The 'golden age' of the smart home, with ecobee CEO Greg Fyke

This episode explores the advancements and the future of smart home technology with ecobee CEO Greg Fyke.

1. Ecobee pioneered the smart thermostat, setting a foundation for its broader smart home technology ambitions.
2. The company focuses on creating seamless, intuitive user experiences across its product range.
3. AI and machine learning are integral to ecobee’s strategy, enabling smarter home automation that anticipates and adapts to user behaviors.
4. Ecobee’s integration with Generac opens new avenues for advanced energy management and resilience solutions.
5. The company maintains a strong commitment to sustainability, enhancing energy efficiency and reducing environmental impact through its products.

1: Introduction to ecobee and Smart Home Evolution

Greg Fyke discusses ecobee's foundational role in the smart home industry and its focus on comfort and security. Greg Fyke: "We started with the smart thermostat, and now we’re expanding to create a holistic smart home environment."

2: Enhancing Home Automation with AI

Exploration of how AI and machine learning are employed to improve home automation, making homes smarter and more responsive to resident behaviors. Greg Fyke: "Our systems learn your preferences to pre-adjust home environments like heating and security settings."

3: Ecobee and Generac: Pioneering Energy Solutions

Discussion on the synergy between ecobee and Generac in driving forward smart energy solutions and resilience against climate-related challenges. Greg Fyke: "Combining our technologies with Generac’s expertise, we are uniquely positioned to manage home energy needs more effectively."

1. Consider Smart Home Technologies: Start by integrating smart devices like thermostats or doorbells that can automate daily tasks.
2. Focus on Energy Efficiency: Choose products that not only enhance convenience but also contribute to energy savings.
3. Adopt AI Enhancements: Look for devices that use AI to adapt to your lifestyle, improving comfort and efficiency.
4. Plan for Home Security: Invest in smart security systems that integrate seamlessly with other home automation systems.
5. Stay Informed on Innovations: Keep up with the latest developments in smart home technology to continuously improve your home setup.

Greg Fyke is president and CEO of ecobee, the Toronto-based smart home company known for its pioneering smart thermostat and a growing ecosystem of devices, including security systems and smart doorbells.

A former Amazon Alexa executive, he’s personally based in Seattle, exemplifying how remote work has transformed the geography of the tech industry. Fyke succeeded ecobee founder Stuart Lombard as the company's CEO last fall upon Lombard's retirement.

On this episode of the GeekWire Podcast, Fyke discusses the emerging "golden age" of smart home technology; ecobee's focus on simplicity, long-term functionality, and integration across ecosystems; its competition with Amazon and Google; and its approach to automation and artificial intelligence.

Other topics include ecobee's November 2021 acquisition by Generac, and their broader focus on energy management solutions, leveraging components like home batteries, solar energy, and intelligent control systems.

People

Greg Fyke

Companies

ecobee, Generac

Books

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Guest Name(s):

Greg Fyke

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Todd Bishop
When you look at what Ecobee is facing in the market, I mean, you are competing against two giants in Google and Amazon. Or am I sort of overstating the difficulty of that? I mean, what is it like to compete against those two? Well, there's certainly big companies, no question of that for sure. One of the benefits we have is this is our core business.

Greg Fike
This is what we do. This is what we get up in the morning, we think about this all day. We go to sleep thinking about this. And I think that focus and attention is allowing us to, I think, make some really smart choices.

Todd Bishop
Welcome to Geekwire. I'm Geekwire co founder Todd Bishop. We are coming to you from Seattle, where we get to report each day on what's happening around us in business, technology and innovation. What happens here matters everywhere. And every week on this show, we get to talk about some of the most interesting stories and trends in the news.

I'm pleased to be joined in the Geekwire offices here this week by Greg Fike. He is the president and CEO of ecobee, the smart home technology company that's been a longtime pioneer in the space. Greg, it's great to have you here. Thanks, Todd. It's great to be here.

One of the reasons why we're able to meet in person is that you're actually based in Seattle. Ecobee is a Toronto based company, but you get to run the company from Seattle. And before we jump into the ins and outs of smart home tech, I'd just be curious, how did a person in Seattle end up running ecobee as president and CEO? Yeah, that's a great question. I do spend quite a bit of my time still in Toronto and love spending my time there.

Greg Fike
I think my paths crossed early on with Stuart, who was our founder, and we ultimately found a path to make this work, to get this started. It was actually during the time period of COVID that was obviously a challenging time for many. But one of the benefits from our perspective is it really allowed us to learn how to remotely. And so I think in part, it really forced us to be in a position where we were able to make decisions more remote. We document a lot more, and as a result, we've also been able to hire remotely as well.

And it's been great from a talent acquisition perspective. It's made working from Seattle and leading from Seattle a lot easier, for sure. Well, it's interesting because one of the reasons you are here is that you previously worked on the Alexa business with Amazon prior to joining Ecobee. But before we get into all the ins and outs of the. And I do want to ask you a little bit later on about the competition with two big industry giants, Google and Amazon.

Todd Bishop
Can you just give me a sense for the overall state of smart home technology? I've been spending so much of my time focusing over the past year, to my detriment in some cases on generative AI, that I feel like the cool, fun stuff in the home that I used to pay a lot of attention to and really try out on my own has kind of gone stagnant in my own mind and in my own living room and kitchen. So what is the current state of smart home technology? Yeah, I think I've been in the smart home industry for probably the better part of 20 years, and I've seen a lot. It feels to me that we are entering into a bit of a golden age, though, relative to the smart home we now have.

Greg Fike
I think, just incredible choice as customers through, I think, where we are in terms of the lifecycle of the smart home, it's also become more affordable in many different ways. The diversity of ability to control things is immense. Now, obviously, we focus a lot on comfort, but it goes all the way through to controlling your irrigation systems. One of the things through a lot of this time, and also with the advent of AI, is we're getting to a point where things actually are a lot smarter and truly delivering a smarter home. I think it's one of the areas that we really focus on is trying to make things very simple to use.

And I think we're finally at that stage where you can purchase these products, you can install them, we make the installation really simple to do as well. They just work. One of the things that we obviously focus on, of course, is not just working, but working over the long term and being built to last. Let's get into some of the nitty gritty of what Ecobee offers. I know you started with the smart thermostat and were the first company to come out with the smart thermostat long before Nest came out and really captured a lot of attention for it.

Todd Bishop
I know that a lot of the things you do are automated to your point of AI really working for you, or technology really working for you. Can you give me a sense for the breadth of the technology and product portfolio of ecobee today? Yeah, of course. So we've been, I think, for the most part, as a company focusing on comfort. So if, you know, think about Ecobee.

Greg Fike
A lot of people know us for our thermostats, and I think what's really exciting about our thermostats is that they are really 24/7 connected, programmable touchscreens, if you really think at its core, that happen to control h vac equipment. And so what we've more recently expanded into is like, what are the things we can do with our thermostat products to deliver more value in the home? And one of our first four, we launched a smart doorbell in October of last year. And I think if you look at the core philosophies there, much like our thermostat, we wanted to make it easy to use. We did focus on the ability to see head to toe, so you can actually see packages at your front door.

But then one of the more novel features that we incorporated in this idea of making these products work more seamlessly together is the ability to see who's at your door from your thermostat. Your thermostat also then doubles now as a keypad for security. And then from, like, the automation and AI elements, we have the ability to automatically disarm or arm your home based on your location. I think one of the greatest things, and my wife will attest to this, is that when you're coming home with groceries in hand or kids and you're getting home and your home is armed, it's magic that it actually disarms and you just walk in even better when your door unlocks at the same time. Kind of that simple type of a solution.

Todd Bishop
Almost like a proximity sensor on a key fob on a car. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And so, security, I'd say, is kind of that next core area that we've been focusing on and seeking to deliver. But it's more than that, too.

Greg Fike
If you look at our sensors, we've been known for having a room sensor that allows you to maintain comfort across multiple areas of your home. And it's a, follow me. Very clever in that. Like, if you're in a bedroom and you want that to be at the right temperature, your sensor can optimize the temperature for that room, but they now double as occupancy sensors for that same security system. And the door and window sensors we have, they double both to protect your entrances, but also if you leave a door window open that's connected, it'll shut off your h vac equipment.

So providing that really, really kind of seamless experience for our customers. So you're not air conditioning or heating the outdoors. Exactly, that's right. Yeah. It's saving energy, it's keeping your home safe, and it's better for the planet.

Todd Bishop
So where does all that head in the age of AI? Because I can imagine beyond just simple machine learning. You know, if window is open, turn off h vac, and maybe that's not even machine learning. That might just be simple, you know, programming, but I can imagine that it might get into predictive types of things. You know, we know that Greg likes to do this in the evening, and so therefore we're going to.

Oh, we know that Greg likes to go into his garage and play music at this time of day. Very true. And so therefore, we're going to make sure that the garage is heated for his jam sessions five minutes before he typically joins. I mean, are we headed in that kind of direction? Yeah, absolutely.

Greg Fike
And we already are there to some extent to date. I mean, if you look at even what we do, which I can speak more to, the heating and cooling in your home is something that we can learn over time, and that affords us to understand the heating and cooling profile of your home, which then allows us to make sure that when you want the temperature to be at a certain point in time, we can preheat or pre cool so that it is actually at that temperature when you want it to be. And so that's kind of a key thing. And then also the other thing relative to you kind of mentioned your behaviors or habits. We have the ability to understand your schedule and whether or not you're changing the temperature over like a regular cadence.

And if we find that there's a pattern that's developing over time, we'll send you a way of actually enacting those changes within your schedule. But I think one of the important distinctions of what we do and kind of a core philosophy is we do believe that automations are great, but you don't want them to be surprising. You don't want them to do things that you don't anticipate. And so we do this transparently so that you're aware of that recommendation, and it's ultimately your choice, giving agency to make that decision if you wish to change the schedule. Do I understand correctly that the Ecobee smart thermostat can double as a smart speaker?

Yes. So does that work where, like, you can interact with it verbally or how does that actually work? So we do have a set of products. As of today, our smart thermostat premium includes a microphone and actually a smart speaker as well. It supports not just integration with your standard ecosystems, like the Google and Alexa and Apple ecosystems, but more importantly, it also supports built in voice control with Alexa as well as Siri.

It also has integration with Spotify, so you can actually play music on that device as well. It was a bit surprising to us because we were really excited about being able to add again yet another feature. But the usage of that surprised us in terms of our customer base. And if you think about it, that thermostat on the wall in many places can be a great place to add music to a space, and it's now part of that product. How's the quality of the speaker?

It's surprisingly good. Yeah, it's not probably the same as a hi fi system, but for ambient music, it's fantastic. So, Greg, this gets into some of the interesting things about interoperability and all of those areas in terms of the larger smart home landscape. And I want to talk about that when we come back. You're listening to geekwire and we'll be right back.

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Todd Bishop
Welcome back. It's Todd Bishop. You're listening to the Geekwire podcast and my guest this week is Greg Fike, president and CEO of ecobee. So Greg, I am probably an opportunity for you at your company. I represent an opportunity in that I've been just sort of sucked into this ecosystem of Amazon and Google.

I have a ring system because I have an echo show. I have an echo show because I was a longtime Amazon customer and obviously still am. You know, I use nest smoke alarms just because they were the easiest to implement. And I liked the idea of, you know, waving my hand in front of them to shut them off when I burn something on the stove. What is the current situation for interoperability in the industry and as it relates to your products?

For example, could I seamlessly incorporate a smart thermostat from Ecobee into my system at my house, just as one hypothetical example? Yeah, I think I'd say, like, within the industry overall, it's still mixed. I think that there's interoperability, I think remains challenging in certain areas, but it's gotten a lot better and I think it's progressively getting better as well. As a company, we foundly believe in customer choice. And so I think if you look at, we are one of if not one of the only companies that really has a support for the whole broad set of ecosystems in the space that we're in.

Greg Fike
We have smartthings, the Alexa, Google and Apple products, and we do so because we know that customers have different homes and have different products in their homes. And so we want to make it really easy to incorporate those other products in your home into, again, a seamless experience. What would be the process of me incorporating like a thermostat into something like an echo show or doing some sort of controls? I mean, would that still be pretty tough at this point? It's pretty easy to do.

So we do have the ability through our own app to do linking. And so there's, after you've registered our products and got them up and running, which again, we try to make that super simple to do as well, I'd say we pride ourselves on making the installation process as simple as possible. We know that's typically a very daunting point to install these products, and we make it easy. But once you've done that, you can go in and actually just link that device with the ecosystem of your choice. There's a very simple menu to do.

You click it, it brings you through an onboarding process to connect your device. And once you've done that, it's part of that system. As we mentioned at the beginning, you were previously an executive working on Amazon's Alexa business. Correct. So you have an inside view of what it's like to have worked at Amazon and other companies before you came to Ecobee.

Todd Bishop
But when you look at what Ecobee is facing in the market, I mean, you are competing against two giants in Google and Amazon. Or am I sort of overstating the difficulty of that? I mean, what is it like to compete against those two? Well, there are certainly big companies, no question of that for sure. I think one of the benefits we have is this is our core business.

Greg Fike
This is what we do, this is what we get up in the morning, we think about this all day, we go to sleep thinking about this. I think that focus and attention is allowing us to, I think, make some really smart choices. I think the focus we have in really delivering this idea of these great seamless experiences across comfort and security. And I'd love to talk to you about what we're doing with generac as well, which kind of ties into resiliency. It affords us to create experiences that really resonate.

We listen immensely. I actually wake up in the morning and look at custom reviews and reports. My team does as well, and so we really take that kind of customer focus to heart, and I think that's then evidence through the products that we do. And I'd say another call out. I'd say that if you look at the feedback about our customer support, it's an area that I think it's really a core strength.

I think part of, as I mentioned, installation is a challenging process, but when you can, make sure that you are there to help, when that help is needed, and do so with human interaction, where it makes sense, we're there for you. It's interesting, to your point of being able to focus, when you were describing earlier the way that the smart thermostat can do voice commands and act as a bit of a smart speaker in some ways, I was thinking, you have the luxury, and correct me if I'm wrong, but you have the luxury of not having to worry about competing with chat GPT and merely being able to, I say merely, but being able to focus on using voice commands and that kind of interaction to the benefit of the actual product experience that you have. Yeah. Unlike Alexa. Absolutely.

I think that there's a lot of interesting things happening out with large language models and kind of chat GPT and the advancements that we're seeing there. And it's incredible. But I think a lot of that is actually kind of inherently comes back to the benefit through the ecosystems that we support. You mentioned generac earlier, and that's a leading energy technology company that acquired Ecobee. And that's interesting in part because you've got all of these sort of energy efficiency plays and different things that you can do.

Todd Bishop
And let's actually talk about that when we come back. You're listening to Geekwire, and we will be right back.

Welcome back. It's Todd Bishop. I'm speaking this week with Greg Fike. He is the CEO and president of Ecobee. You've been doing this now for about.

Greg Fike
Eight months in this role since November. Since November. Prior to that, you were chief product officer. Correct. And you took over for Stuart Lombard, who was one of the founders.

Todd Bishop
He was the founder, was the founder of the company. And he's still involved to some extent. As I understand it, involved in the sense that I still will call on him and speak on him. He's not at Ecobee anymore, but I think he's enjoying his retirement. Oh, that's great.

Okay, so you, as we've said, are based here in the Seattle area, in part because your family's here and you get to stay here and run the company. But make frequent trips to Toronto. But let's talk about Generac. This is a technology company, energy technology company that acquired Ecobee. Tell me about what that structure is like.

First of all, are you a subsidiary of that company? Effectively, yes. I think of us as a business group within the broader portfolio of Generac. More specifically, there's a new branch within generac that really is focused on the clean energy space which we are part of. So when you look at the broader strategy of Ecobee within Generac, what does that status as being part of generac unlock for Ecobee long term?

If you can talk about it in the abstract, at least, to best answer. That, I think I need to maybe reflect on kind of what's happening right now out there in the world. And I think that if you look at, there's some really core challenges that we're seeing right now as it relates to energy, as it relates to climate, as it relates to what we're seeing in terms of increased weather patterns. And that also is coupled with a general both drive from a regulatory perspective, but also innovations towards the demand for greater electricity. If you think about what's happening with respect to electric vehicles, for example, and EV charging, you have now a lot of increased demands in the grid and it's going to increase over time, in part to some counterbalance this, you have renewables and so you've got solar and wind storage coming on.

Greg Fike
But if you think about those sources of energy, they provide the promise of a much cleaner set of energy, but they're also less deterministic. You can't determine necessarily when it's going to sun or when the wind is going to blow, that leads to, I'd say an increased need for control and kind of management of complexity. And so wherever that combination of generac and ecobee comes in becomes very, very powerful. Because if you look at the combined entities, it brings together both an incredibly intelligent control system for the home, your smart home, but also all of the assets to provide this great energy management system. So home batteries, the electric vehicle chargers in the future, solar, and of course the generic has had for a very long time portable as well as home standby generators to provide that of resilient solution.

If you think about the changes in demand in energy and the need to be able to manage that and to be able to do so cost effectively, we have this ability uniquely. I think we may be the only company right now that brings all of these assets together to be able to manage this in an intelligent way that ultimately provides customers with lower costs but ultimately provides that third benefit of resiliency. When we know definitively that when the power goes out, you want to make sure the lights stay on. So if you think about what Ecobee does within the home to date, and we have the ability to offset your heating and cooling to ultimately reduce peak load demands on the grid, you can apply that same principle to what you might see within the home. And so if you are a customer that now has a battery in your home, and I.

There is a, you know, a storm that is present, or there's a risk of a power failure, we can intelligently ensure that your battery is charged and pre charged. And in the event that there is a power failure, we can then intelligently reduce your heating and cooling to extend the life of that battery so that you're again, resilient, protected, safe in your home, and the lights stay on a lot longer. How do you see that bigger vision? Cause that's really cool. Solar panels, storage, batteries in the home.

Todd Bishop
I mean, super exciting. I'm not a prepper necessarily, but, like, this whole idea of just being self sufficient is kind of cool, especially in this world that we're living in with global warming, it's kind of interesting to think about, how does that world integrate with the existing world of Ecobee? I touched on this a bit, but I use the phrase that our thermostats are these programmable touchscreens. And so if you think about the opportunity we have to make that product become a lot more than just simply a thermostat, it's endless. And we're just getting started.

Greg Fike
The idea being is that we can actually add new capabilities and features that allow you to understand energy consumption in your home, to control it, to understand it again, to make choices, and to be all at the fingertips of that interface, which is traditionally your thermostat. Can you tell me a little bit more about your own setup? To the extent that you feel comfortable sharing, I'm sure you've got plenty of Ecobee devices in your house, and it's probably like a bit of a lab. Like, I know a lot of executives homes are when they're in this space. But can you give me a sense for something that you might be doing with some of the products that you're using, whether Ecobee or others, that people might learn from or be inspired by?

I mean, I certainly have the whole suite of products of Ecobee and many others, of course. I mean, what I would touch on, I think, is, like, many of the things that I've talked about are you a direct benefit to me and my family. I think I have a couple of teenagers, and I can't tell you it's not the first time that the door has been left open or a window has been left open when the H vac has been running. And I now have confidence and comfort that we're not trying to heat and cool the outside. I think one of the interesting things that I'm doing beyond our own ecosystem as well is that I'm proud owner of an August lock.

I think that is a really nice, seamless integration between what we do there, because with our doorbell camera, that's the front door. If I have one of my kids that's come home that's forgotten their keys, I can unlock the door remotely as well so I can see them. I can talk to them through the Ecobee smart doorbell and unlock it through the august lock. I know that Ecobee is in the process of, if not already, implementing the matter standard for interoperability for people who aren't familiar with that. Can you just explain how that works, why it matters?

Todd Bishop
Sorry. And sort of what that means for interoperability between these different ecosystems of devices? Yeah, I think it's a really, really exciting development in standards. And so, I mean, matter really is about trying to create that unified experience across the smart home. And I think there's been a lot of really great work to kind of realize that.

Greg Fike
I think there's still some more work to go to actually get there. But the idea of matter is really to make it such that when you purchase any product in a store, you have greater confidence that it's going to work anywhere. I think the way that we've approached it to date is that, like I said earlier, we do and have invested in providing support across all the major ecosystems. And so to a very large extent, it doesn't matter. And the way being there is that because of that diversity of support, you have very high confidence that anything that you have that supports one of the ecosystems will then kind of integrate as well and be able to be consistently integrated with our products as well.

To the extent of future matter support. We're obviously proponents of the direction of that. The key thing there is that we really seek to release things based on customer feedback and where we can ultimately unlock new value. I think the part for us is really trying to identify that next feature or something we can do more above and beyond what we are doing to date that would then be driven by the matter standard. I'm really curious in this realm, especially as we talk about the competition with some of the other companies out there, and I realize you're not the CMO and you were the chief product officer before, but especially in your role as CEO, how do you break through?

Todd Bishop
What is that marketing challenge like for you? Yeah, I think it's a great one. I think a couple of things we are actually investing in highlighting some of the great work that we're doing actively right now. Actually, you can see some of the, our new campaign in theaters in certain locations as well. But in addition to that, I think one of the things that we relied on and continue to rely on is word of mouth.

Greg Fike
I think one of the great things about Ecobee is the loyalty within the brand. Customers love the work that we do, and I think from that, and we take great pride in that and we don't take that lightly. But what it leads to is a lot of recommendations that come from our customers that lead to the next customer. And I think it's incredibly powerful a tool for us. And you're on the Geekwire podcast.

Yes, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. There's some great smart home technology podcasts and videos that you've been on. There was a great one that you were on that I'll link to from the show notes.

Todd Bishop
It was with Andrew from Homekit Insider. He did a great job of. Yeah, absolutely. And he's an ecobee user, too. He is, again, super thankful for that.

Greg Fike
A great example again of like a customer. And I think he had great things to say about us and super thankful for that as well. Well, Greg Fike, the CEO of ecobee, thank you very much for showing up here in person and talking to us about the company. Thanks so much, Todd. Thank you for listening to Geekwire.

Todd Bishop
This podcast was edited by Kurt Milton. I'm Geekwire co founder Todd Bishop. We'll be back next week with a new episode of the Geekwire podcast.