Control Ecobee's smart thermostats with Google Assistant

You no longer have to be picky about which voice assistant you use to steer Ecobee's smart thermostats. Google Assistant now offers control over Ecobee3 and Ecobee4 models, letting you tweak the temperature from your phone or an Assistant-equipped speaker like those in the Home lineup. It's a relatively simple addition, but it means that Ecobee's thermostats now respond to voice commands from three of the major voice assistants (Alexa, Assistant and Siri) in some capacity -- sorry, Cortana fans.

The move gives Ecobee an edge over Nest's thermostats, which already had Alexa and Google Assistant support but still lacks the native HomeKit support it would need for Siri. You don't necessarily want to pick a thermostat just for its voice input options. However, it can make a big difference if you have smart speakers or live in a household where there's a dominant mobile platform.