- Ecobee makes some of the best
smart thermostats on the market
in the ecobee4 and ecobee3 lite.
Now the company is ready to drop its next smart home device,
which looks to bring easy voice control
through Amazon Alexa in any room of your house.
This is the brand new ecobee Switch+.
and I'll tell you all about it in this episode.
What's going on Tech Squad, Andru Edwards here,
Editor-In-Chief at GearLive.com
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As I mentioned, today, we are taking a look
at this right here, this is the brand new ecobee Switch+.
This is ecobee's new smart light switch,
which, similar to the ecobee4,
has Amazon Alexa built right in.
The ecobee Switch+ also supports
a bunch of other smart home platforms,
like Apple HomeKit, Google Assistant,
SmartThings, and If This Then That.
And, by the way, big shout-out to ecobee
for sending over the new Switch+
and for sponsoring this video.
Now, ecobee says that the Switch+ brings us
one step closer to a whole home voice future.
What does that mean?
Well, the Switch+ has built-in far-field microphones
and a speaker, allowing you to speak to Amazon's Alexa
in any room that you have a switch installed,
giving you instant access to things like
music, the news, and even smart home controls.
And I don't just mean control of ecobee devices,
since it's Amazon's Alexa that you're using
that's built into the device, it can actually control
any other Alexa-powered device
that you may have in your home,
whether it's ecobee branded or something totally different.
So, in other words, I could talk to the Switch+
and ask it to set my Philips Hue lights,
or control my August Smart Lock on my front door,
or even raise and lower my blinds.
And I can do all this and control all these things
from any room where I have the ecobee Switch+ installed.
And speaking of installation, getting the
ecobee Switch+ installed takes just about 45 minutes,
and it's pretty straightforward.
So, again, this goes back to that whole concept
of whole home voice, and I think it's something
that we're going to see more and more of,
especially over the next couple of years
as people get more comfortable with smart home devices.
Whole home voice means that basically,
no matter where you're standing in your home,
you can speak a command out loud
and have a smart assistant process that command.
You don't have to look for your smart assistant,
you don't have to be in the same room
as your smart assistant device,
because, essentially you have a
smart assistant device built-in to every room.
So you can imagine something like an Amazon Alexa,
or an Apple HomePod, or any of these other
smart speakers that are out there,
you have to actually buy a physical device
and place it somewhere, however,
with something like the ecobee Switch,
this replaces your light switch in that room.
So, imagine if you have an eight-room home
and you have an ecobee Switch in each of those eight rooms.
Then, no matter where you're standing
all you have to do is speak to Alexa out loud
and regardless of where you're standing
or what room you're in, Alexa will hear you,
understand you, and process your command.
So, let me show you how the ecobee
Switch+ works with Amazon's Alexa.
Here's a couple of tests I did
asking it some different questions.
Alexa, what's the weather right now?
- [Alexa] Currently, it's 75 degrees
with partly sunny skies.
Today, you can expect intermittent clouds
with a high of 75 degrees and a low of 51 degrees.
- Alexa, tell me a historical fact.
- [Alexa] On this day in 1980, CNN, Cable News Network,
the world's first 24-hour television news...
- Aside from the Alexa voice functionality,
the Switch+ has some other great features as well.
It's got built-in motion and daylight sensors,
which can automatically trigger your lights,
so whether you want them to come on if you walk
into the room, or if you want your lights to
automatically turn down at sunset, you can do that.
You can also set the ecobee Switch+ to function
as a nightlight automatically as well.
If you're familiar with ecobee thermostats,
you know they work with ecobee room sensors.
These are placed in different areas of your home
so that ecobee knows that there's someone there,
and it could trigger smart home actions as well.
The ecobee Switch+ also has temperature
and occupancy sensors built-in,
and a firmware update that's gonna be released
later this summer, will allow the ecobee Switch+
to pair with your ecobee thermostat,
giving your thermostat much more information
on where people are in the home.
The ecobee Switch+ was announced today.
You can pre-order it right now in the United States.
It is $99, and over in Canada it's available for $119,
and they will start shipping and be
available in stores on March 26th.
Ecobee is also taking over South by Southwest
right now, and they are running their
ecoBeeNB smart home style makeover.
If you want to enter that, head on over to
ecobee.com/SXSW, SXSW for South by Southwest.
So, there you have it guys, that was your look
at the brand new ecobee Switch+.
Now I want to hear from you, let me know
what you think of this, and what you think
of that whole home voice control concept as well.
Do you see that happening in our future? Does it scare you?
Let me know down in the comments,
and I'll meet you there for further discussion.
As always, if you enjoyed this one,
please do drop a like on this video,
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Thanks so much for watching, as always guys,
I appreciate your support.
I'm Andru Edwards, and I will catch you in the next video.
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