Harnessing human nature is just as important as having a great product. Technology alone won’t save the planet; people have to.
The team at ecobee understood that one of the most important steps to living greener — smarter home energy use — was needlessly complicated. Thermostats were programmable, but often tear-your-hair-out frustrating.
There had to simpler ways to be environmentally friendly, to make green easy. Enter ecobee’s Smart Thermostat.
1000 Pre-orders for the Smart Thermostat
The Smart Thermostat is a networked, programmable thermostat that’s connected to the Internet. You can use it to customize your home’s temperature settings either from the unit’s touch screen or its web portal on a computer or smartphone.
Heating and cooling make up 70% of a home’s energy use and costs. Ecobee’s thermostat merges green technology and consumer electronics, providing a convenient way to reduce energy spending and usage.
In June, ecobee reached another milestone, performing the first remote upgrade of its software to version 1.4. The company claims that the Smart Thermostat will pay for itself within 12-18 months.
The upgrade is free for customers, and includes a number of noteworthy new features. The Smart Thermostat enables users to set customized settings for every day temperature preferences, as well as for specific timeframes, like vacations. Users can also receive maintenance alerts, check weather forecasts and can even connect the Smart Thermostat to a home’s network via wifi.
The Smart Thermostat certainly has geek appeal for techies and early adopter types, but will it find an enthusiastic audience among more mainstream homeowners? Time will tell. In ecobee’s favour are the burgeoning green movement and the lure of homeowner savings
The Smart Thermostat retails for $385USD ($435CAD and change), and Canadian customers get a promotional discount when they buy online. The unit must be installed by a professional HVAC technician, and while ecobee does not arrange installation, they do provide a list of contractors located throughout Canada and the US.
Big change is usually a missionary sell, and ecobee’s Smart Thermostat is certainly a major departure from traditional, even programmable, thermostats on the market to date. But cleantech is a hot investment these days, both for government and the private sector, and ecobee is banking that conserving energy, saving money, and being more environmentally friendly is a winning formula.
Perhaps another ace up their sleeves is that the Smart Thermostat is just the beginning of what their green automation platform can offer homeowners, property managers, utilities, and others. There are already hints of its networking value in its portability and applications as a home status monitoring dashboard or message centre.
Funding gives Ecobee a green Start
ecobee was founded by Stuart Lombard and Mark Malchiondo in 2007, and secured a $3 million Series A round of financing from Canadian venture capital firms Tech Capital Partners, Investeco, and JLA Ventures that year.
The company’s headquarters are in Toronto, and since November 2008 they have opened US offices in Massachusetts and Florida. The Smart Thermostat went into beta in July 2008. By January 2009 it was ready to launch publicly, with an impressive 1000 pre-orders for the Smart Thermostat lined up.
The company has nearly doubled the number of units they’ve sold since launch, and have quadrupled in size since the beginning of 2008. The ecobee team is working on a number of expansion strategies, including targeting outside the consumer market.
Property managers, contractors, and utilities present opportunities for ecobee’s technology, and the fact that interest in the product hasn’t slowed in the current economy is testament to the product’s long-term value. Jessica Dolmer, ecobee’s Marketing and Sales Coordinator, also noted they’d love to get the Smart Thermostat into more non-residential buildings, like schools, stores, banks, and offices.
After all, it’s not just homeowners who care about conserving energy, saving money, and being more environmentally friendly. Ecobee has partnerships in place with Green Toronto Enterprise and Bullfrog Power, as well as a number of others in the works.
The Smart Thermostat has also been installed in the Minto Inspiration Home, a Menkes model home, and a Thomasfield model home, enabling ecobee to demonstrate the thermostat’s user friendliness and value in real-world settings.
ecobee is banking that conserving energy, saving money, and being more environmentally friendly is a winning formula
An Idea and an Ideal
ecobee’s mission is threefold: enable homeowners to conserve energy, save money, and reduce their environmental impact. They’re committed to living and working greener, but at the same time, the 20+ members of the ecobee team have jobs, families, and busy lives, too, so they know that living greener requires a balance between managing daily life and taking action.
And the ecobee team does walk the walk. They use their products in their own homes, strongly encourage walking, biking, use of public transit, and telecommuting to reduce fossil fuel usage, and are active participants in green initiatives in their communities, among other good habits.
Could the real value of the fully networked home or office be found in the lofty goal of helping the environment, rather than just being alerted by your fridge that you’re nearly out of milk?
In founding a company based on an understanding of human nature combined with cutting edge, user-friendly technology — green made easy — ecobee might just be a big step in that direction.
