Ecobee continued

Today I installed two ecobee thermostats for a customer in Northern Virginia. Althought there are a few similarities with the Honeywell wireless product, the Ecobee is a completely different device in other respects.
The Ecobee connects with your wireless network, and communicates with the internet and the Ecobee site for remote access- yes, there's an annual subscription fee but the benefits are pretty cool.
I started by mounting the device to the ductwork near the furnace

then wired it up to the rest of the system. One weakness of the product that it uses its own power supply, which means you need an extra outlet near the furnace. I'd like to see a future device "steal" its power from the system it runs. I guess having a separate power supply means that the ecobee still runs when the system crashes, but an internal battery could do the same thing.

I installed two devices, and I was happy to see the Carrier 58MX high efficiency furnace, since this is a furnace with which I am completely familiar. I have a funny little side story about how Wayne and I installed the first one in the DC area while the other techs in our company were taking a class to learn to install it.
Me: (reading the installation manual by flashlight in an attic) connect small hose A to tab B on exhaust mainifold
Dad: Is that the one with the pink sticker, or the one with the green sticker
Me: I dunno, the picture is black and white...
It's hard to believe that was nearly 20 years ago!
Back to today...on the attic system I mounted the device to the side of the furnace which was installed horizontally.


Finally I got to program it, and put Enercient's information into the device. The owner knew his network ID, registered, and completed programming it after I left. I got a confirmation email on my way home, so I know it was right.