Ecobee thermostat

[signal15]

I looked at the Ecobee a couple of years back before the Nest was out, and it was expensive and not all that impressive.  I just looked at it again today, and it looks like it has all the features of the Nest, plus a lot more.  And they've dropped the price to compete with the Nest.
 
Anyone have one of these?  I'm thinking about buying two of them instead of getting Nests.  
 
http://www.amazon.com/ecobee-EB-STAT-02-Thermostat-Heat-2-Screen/dp/B004150PJG/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top
http://www.ecobee.com/
 
I noticed in one of the Amazon reviews, the guy said the Nest actually *increased* his gas usage, and the Ecobee reduced it by 30%.

 

[elvisimprsntr]

Nests are great. Simply turn off the learning mode and create your own schedule. I don't know anyone who has a predictable weekly schedule which the Nest or any learning TStat could use to optimize usage.

 

[signal15]

Nests are great. Simply turn off the learning mode and create your own schedule. I don't know anyone who has a predictable weekly schedule which the Nest or any learning TStat could use to optimize usage.

 
I know, I had a Nest.  I only had it on a single stage furnace and it worked fine.  Now I've got 2 dual stage furnaces and I want to link together settings, and be able to control staging.  The Nest doesn't have this option.  The Ecobee does have learning mode for the schedules, and the HomeIQ stuff looks nicer than the Nests reporting.
 
My brother got me one as a gift last week and I installed it.  The install is way more involved than the Nest, but still pretty easy.  There's a control box that mounts on the furnace, and you hook the box to the board on the furnace.  Then, only 4 wires are used for a serial bus to the thermostat.  The only thing I HATE about it is the resistive touchscreen.  What is this, 1996?  This new model just came out a couple of months ago, and I can't image it added that much more expense to put a decent capacitive touchscreen on it.  It works fine for regular button presses, but scrolling is one of the most frustrating experiences ever.  Luckily, once it's set up, there's really no need to use the scrolling menus, and much of it can be changed through the web interface.
 
It does give me a lot more control than my Nest did.  Still, no one makes a decent thermostat that will communicate with the furnace over the serial A/R/C/B wires.  Only one of my furnaces has this, but it's useful because the thermostat receives feedback from the furnace and can make adjustments accordingly.
 
Overall, I think it's a better solution for me than the Nest