ecobee is a Toronto-based smart thermostat and home-monitoring maker, operated since December 2021 as a subsidiary of Generac Holdings (NYSE: GNRC), which acquired it in a transaction announced at up to US$770 million. Its thermostats and remote SmartSensors collect temperature, humidity, HVAC runtime, and motion/occupancy data; the mobile app can collect device identifiers, precise location, and Bluetooth data; camera products store audio and video in the cloud for 30 days; and voice-enabled models listen for wake words and transmit recordings to Amazon or Apple voice services. ecobee's privacy notice states it may be considered to be "selling" or "sharing" personal information because of third-party advertising and analytics cookies and its disclosure of certain product user data to third parties for their own marketing purposes, and its utility demand-response programs (eco+ Community Energy Savings) involve forwarding contact and purchase information to utility program administrators. The company also runs an opt-in, anonymized Donate Your Data research program, has no widely reported data breaches, and reportedly refused a 2021 Amazon demand for continuous device-state data.
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ecobee's Categories of Personal Information table (November 2024) confirms it collects precise geolocation data about individuals or devices, with disclosure permitted to affiliates, advisors, regulators, and — for cookie-collected data — analytics providers and advertising networks.
Mozilla's Privacy Not Included review of the ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium describes the personal information the device and account can gather, including online identifiers, location information, and characteristics the thermostat learns about the home such as thermal and olfactory information.
ecobee's privacy notice states that its products collect environmental and operational data such as thermostat runtime and temperature setpoints, that some models additionally collect motion-based "occupancy sensing" data, and that products may also collect data from remote sensors placed around the home.
Generac Holdings Inc. (NYSE: GNRC) closed its acquisition of ecobee Inc. on December 1, 2021, per the announcement published in ecobee's own newsroom; the transaction terms were first announced November 1, 2021.
Generac Holdings' annual report (Form 10-K for fiscal 2025, filed with the SEC on February 18, 2026) describes ecobee as the company's 2021 acquisition and the smart home energy management hub of Generac's residential ecosystem, making the parent's public filings a primary record of ecobee's ownership.
ecobee's current Terms of Service (last updated March 24, 2026, published on its Privacy Notice & Legal page) identify the operating company as Generac Power Systems, Inc., together with affiliates and subsidiaries including ecobee Technologies ULC, documenting the Generac ownership relationship in ecobee's own legal terms.
ecobee's Community Energy Savings program page documents the utility demand-response arrangement users enroll in through eco+: after a user selects their utility provider and applies to a program in the ecobee app, grid-peak events trigger adjustments to the user's thermostat, with in-app notification and per-event opt-out.
ecobee operates an opt-in "Donate Your Data" program under which participating users' thermostat data is shared with academic and scientific researchers, and states that the data is anonymized before sharing; the program spans more than 200,000 homes.
ecobee's privacy notice states that under U.S. state privacy laws it may be considered to be "selling" or "sharing" personal information, both because of third-party advertising and analytics cookies on its websites and because it discloses certain ecobee product user data to third parties for those parties' own marketing purposes.
In April 2021, reporting on a Wall Street Journal investigation described Amazon pressuring ecobee to provide continuous "proactive state" data from its Alexa-enabled devices even when customers were not using the voice assistant; ecobee refused despite reported threats to its Prime Day access and future Alexa certification.
Mozilla's Privacy Not Included review (November 2023) rates ecobee's known track record of protecting user data as "Average," reporting no known privacy or security incidents in the prior three years, and finds the product meets Mozilla's Minimum Security Standards, including encryption and a bug bounty program.
ecobee's Categories of Personal Information table states that it collects internet-activity "Usage Data" including browsing history, clickstream data, and search history, and lists advertising networks, analytics providers, and social media platforms among recipients, limited to data collected via cookies and other website tracking tools.
ecobee's privacy notice discloses that its website uses Mouseflow, a third-party analytics tool that tracks page content and click/touch, movement, scroll, and keystroke activity, alongside Google Analytics and third-party advertising cookies for which NAI/DAA opt-outs are offered.