Smart thermostat brand Ecobee has announced an exclusive partnership with Clayton Home Building Group. Every home built by Clayton can be equipped with the ecobee3 lite device to save home energy consumption.
The ecobee3 lite is an affordable thermostat that works with Amazon Alexa, Samsung SmartThings and Apple HomeKit. Residents of Clayton Built homes may also choose the latest model, ecobee4, as the upgraded option. The new model has Alexa built-in, allowing it to work like an Amazon Echo speaker.
Smart thermostats help homes adjust temperatures based on weather, user behavior and home occupancy status, thus cutting down energy consumption. According to ecobee, its smart algorithms and advanced sensing technology have saved homeowners enough energy to take the City of Miami off the grid for a year.
Clayton, founded in 1956 and based in Berkshire Hathaway, United States, built more than 48,000 homes in 2017.
“As it becomes harder for the average American family to achieve homeownership, we continue to offer energy efficient features that were once considered a luxury within affordable housing,” said Kevin Clayton, CEO of Clayton, in a statement. “Aligning with a leader like ecobee in the smart home space allows us to continue fulfilling our company purpose of opening doors to a better life.”
This is not ecobee’s first collaboration with a homebuilder. Earlier this year, ecobee announced a partnership with the largest residential constructor in Canada, Mattamy, to include Alexa built-in ecobee4 thermostats in all new homes built by the constructor.
Apart from thermostats, ecobee has introduced a new device category, smart switch, into its product line. Having a speaker and microphones built right into the switch, users can simply say various Alexa commands to Switch+ like they talk to Echo speakers. And the smart switch will glow the blue light when Alexa is listening and responding like the Echo speakers.
Ecobee hasn’t announced any new thermostat models this year.