Amazon.com: Customer reviews: Ecobee Switch+ Smart Light Switch, Amazon Alexa Built-in

Top positive review

Pioneering: Alexa integrated into an already awesome smart motion sensing light switch

Reviewed in the United States on April 25, 2018

Score: 4.7

It's Alexa on your wall without any table top assistant, plus a great motion detecting smart light switch. It's the only product that does this today and it certainly will be copied.

I use it in the kitchen as a timer and for smart home controls without taking up any counter space. It fits right in.

Good:
- Its Alexa in a light switch. No more Alexa taking up space or needing somewhere to sit. It's really awesome as a form factor
- No hub required just WiFi (it brings its own voice support)
- It's also a great smart switch (motion and night light are standout features)
- Amazing first of its kind combination of virtual assistant, smart switch, night light, and motion detector.
- It's a motion and presence sensing switch. It turns on (optionally) when entering the room and off (optionally) a set delay after exiting. Yeah, no need to flip the switch on or off manually or by voice. Works really well.
- Wire nuts included. Looking at you Leviton.
- Night light feature is awesome notably if not using auto on.
- On off button is easy to use and works very well
- It's also a smart light
- Outdoor light scheduling features too
- App is clean and straightforward
- Far field mics aren't quite as good as the echo dot so expect to need to be a little closer that a dot, but not by much.
- Surprisingly ok at playing music in a pinch
- Good support when things may go wrong
- Instalation instruction is very good

Ok
- Room sensor function not available at launch
- Volume isn't as loud as an echo dot but it's also just a little switch
- Still young, features still in development
- Bang for the buck. Yes it blows the $40-60 dollar smart switches away but, it's also double the price.
- Requires neutral wire (super common on these switches)

Bad
- This one is on Amazon, but non echo Alexa functionality lags behind the official hardware. No calls. No announcements. Not a deal breaker but know you're not getting absolutely everything.
- no Bluetooth out, can't play directly to audio systems like an echo can.
- Thicker all plastic construction of the switch box and wings. Tight if you're deploying to anything but the single gang included clip on wallplate.
- No dimmer option.
- Can be a bit of a tight squeeze to get the unit into some boxes, it's on the deeper side. Can't tighten too much or the plastic bends. Would have been nice to see metal like Leviton.
- No 3 way options at all. This along with no dimmer severely limits possible install location.

11 people found this helpful

Top critical review

Critical reviews›

jnak00

A great idea, poorly executed

Reviewed in the United States on May 22, 2019

I have three of these switches. Here's the good and bad in my experience:
The good:
1. The Switch+ is well built and seems to be a quality piece.
2. It's easy to use and set up
3. Integration in the Ecobee hub and getting it set up with Alexa and Google Assistant works seamlessly
4. Motion sensor works well
5. Night light is a handy feature

The bad:
1. Wifi reception is poor. Alexa on the Switch often tells me there is no internet connectivity, but I can continue to control the Switch from the app, so obviously it is connected to the internet. Speed tests show all three Switch+ devices consistently have very poor internet speeds...probably because they are all installed in metal boxes in the wall.
2. Alexa microphone is terribly inconsistent. Saying Alexa directly into the microphone from two feet away may or may not wake her. However, we can be having dinner conversation in the next room, and nobody says anything even close to "Alexa" and she'll wake up.
3. Alexa implementation lacks key features, like the ability to be included in routines. The Switch+ also does not show up as an Alexa-enabled device in the Alexa app, so I cannot assign a default speaker for music (like my Sonos speakers)
4. The promised temperature sensor function still does not work, over a year after release. This is incredibly irritating as this is one of the main reasons I went with the Switch+
5. No other programming ability - only smart off after xx minutes and smart on based on motion sensor
6. Poor integration with IFTTT - I can't use the built-in motion sensor to trigger an IFTTT sequence. This would open up so many other possibilities
7. No dimmer function and no ability to use with three-ways. I knew this going in, but the lack of these features might be a deal-breaker to some.

For what you get, this product is priced way too high.

5 people found this helpful

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From the United States

Alexander

Pioneering: Alexa integrated into an already awesome smart motion sensing light switch

Reviewed in the United States on April 25, 2018

Verified Purchase

11 people found this helpful

Helpful

Lopezzi

Alexa, Google, and HomeKit compatible switch makes this the best there is!

Reviewed in the United States on March 26, 2018

Verified Purchase

Awesome smart switch with all the bells and whistles. If you have an ecobee thermostat, it even amplifies it's awesomeness! To start, it works as you'd expect a standard light switch to work. You press button, light turns on instantly. You press button again, light turns off. Simple.

Now, if you have an ecobee thermostat, this will also double as an extra temp, motion, and occupancy sensor to help balance out your house and let you know if any kind of motion is detected. It also has a built in nightlight that will illuminate when it gets dark so you have a small light to guide you in the dark. The motion sensors can also be used to automatically turn on and off the lights when you enter and leave the room so there is no forgetting to turn the lights off (kids) or even on if you want that feature. This feature (as well as the night light) can be turned off in the app if you don't want it.

The next major feature of this switch is that it has a full blown Alexa inside of it. Once you register it to your account, it can do practically everything a Echo device can do. It has a light bar on it just like a typical Alexa device that provides feedback for what you ask it. The recognition works very well and it even has the ESP on it, so if you have multiple switches or other Echo devices, they won't all respond at once, only the device closest to you will. The speaker is not terrible, but obviously due to it's size, it's not the most amazing speaker to listen to music on. It's not bad by any means, but you won't be blown away by it's fidelity or anything. I'd say it's on par with a Dot. The one thing I REALLY hope ecobee (or Amazon) brings is to allow these devices to be used in audio groups so if you have multiple switches, you could have a makeshift whole home audio and have all your music playing through all the switches. That would be killer in my opinion.

And finally for Google Home and Apple users, it is compatible with Google Assistant and Apple HomeKit. I absolutely love the HomeKit compatibility as it allows me to use Siri to turn the lights on/off and gives me notifications on motion and allows automation through the Home app. The HomeKit integration is a must have and I'm so glad that ecobee is supporting all the major smart home integrations.

If you're in the market for a smart switch, it's real hard to beat this one by ecobee, it has just about everything you could want out of one and supports all the major players.

8 people found this helpful

Helpful

Karla and David

This a a great concept and look forward to future enhancement to change my 4 stars to 5 stars.

Reviewed in the United States on April 9, 2018

Verified Purchase

Update 4/18
I wanted to note that Ecobee is already working on improvements and has now changed the preset time that the light is allowed to stay on from 15 minutes all the way down to 1 minute. I have updated my comment about this by removing from the "Things I don't like that I hope they improve on" section. This just shows that they are doing everything they can to improve the Switch.

I will continue to monitor and update my post as I see more improvements happen.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Ecobee Switch+ is a great concept and I look forward to seeing future improvements on the device.

Things I like:

- Very easy installation process. If you download the Ecobee app, there are videos and step by step instructions that are very easy to follow. It took me about 20 minutes to install and I'm not the most savvy in this area of expertise.
- Great look out of the box as well as on my wall. It looks as if it was always there and is nice an snug against the wall without any indications of not fitting in the place it was installed.
- Nice way to have an Alexa installed device in your room without having to worry about placing on a shelf, plugging into an outlet etc.
Also works as a motion sensor light and seems to be pretty sensitive to motion. Would come on as I walk into the room where the Switch+ is installed.
- Also has a nice nightlight option that can be turned off if preferred.
- Will be a great way to measure temperature and motion once connected to an Ecobee thermostat (when this option is enabled in the near future).
- I like the improvements to the Ecobee app through my Android device. It's very easy to control the Switch+ through the app and I like how you can now see all temperature room sensors in 1 screen. So that you can see what the temperature is across the house without having to click on each sensor individually. Once the Switch+ is working to measure temperature, I can see this feature being really good.
- Has a preset timer that you can program through the app to turn off after a specified time frame.

Things I don't like that I hope they improve on:

- Currently the Switch+ isn't designed to be installed on the same switch as a ceiling fan. Originally I had mine installed on the same switch as my Master bedroom ceiling fan. I noticed after installing IFTTT on my phone that the light was coming on during times when no one was around and no one had remotely requested it to. After doing further research with costumer support, we concluded that the issue was due to it being installed on the same switch as my ceiling fan. They advised that this could be creating additional heat that would make the sensor think someone was in the room and advised for me to move to a different location to avoid damaging the Switch+. After I moved it, this issue seem to be resolved.
- The Switch+ can't be installed on a 2 way or 3 way switch. Between not being able to install on the same switch as a ceiling fan and not being able to install on a 2 way or 3 way switch, this really limited the options I had available to install it.
- Doesn't work well with a Mesh Wi-Fi signal. I had a hard time trying to get the Switch+ to connect to my Wi-Fi and after much trouble shooting with Ecobee support, I was finally advised that it could be due to having more than 1 router connected to my Wi-Fi which was making it bounce back in forth between routers. After I disabled 1 router, I had no problem getting it to connect and so far this hasn't been an issue going forward after reconnecting the 2nd router. I believe this is just an issue for initial setup. Once you get the Switch+ connected to the router, it seems to be fine and so far I haven't had to try and reconnect it to my Wi-Fi.
- Currently not Bluetooth ready and so you have to listen to music through the small speaker which isn't bad considering the size but could be a lot better with the option to connect to a separate speaker like the Dot allows.
- Is currently setup with a setting that whenever the light is manually/remotely turned off and you come back into the room, the light won't go back on without turning back on manually/remotely for 15 minutes. In other words, if I request Alexa to turn off the light or I physically turn off the light and then go back into the room prior to 15 minutes going by, the light won't come on without asking Alexa or physically turning back on. I hope this setting is changed to allow you to disable as this can be a hassle if you have your hands full. Keep in mind, this setting doesn't happen when the light turns off by the timer (based on the time frame you preset). If the light has turned off automatically and then you walk into the room a second later, the light will come back on.
- Would have hoped the temperature sensors would have been working before the launch. This was the main reason I was wanting to purchase the Switch+. I thought it would be a nice way to have the additional sensors in different rooms without having to be placed on a shelf or on the wall. Unfortunately this option isn't currently available but is supposed to be working in the near future. I was advised it should be working by the Summer time. So I guess we have to wait and see how well this feature works.

My summary:

This is my first Alexa ready device which has me looking into adding other items to my house that can be voice activated. I have very high expectations that Ecobee is going to take the right steps to improve on this concept and look forward to all the enhancements that will be coming in the near future. Although my list is long with things to be improved on, I feel that since this is the first design they have come out with that things are only going to get better as they began resolving some of these issues. So far customer support has been very helpful and have indicated that they are taking all of our concerns and suggestions into consideration and are trying to address them. As the issues of concern are addressed, I will try to do my best to update my post and will hopefully see my 4 star review turn into a 5 star review.

11 people found this helpful

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jnak00

A great idea, poorly executed

Reviewed in the United States on May 22, 2019

Verified Purchase

5 people found this helpful

Helpful

Greg Powers

Only on/off function available in SmartThings

Reviewed in the United States on April 11, 2018

Verified Purchase

At first look this is a GREAT product with a bunch of function bundled in a small package that fits into your wall. You get a light switch, Amazon Alexa smart speaker, a motion sensor, a temperature sensor, a light sensor and a night light all in one compact wall light switch. Plus the device works in several smart home ecosystems, SmartThings, Apple Home Kit, Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant and IFTTT. What more can you ask for...?

I bought the Smart light switch because it "works with SmartThings" and had Amazon Alexa build in. BUT the only function that works with SmartThings is the light switch ON/OFF function. The other functions like the motion sensor, night light, temperature sensor and light sensor are not available in the SmartThing interface. EcoBee is add some temperature features in the future but we do not know if they will be SmartThing aware.

The Switch + set up is also different as you do not set the switch up through the "Switches and Dimmers" menu, BUT instead you go through the Thermostat menus.This must be done AFTER you add the Switch + to the EcoBee App. And this is not openly documented.

Amazon Alexa is a great feature of the device. But here again the ability to configure Alexa is limited. You can not change the wake word, Pair the switch with a remote, change the sounds, or add the device to Multi room music group. I hope Ecobee address some of the omission soon.

Even the EcoBee feature are fairly limited and do not offer any flexibility other than On or Off. The light switch is NOT a dimmer. You cannot adjust the timing of how quickly or slowly to turn off the switch after there is no motion. There is no delay before or after sunrise or sunset. You can not ajust the brightness of the night light.

For now I will keep this Switch + but i will not buy any more until the SmartThings interface is more complete. To me it seems that EcoBee jumped the gun and released this too soon. They should have implemented more of the function before releasing the Switch +.

37 people found this helpful

Helpful

Stephen F. Harris

Works Great!

Reviewed in the United States on December 21, 2018

Verified Purchase

Purchased my first one over a year ago and like it so much we now have four of them. Great for kids rooms. They love Alexa and the auto on/off is a great feature, as my kids never remember to shut off their lights. There is a very nice night light and the smart features have great customization. The auto on can be disable at night time so you can get up in the middle of night without disturbing others. Our ecobee4 still doesn't recognize the switches as additional temperature sensors but homekit does show the temperature in each room with a smart switch. Given the price / functionality of other smart switches this one is differently worth the extra money. I highly recommend this smart switch.

Cons: Cannot use the switch for drop in or for whole house music streaming; the switch can stream music but not in sync with other switches or other echo devices; this is the only draw back in my opinion.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Good installation video; so far so good

Reviewed in the United States on March 2, 2019

Verified Purchase

I installed the Ecobee Switch+ by myself about 1 month ago to control my front door exterior lights. I replaced a 20 year old BSR light switch that was not very compatible with LED light bulbs and kept burning them out.

So far, the ecobee seems to be fine with the LED bulbs. It also has a night light, the sound from Alexa is OK, and Alexa can hear my commands from 10 feet away. I especially appreciate that I don't have to set a time for it to turn on, as it either senses darkness or I presume alexa tells it what time sunset is.

Since I had done the original BSR install myself decades ago, I found the ecobee installation was straight forward, although I had to read up on the requirement for neutral ground wires. Fortunately, my 30 year old California home had the neutral ground wiring in the box.

I installed the ecobee into a 3-gang switch box, i.e. one with 3 light switches -- and one of them was on a different circuit breaker! Always test for current in the whole switch box. I found the ecobee video to be very helpful, and I found 1-2 more on youtube. I was also glad that the ecobee Switch+ did not require a hub.

So far my house has had a 12-hour and a 2-hour power outage with no adverse effect on the ecobee. If the switch lasts 20 years, I will be very very satisfied. 😃

One problem I noticed, which I have not tried to duplicate, is that when I toggled the light off and on with the Apple smart home app, then the ecobee did not turn off on schedule but stayed on all night. Maybe the 2 apps do not overlap? I was too lazy to test this again, and since then, I have only used the ecobee app to control the light.

Helpful

DRUZiE

Fantastic product until it stopped working right after the warranty expired

Reviewed in the United States on August 8, 2023

Verified Purchase

SHORT VERSION: Great product. Easy to install and control with the manual buttons and using the Alexa voice features. Integration with the Home Kit was seamless and works well with my automation scenes. The product did fail after only 14 months into its 1 year replacement warranty. This was a bummer.

DETAILS:

I am a big fanatic of home automation and voice products. Choosing the Ecobee Switch+ was a no brainer for me as I know from experience with my friends and family, that the switch is easy to install and integrates easily with my Alexa account. Sure enough, when I got my own Switch+ it worked just as described. I was able to use all the typical Alexa commands and inquiries I was accustomed to using with my Echo and Dot devices. The single pole switch worked perfectly with my 300W incandescent light fixture in the dining room without any issues. I was not until (literally) a month after the warranty expired that it stopped working. The switch and buttons would function but the unit would not wake-up and respond to the Alexa wake word. Even when I pushed the dot on the unit to listen to a command, it would just flash blue and turn off. The only way to recover was to restart the device (or interrupt the power from the breaker). After it restarts it will work like new for a couple days and then slip back into the unresponsive mode on the Alexa side.

Tech support was very good at getting back to me and helped troubleshoot this issue but unfortunately they could not figure out what was wrong with it. They did the usual steps of restarting, re-linking accounts, and reading the data remotely, but this was not enough to determine why it continues to fail.

Since it was out of warranty the only solution they could offer was to continue to manually restart the device when I want to use it (manual step with 60 sec restart cycle). They could not even offer a discount on a replacement unit. I respect their commitment to the warranty policy but there has to be some wiggle room to help bridge the customer support opportunity gap for something this close to the end of the warranty.

I would recommend this product for anyone interested BUT with the caveat that you may need to replace it with something else sometime after the warranty expires. Probably typical with many other tech products, but ce la vie.

Helpful

Jessica Higbee

Has glitches but fun overall

Reviewed in the United States on April 29, 2022

Verified Purchase

Overall this is a supper interesting concept it works most of the time but does run into glitching sometimes and has to be rebooted. It's not a true full Alexa but does do allot for a light switch. If they could get it to stop glitching on certain things it would be a slam dunk 5 star product.....glitches are as follows...motion sensor part works great but the timer function on turning it on and off with motion doesn't work properly I have it set from 10pm to 7 am to not notice motion but consecutively every night at about 3 am to 4 am it senses motion all the sudden and has woken me up all my switches seem to do it and I have changed the time checked all settings and they still do it. The app is super straight forward so I'm not sure what's the deal. Next glitch is it will randomly make tones supper randomly.....middle of night middle of day no rime or reason. It's a polite tome so never startles me but it is still weird. Next glitch is the Alexa sometimes won't be responsive even if you press the button and then a day or two later she comes back. That glitch is rare but does happen. The final glitch I have noticed is when playing music it will sometimes go into a redish/orange lock out and I have to completely reset it. One switch does that more often than the rest but I think because it's also used allot more for music so it's noticed more it's my daughter's room. But they all do it at times. Resetting is simple it's just annoying. Other than those complaints though it's a supper cool and fun light switch. Tells weather plays music does a ton but does have some limitations [remember it's just a light switch not a true full size alexa] I like em and suggest you but some the light switch part itself has never failed to turn on and off the light and I love being able to voice command it off and on.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Pablo

'Beta' Product. Unreliable but perfect for bathrooms & small spaces when you don't need a dimmer

Reviewed in the United States on April 23, 2020

Verified Purchase

2020-04-30 Update
Although I'm not unhappy (yet) I'm deducting a star because I'm starting to understand the reviews that say that it's not ready for prime time. My issue with the Amber light and no Alexa every morning has not been resolved and I'm starting back at nothing with support because they don't have a record of the prior contact and seem to think that it's probably just an Alexa notification. Oh well...

------

I think the ecobee Switch+ is great value at it's current price (about half of MSRP). I ended up getting two of them and here are my thoughts:

+ Install was very easy. You do need a neutral wire but you don't need to identify the load/hot wires. Switch takes care of that. It's deeper than a usual switch but only a tiny bit deeper than a Caseta smart switch. It works in a multi-gang setup but I had some trouble getting a screw less Decora to sit flat since the switch has a large raised surface area.
+ Setup is also very easy. It took me just a few minutes to set each one up. The latest firmware (as of April 22, 2020) has almost all of the features that I look for: you can turn off motion detection during certain time periods, adjust motion sensitivity, and turn on/off daylight detection.

- The lack of dimming capabilities is annoying and would open up many more applications if it was there. Without dimming I found that they were only useful in bathrooms
- The night light is very weak. Might be good for pathway lighting or something like that but not good enough otherwise
- There is a delay before Alexa responds
- Does not seem to be a production ready device. For example, every morning the switches seem to go into "pairing" mode (flashing amber) and won't respond to Alexa commands or allow settings to be updated. I've had to reboot the switch each day. I contacted support and they pushed new firmware that they say should address sit.

The speaker is fairly loud and clear and overall I think it's perfect for bathrooms but not really anything else. It's also strange for a product that's been on the market for a while to still have annoying software glitches.

6 people found this helpful

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