ecobee venturing into indoor security cameras, could add Apple's HomeKit

Best known for its smart thermostats, ecobee is reportedly working on an indoor security camera likely to support Apple's HomeKit.

The camera is a tall unit with a cone-shaped base, and four lights up top that can at least flash yellow or blue, Zatz Not Funny indicated on Friday. It's likely the camera will not only support Amazon Alexa but work as an independent Alexa speaker, given similar functions in the ecobee4 and ecobee Switch+.

Those products are also HomeKit-compatible. Offering the platform in a camera will probably depend on whether or not it's wireless, since Apple has so far kept HomeKit off of battery-powered cameras, presumably because of power drain.

Other unknowns include pricing and a launch date. Zatz speculated that the camera could serve as a room sensor for ecobee's thermostats, which can sense presence and help keep temperature and humidity consistent.

Years after HomeKit's launch, relatively few security cam makers have enabled it. These include brands like Arlo, D-Link, Logitech, Netatmo, and Somfy. The technology is also in just two video doorbells made by Robin and Netatmo, and the latter company has yet to ship.

14 Comments

red oak 1104 comments · 13 Years

About 5 years ago

No way I will have an Alexa microphone in my home

hammeroftruth 1354 comments · 16 Years

Ecobee’s service has been very poor lately. Their network has been down a lot in the past few weeks which prevents you from accessing your thermostat. What makes it worse is that the thermostat makes you think there is a problem with your hardware and not that it cannot connect to ecobee. Plus, whatever updates have been going on has made the auto mode more of an inconvenience because it won’t let you set a range of temps that is only around 5 degrees. It will either make the temp colder or hotter. That doesn’t play well here in the Southwest.

rainmaker 37 comments · 10 Years

I’m still waiting on the supposed Arlo Ultra HomeKit compatibility— promised at the end of quarter one which is now gone. I find it amusing that so many publications repeated this, even though it is well known that Apple does flint allow HomeKit usage with wireless cameras. I am no longer spending good money for bs promises (looking at you Ring) that never come to fruition.

hmurchison 11823 comments · 23 Years

hammeroftruth said:

Ecobee’s service has been very poor lately. Their network has been down a lot in the past few weeks which prevents you from accessing your thermostat. What makes it worse is that the thermostat makes you think there is a problem with your hardware and not that it cannot connect to ecobee. Plus, whatever updates have been going on has made the auto mode more of an inconvenience because it won’t let you set a range of temps that is only around 5 degrees. It will either make the temp colder or hotter. That doesn’t play well here in the Southwest.

Thinking about ditching smart thermostats personally. The job is to manage my home's heating and cooling system. Without a connection to the cloud the system should be as graceful as a non connected thermostat.