The ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium is a nice device with a really nice look and feel. It has really nice features and we have it at one of our short-term rental properties. However, for the increase in price we recommend the ecobee 3 Lite Smart Thermostat over the ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium or Enhanced models for properties where you will have guests.

Things we don’t like about the ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium for short-term rentals:

• Air quality alerts: We don’t like that it has this feature since most of the time this isn’t really relevant for short-term stays. In fact, we find that most guests end up lowering the air quality (i.e. they cook a lot of bacon without turning the vent fan on).
• Alexa or Siri integration: We recommend against using any type of Alexa- or Siri-enabled devices at your short-term rental, unless you create an entirely separate account and isolate it completely from your personal account. This pretty much defeats the purpose of these services, so it’s not a selling point for us.

Overall, we’d suggest sticking with one of the lower-end models of ecobee devices which provide all the controls, cost less, and have the same interface that is easy to use for guests.