HomeKit and Ecobee geofencing

Ecobee punted geofencing to HomeKit. Instead of just using the same “comfort settings from Ecobee, HomeKit requires you to create new automation scenes to match (sort of) what you’ve set up on the Ecobee. The only problem is that Apple and ecobee are not playing nice.

in the winter time, I set the thermostat to 68 for heating. So if the temperature in the house goes below 68 say 67, the furnace will come on. I’ve set up my away, comfort settings, to say that when I am away from the house, don’t turn on at 67, turn on when you reach 63. When I return, go back to 68, which means when the temp hits 67, it will heat again. So now it’s summer, and I decided to just turn off the thermostat. Unfortunately, every time I leave the house, HomeKit changes the thermostat to heating at 63, so when I return, the heat is back on, instead of, just leaving it off. So how do I get HomeKit to realize that if the thermostats not on (that is the hvac is off), don’t turn it on, don’t do anything?

If I try to go to auto, meaning that it will heat up if the internal temperature is less than the heat. And cool down. If it’s more than the cool, this seems to cause problems back-and-forth between HomeKit and ecobee. I get stupid messages about exceeding the allowable temperature for the furnace, not to mention that I have no idea how to tell HomeKit how to differentiate between heating and cooling when I return.

I confirmed from the guy at ecobee that if you leave your system on auto, and you’re able to cool your house down in the night with say a Whole, house fan, then your furnace would actually turn on to bring the temperature back up to whatever your comfort setting is for heating. So I want to turn it off but all of this gets mucked up because of the Geo fencing that ecobee punted to Apple and Apple does a horrible job.

These so-called smart thermostats are starting to make me crazy! Any ideas, or something that I can read?

Thanks in advance.

DMW