Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Smart Home
  3. How tos

How to use Vacation Mode on an Ecobee smart thermostat

Add as a preferred source on Google
Ecobee thermostat poised against a wall next to a rock and pear.
Ecobee

If you're planning to go on vacation or leave your home for an extended period of time, enabling Vacation Mode on your Ecobee smart thermostat is a smart decision. This unique mode helps reduce your energy consumption when no one is in the house, but will kick back on in advance to ensure the place is at a comfortable temperature when you return. It's a cool feature, and one that's easy to enable — once you know where to look.

Recommended Videos

Difficulty

Easy

Duration

15 minutes

What You Need

  • Ecobee smart thermostat

  • Ecobee mobile app

Here's a closer look at how to set up Vacation Mode on your Ecobee smart thermostat, including tips on how to set your departure and return dates. We'll also teach you how to set the temperatures while you're away.

Ecobee thermostat poised against a wall next to a rock and pear.
Ecobee

How to set Vacation Mode on Ecobee Thermostat

You can activate Vacation Mode on your smart thermostat or through the Ecobee mobile app.

Step 1: If using the thermostat, select Main Menu, then navigate to General. From here, select Vacation.

Step 2: Press the Plus button to create a new vacation schedule.

Step 3: Enter your departure date and time in the I Depart section.

Step 4: Enter your return date and time in the I Return section.

Step 5: You can then wrap up the process by programming your temperatures and other settings in the Vacations Settings menu. Press Save to finish the process.

Step 6: If you prefer to do this through the mobile app, you'll simply need to go to the Home menu and select Vacation. Here, you'll find the Set A Vacation option. You can then edit your return and departure dates in the same way that we detailed above.

How to cancel or edit Vacation Mode

If your plans change, Ecobee gives you a quick way to modify your Vacation Mode settings.

Step 1: From the Home screen of the mobile app, select Vacation, then pick the vacation you need to edit. You can then change all settings. Be sure to press Save to activate the new settings.

Step 2: Alternatively, you can edit your Vacation Mode directly from the thermostat. Just enter the General menu and find the Vacation section. You can then edit the same settings.

Step 3: Canceling a vacation can only be done from the mobile app. Once again, go to the Vacation section. Select the vacation that's been canceled, and press Delete to remove it from your thermostat's schedule.

Jon Bitner
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Jon Bitner is a writer covering consumer electronics, technology, and gaming. His work has been published on various websites…
How to Choose the Right Mattress for You
sleeping

This post is brought to you in paid partnership with Sleep Number.

Shopping for a new mattress sounds simple until you start looking. Memory foam or hybrid? Soft or firm? Cooling covers, pressure-relief zones, motion isolation, sleep tracking — suddenly, you're comparing features that barely existed the last time you bought a bed. Even the most expensive option could be a poor match.

Read more
Amazon unveils Alexa Home Map, letting you control your smart home in 3D
Alexa Home Map lets users control individual smart home devices from one place, without remembering their names or searching through menus.
Alexa Home Map on a smart home hub display

Amazon has been a major player in the smart home market for years, but fresh competition from Apple may have lit a fire under it. The company has just unveiled a new lineup of Alexa devices, including Echo speakers, a smart alarm clock, a photo frame, and the Echo Show 16. On the software side, Amazon also introduced Alexa Home Map, which puts your connected devices on an interactive 3D model of your house, letting you monitor and control them from one place.

Your entire smart home on a 3D map

Read more
Amazon’s new Alexa photo frame wants to rescue your best pictures from your camera roll
Your favorite memories deserve better than being buried under screenshots in your camera roll.
Amazon Alexa Photo Frame

Our phones have made it easy to capture our lives in beautiful photos. But that also means we shoot hundreds of photos every year and don't look at them, as they keep collecting the proverbial dust in our phone's gallery. Amazon’s new Alexa Photo Frame wants to put those forgotten shots on your shelf instead.

Amazon revealed the frame alongside several new Alexa devices, including a new smart alarm clock and a 16-inch Echo Show. It pulls pictures from Amazon Photos, which Prime members can fill up without paying extra for storage.

Read more