Craig Lloyd
If you tend to always fiddle with the thermostat in your house, a smart thermostat can be a nice upgrade. If you want one that works with Alexa and the Amazon Echo, you have some options.
Best Integration: Ecobee4 ($249)
If you’re looking for a smart thermostat that you’ll know will work with Alexa and your Amazon Echo seamlessly, then the Ecobee4 is your best bet. Hell, it already has an Echo smart speaker built in!
That’s right, the Ecobee4 is not only a smart thermostat, but it also doubles as an Echo Dot of sorts, killing two birds with one stone, especially if you don’t already have an Echo in your home. And even if you do, you can move the current one to another room where you’ve always wanted another Echo device.
Aside from the built-in Echo capabilities, the Ecobee4 has all the smart essentials you’d want, like setting a schedule, remote control, room sensors, geofencing, a vacation mode, and more.
And of course, you can control it with your voice and do things like adjust the temperature, set a specific comfort setting, change between heating and cooling, or just ask Alexa what the temperature is in a certain room in the house (if you use room sensors).
Best User Interface: Nest Learning Thermostat ($249)
If you don’t think the Ecobee4 is quite your speed, or if you just want a smart thermostat that’s the easiest to use, we think the Nest Learning Thermostat fits the bill.
Nest makes it really easy to install the thermostat and guides you through the process. And once you’re up and running, the user interface on both the thermostat itself and within the Nest app is simple and easy to use.
Best yet, while the Nest Thermostat is a Google product (a company that doesn’t get along well with Amazon), it still works with Alexa and your Amazon Echo, so you can use voice commands to control the Nest Thermostat with ease and do things like change the set temperature or find out what the current temperature is in a room.
Budget Options: Ecobee3 Lite, Nest Thermostat E (both $169)
If you don’t quite have the cash on hand to buy a flagship smart thermostat, both Ecobee and Nest offer budget models (Ecobee3 Lite and Nest Thermostat E, respectively) that do a lot of the same things as their flagship models, but with a few minor caveats.
The Ecobee3 Lite doesn’t have Alexa built in (although you can link it to Alexa and use another Echo device to control it), nor does it include a room sensor in the box, so you’ll have to buy one separately.
The Nest Thermostat E is mostly made of plastic (rather than metal like on the flagship model), and it also has an inferior display. Furthermore, the E doesn’t have the Farsight feature, which wakes up the thermostat’s display when it detects that you’re nearby and shows you info based on what you want to see—you’ll need the flagship Nest Thermostat to get this feature.
However, if you don’t need these fancy features in a smart thermostat, then the Ecobee3 Lite and the Nest Thermostat E are both good budget options, depending on what you’re looking for.
