Smart Thermostats
ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium
The only mainstream thermostat with built-in air quality monitoring and a room sensor in the box — the strongest all-around pick if a room or two in your home never quite feels right.
2 min read
HVAC & Home Efficiency Specialist
Overall Rating
4.5 / 5
Price range: $249–$329 MSRP; commonly found for $212–$284
Pros
- +Ships with one SmartSensor (room occupancy + temperature) and supports up to 32 — the most room-zoning flexibility of any mainstream thermostat
- +Only mainstream thermostat with built-in indoor air quality monitoring (VOCs, alerts, filter reminders)
- +Built-in Alexa speaker plus Siri support — doubles as a smart speaker, not just a thermostat
- +Works with 95% of HVAC systems; includes a Power Extender Kit for homes without a C-wire
Cons
- –Highest street price of the three thermostats in this comparison
- –Additional room sensors cost roughly $79 each — full 3-bedroom coverage can add $150-240
- –3-year warranty is shorter than some competitors' terms
- –The full feature set (scheduling, security hub, air quality) can feel like a lot to configure at first — expect a longer initial setup than a budget thermostat
The short version
ecobee's own marketing claims up to 26% annual savings on heating and cooling (about $284/year on a typical U.S. energy bill), and one independent 90-day test found a more modest but still real 14.2% reduction in cooling energy compared to a baseline programmable thermostat — a reasonable expectation range to plan around rather than the headline number alone.
The feature that sets the Premium apart from every other thermostat in this comparison is its SmartSensor system. The included sensor reports both occupancy and temperature back to the thermostat, so it can cool based on where people actually are rather than the temperature at a single wall-mounted unit (often in a hallway that runs hotter or colder than the rooms you actually spend time in). You can add up to 32 sensors total — by far the most zoning flexibility of any thermostat covered here.
It's also the only one of the three with built-in indoor air quality monitoring, tracking VOCs and alerting you to poor air quality along with filter-change reminders — a genuinely unique feature in this category, not marketing dressing.
Where it falls short
This is the most expensive thermostat in the comparison, and the room-sensor system that's its biggest strength also adds cost if you want full-home coverage: each additional SmartSensor runs about $79, so covering three problem rooms could add $150-240 on top of the thermostat itself.
The 3-year warranty, while solid, isn't the longest available in the category. And with built-in Alexa, air quality monitoring, a security hub option, and extensive scheduling, the setup and app have more to configure than a simpler thermostat — worth budgeting a bit more time for initial setup if you want to use the full feature set.
What it costs
MSRP runs $249-329 depending on region and current promotions; street price commonly lands in the $212-284 range, with the deepest discounts typically around Black Friday. Installation is DIY-friendly (15 minutes if you have a C-wire, about 45 minutes with the included Power Extender Kit if you don't) — most buyers won't need to pay for professional installation.
Who it's actually right for
The Premium is the strongest choice if your home has even one persistently uncomfortable room (a hot upstairs bedroom, a cold sunroom, a basement that never matches the rest of the house), if you specifically want indoor air quality monitoring, or if you'd rather have one device handle both climate and a basic voice assistant. It's a harder sell on price alone if your home is a single, evenly-conditioned zone with no problem rooms — in that case, the room-sensor system's main advantage doesn't come into play, and a less expensive thermostat may deliver similar savings.