and password. The wireless connected seamlessly with our WPA2-PSK (AES) network. The wireless MAC address and corresponding FCC photos, show the ecobee wireless to be powered by a wi2wi W2SW0001 chipset based on the Marvell 8686 architecture. It then went on to the next screen asking for account creation where you simply enter an email and password, at this point you are ready to log in to your thermostat via the internet and finish programming and setting up your thermostat. In part 2 of the series I'll run through the vast features of the ecobee web portal and give some insights in to the many things that can be accomplished with it.

If you can't wait for the next installment in the series and need your own ecobee thermostat, you can purchase one from the ecobee Where to Buy page.