The truth is, if you are looking for the best smart vents for Ecobee there aren’t many smart vents that can be seamlessly integrated with your smart thermostat. Some of the most popular thermostats like Ecobee can only work with certain brands of smart vents.
When integrated with your home, these smart vents can regulate airflow and maintain an ideal room temperature.
With a simple upgrade like a smart vent, you could potentially be getting more out of your home heating and cooling system. Smart vents will help balance the temperatures of all the rooms in your home, or regulate airflow when a room needs more or less.
People who use smart vents for their HVAC systems see a considerable reduction in their utility bills because these vents make your home more energy-efficient.
Finding the right smart vent for an Ecobee thermostat can be difficult when so many brands of smart vents are available on the market.
In this guide, we will show you some of the best smart vents for Ecobee and other compatible smart thermostats.
Why do you need smart vents with an HVAC?
Some buildings aren’t properly insulated and may need heating or cooling for longer periods of time than others. By opening vents when you don’t need them, you risk wasting energy and spending more money.
HVACs with smart vents that work with your Ecobee thermostat know when you leave your home, so they automatically close those vents to save you money on your electric bill.
They open again when you return home to make sure there are no cold drafts in your living room or kitchen.
Another advantage is that some smart vents can be programmed using a scheduling function on your thermostat. For example, if you want to heat up your home before bedtime but then keep it cool while you sleep, a programmable vent can do just that—automatically.
Here are other reasons why you need a smart vent for your home.
- Regulating the temperature in each room in your home using built-in sensors
- Automatically make adjustments according to your settings and the weather outside
- Reduce energy consumption by up to 40% resulting in lower utility bills
- Minimize the cost of HVAC maintenance since smart vents are self-sufficient and do not require any additional wiring or installation costs.
With that said, the options are limited and typically you’ll want to stay with either your own HVAC unit or those specifically compatible with your Ecobee thermostat. If you’re using an Ecobee thermostat, these are the best smart vents to consider.
The Best Smart Vents for Ecobee (Top Picks)
These are our top picks for smart vents compatible with Ecobee.
Flair Smart Vent
The Flair smart vent makes a great addition to any home with a smart thermostat. The vent is easy to install, works with a variety of smart devices, and it’s compatible with almost all brands of standard HVAC equipment.
A simple screwdriver gets the job done in no time. All you have to do is replace the vent cover on your HVAC system, and you’re good to go.
The Flair Smart vent works with other smart home devices and is compatible with Ecobee and Honeywell smart thermostats.
The Flair Vent features a rugged steel construction that’s designed to fit between most standard wood or metal register units. It also supports remote manual or automatic control via a mobile app, web app, or with your voice via Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa.
The Flair Smart Vents will help regulate the temperature in each room in your home without the need for additional wiring or installation costs.
You can also get a significant reduction in energy consumption as they are up to 40% more efficient than traditional vents.
The installation process is pretty straightforward when compared to other smart vents, but it is a good cost-effective option for those looking for the basics of a heating and cooling vent.
Flair can make use of Ecobee’s superior Smart Thermostat technology, in which the Ecobee smart thermostat can be controlled through the Flair app, which is an available feature through the Room Tile feature.
If you have an Ecobee smart thermostat, Ecobee Room Sensors can work with the Flair Smart Vents and Pucks.
How the Flair Smart Vent Works to regulate your home temperature
Flair’s heating and cooling system are based on a simple principle: controlling the airflow in individual rooms to help you focus your heating and cooling where you need it, and when.
To bring this to life, Flair uses their Smart Vents which easily slot into standard sizes and are unobtrusive when they sit flush against the floor or wall.
They’re as minimalist as possible, with all of the electronics placed in a box that lays concealed under the floor. You can hardwire it for power, but it ships with two C batteries that will last for years.
Flair provides three methods for figuring out how many Smart Vents you’ll need in your house. For example, if you have one room that’s always too cold when you’re cooling and too hot when you’re heating, just get a Smart Vent and Flair Puck for that room.
One simple solution for this problem is to equip your other rooms with Ecobee sensors and Pucks, but if you have an Ecobee thermostat, I would suggest investing in that as an additional resource.
You can even just equip the whole house with Smart Vents and Pucks, but if your HVAC is already pretty even then you might want to opt for a third solution.
For each room you wish to heat, you’ll need a Puck, which is a small round device with temperature control and monitoring. The first of these needs to be hardwired to power via the included USB cable, as it acts as a bridge connecting the Flair system to your home network.
All of the others can be powered by AAA batteries which are included and are very energy efficient thanks to the e-Ink display.
Flair can operate in a number of modes including a model that’s compatible with most thermostats and where you just set the temperature for any room, and the vents (opening or closing) in that room will depend on whether the temperature matches up.
It can also work with Ecobee and Honeywell smart thermostats in an intelligent mode where the open/shut status is coordinated by those units.
Unfortunately, Flair’s integration with Nest requires Google’s Nest API, which they’ve shut down. Hopefully, we’ll see similar features coming through on our Nest systems in the future.
Design and features
The vents are sleek and well-made hardware, while the vent covers are metallic with an attractive grill design, perfect for any home. They’re all white which may be a problem for dark flooring, but they’re definitely a step up from the generic registers.
On one side, they have an LED light strip for quickly identifying which machine is which during setup, and under them, they have the battery housing, louvers, and motors for opening and closing them.
The Ecobee’s Smart Vents, when integrated with a Puck, will give you the exact ambient temperature and a target temperature as you can then open or close the vents.
Alternatively, an Ecobee sensor will do all the work when integrated with the Ecobee system.
My review units had target temperature information from the Flair app on the Ecobee’s temperature settings. So, when I wanted to change them to the desired temperature of the room, I put the Ecobee in charge of that temperature, and all the Flair units inherited it and kept the room heated.
I found the Flair app a bit intimidating, to begin with since with a multi vent system it presents a lot of information and some degree of logic to initially set up. However, once I got the Ecobee integration working, the whole Flair system just worked — and worked like magic.
In this mode, you never have to worry about whether the vents are smart because they always do what they need to in order to ensure the proper temperatures are met and the heating and cooling are routed efficiently.
The recent addition of the old Flair windows around my nearly 30-year-old house has significantly increased airflow — and though my setup isn’t perfect (due to some windows that aren’t able to fit Flair’s uniquely-sized grates), I still think it was a wise purchase.
The Pucks are cleverly designed with magnetic stick-up, screw-in installation options, and user-friendly, power-efficient e-Ink displays.
They are not designed for sitting out front and provide useful bezel controls for use, in addition to sensors for readings.
The bottom line
By adding smart vents to your HVAC system, you can achieve a better temperature and save on electricity. Which type of vent to go with your Ecobee Smart Thermostat is the question.
Compared to other smart vents, Flair smart vents are cheaper, but their Puck, a wireless thermostat+sensor, is more expensive.
If you are considering integrating Flair vents with your Ecobee thermostat, you need only one Flair Puck, so Flair is the more cost-efficient option for homeowners who want to go all-in on smart vent tech.
More importantly, the Flair vents are much more functional and dependable.