Google Nest Learning Thermostat 4th gen vs Ecobee Premium: How they compare

The Ecobee SmartThermostat Premium remains the best smart thermostat we've tested over the past few years. Its built-in smart speaker and advanced sensors have given it a leg up over the competition in everyday performance. This thermostat's staying power goes beyond climate control thanks to extensive smart home features and ecosystem compatibility. But this could all change now that Google is finally releasing a new Nest Learning Thermostat 4th Gen (nine years after the launch of its predecessor).

Now, there is a smarter AI-powered Nest that is more context-aware of environmental factors such as outside conditions to save you even more money on your energy bills. It's been completely redesigned with a more premium bezel-free glass screen, and it supports Matter to work across virtually all major platforms going forward. So is it worth the new nearly $300 price tag or is the Ecobee Premium still a better option for your home? Read on to find out.

Note that this comparison is merely looking at the features of both thermostats; we'll update it once we've had a chance to review the new Nest thermostat.

Nest Learning Thermostat 4th Gen vs Ecobee Smart Thermostat: Pricing and options

Google's new Nest Learning Thermostat (4th Gen) costs $279.99. That's $30 more than the original $249.99 price tag of the previous model. It's available for pre-order from Google , and will go on sale August 22.

However, the new thermostat includes a separate Nest Temperature Sensor in the box. This device lets you tailor the temperature around a specific room rather than rely on the main sensor built into the thermostat itself. It also comes in more finishes, including Polished Silver, Polished Obsidian, and Polished Gold.

The Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium costs $249 and also comes with a remote sensor. Although this sensor is older, it remains more advanced because it can detect occupancy in a room and tell your thermostat to avoid targeting its temperature preferences when it's empty so you don't waste energy.

Nest Learning Thermostat 4th Gen vs Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium: Specs compared

Nest Learning Thermostat 4th Gen vs Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium: Design

The original Nest Learning Thermostat set the standard for all smart thermostats, heavily inspiring its rivals. Ecobee's flagship is one of them—built to compete with the design language and smarts of the older third-generation Nest. This model adopted a rich zinc body and large touchscreen with a modern but boxy shape accentuated by rounded edges. It's thick but squeezes plenty of information onto its digital display, from the week's weather forecast to a live stream of your video doorbell.

The new Nest Learning Thermostat has a larger rounded 2.7-inch LCD domed glass screen with text that pops out at you whether you're up close or across the room. However, its sleek body sits virtually flat against your wall with a rotating stainless steel dial operation that is far more elegant than the bulkiness of the Ecobee. The bezel-free design provides a 60% larger display space to show information from more angles. Its 600x600 pixel resolution renders sharp text complete with new weather animations like rain, lightning, and snowfall to mimic outdoor conditions.

Nest Learning Thermostat 4th Gen vs Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium: New Features

The Nest Learning Thermostat 4th-gen model has much more fleshed-out AI features that make micro-adjustments on the fly. It's more aware, as it monitors conditions both inside and outside your home and will adjust the settings of your HVAC system accordingly. While the Ecobee can monitor the air quality inside your house, it focuses on keeping you comfortable while you're home and automatically switches to an energy-efficient temperature when you're away.

Here's a rundown of the features both thermostats offer.

Google Nest Learning Thermostat (4th Gen)

Smart Schedule
Google's newest thermostat learns which temperatures you choose most often or changes in behavior based on motion detected in your home — like coming home earlier on certain days — and automatically adjusts your temperature schedule to match. Energy-saving suggestions can be implemented automatically, or you can accept or reject them in the Google Home app for full control.

Outdoor Monitoring
The Nest Thermostat (4th Gen) is smart enough to analyze how the weather outdoors will affect the temperature inside. For example, it can pause heating on a sunny winter day to let your home get warmer on its own. When humidity is high, it can anticipate warmer indoor temperatures and can adjust accordingly.

System Health Monitor
This feature tracks your HVAC performance over time and can sense issues like failure to cool or heat a space in an adequate amount of time, and send you recommendations or urgent alerts for problems that may require immediate attention.

Dynamic Farsight
Dynamic Farsight on the new Nest Learning Thermostat lets you customize the home screen with info so you can easily view the time, temperature, weather or outdoor air quality. This view changes up close and expands from a distance so you can see this info at a glance from across the room. Plus, the new Nest has weather animations.

Smart Ventilation
Bring in fresh air when outdoor air quality is healthy, and automatically turns it off if pollutants are detected. This is useful for homes near frequent wildfires or cities.

Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium

Ecobee's AI isn't as smart to make micro-adjustments or analyze patterns as deeply. Instead, it doubles down on useful smart home device management features.

Live view of video doorbell
If you have the Ecobee Smart Doorbell Camera , you can get a live view from the camera on the Smart Thermostat Premium, so you don't need to take out your phone to see who's at the door.

Built-in smart speaker
The newer Premium model has a microphone and speaker built-in. You can use it as an Alexa-enabled smart speaker, so you don’t need a separate Echo device to ask for the weather, news, or score of the game. The speaker in the Smart Thermostat is pretty weak. In our Ecobee Premium review , we found it to be as tinny as a first-generation Echo Dot. While it probably won't be your first choice for music, it's helpful as an additional access point for voice commands.

Home security system hub
The Ecobee can also be paired with the Ecobee SmartCamera security camera , as well as door and window sensors, to turn it into a DIY home security system.

Occupancy-detecting temperature sensors
Place one of these sensors in a room that never gets as hot or as cold as you want, and you can tell the thermostat to keep the heat or the A/C on until that room gets to your target temperature. Most importantly, you can program it to do this only if the sensor detects a person in that room, which can save you potentially hundreds of dollars over the course of a year if you don't need to blast the heat or A/C for no reason.

Nest Learning Thermostat 4th Gen vs Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium: Smart home compatibility

The newest Nest Learning Thermostat can be operated from other smart home apps. With built-in Matter support, you can connect the new thermostat with any Matter-compatible smart home platform, such as Alexa and HomeKit. The ability to control and automate a Google product from anywhere opens the door for more possibilities and to talk to even more devices.

Ecobee's Smart Thermostat Premium plays nicely with all major smart home platforms and even less popular ones like IFTT. However, it lacks Matter support which means you can't integrate it across ecosystems simultaneously. It still has a leg up on the newest Nest thanks to its versatile smart home features, like displaying a live feed of your video doorbell and acting as a smart speaker support.

Nest Learning Thermostat 4th Gen vs Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium: Which is best?

Both of these flagship thermostats will automate your climate controls to keep you comfortable and save money. They can monitor air quality, show you the forecast, and even ship with temperature sensors to boot. Plus they both look damn good doing so. It comes down to what features you want out of your smart thermostat experience.

Ecobee's hook is its versatile all-in-one smart home functionality. Whether you view your video doorbell feed or use the built-in smart speaker to control your home, the Ecobee Premium aims to be more than an excellent smart thermostat. But that begs the question how often are you standing over your thermostat to use it as a smart home command center?

The newest Nest Learning Thermostat looks better, knows more about the environment, and has Matter built-in to age or transition between smart home platforms with ease over time. It's a smart thermostat first and doesn't forget it, but it misses out on occupancy-detecting motion sensors to make routines even smarter and doesn't offer as much of a smart display-like experience. It costs more upfront, but you'll get that back in energy savings over time when it's capable of doing things like automatically adjusting your climate controls to let the sun heat up your home naturally.

More from Tom's Guide

• Nest Learning Thermostat (4th Gen) hands-on review
• Best smart thermostats
• Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium review