SwitchBot Curtain Smart Electric Motor - Wireless App or Automate Timer Control, Use SwitchBot Hub Mini to be Compatible with Alexa, Google Home, HomePod, IFTTT (U-Rail, Black)

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App control was slightly less reliable through the Hub Mini, however. Quite a few times, I’d have the app saying that it couldn’t communicate with the SwitchBot Curtain and would have to retry; it would always work at the second attempt, though. Conclusion I have various types of blinds and curtains in my home, the most common being beaded chain roller curtains (controlled with Aqara E1). Now I’m thinking I should switch to drapes and use the SwitchBot Curtain 3 everywhere instead. It’s so quiet! Cleverly, Scenes can be restricted to only run between certain times, so you won’t have curtains open in the middle of the night. Another interesting feature that you can turn on/off in the app is the Touch & Go setting which is basically a manual switch. As soon as the Curtain 3 senses you’ve pulled the drapes for over 5cm, it will automatically open or close them depending on the current position. Home Assistant Integration And finally we create a cover entity to bring all of those components together. The cover entity calls the script and passes in the requested position. Because the SwitchBot API is actually expecting a value which is inverse to that used by Home Assistant, we just do a bit of maths to calculate the correct position value. The cover entity gets the current position from the position sensor we created earlier, but filtering out any values above 95 as 100, and below 5 as 0. Restart everything just to make sure it’s all created and you’ll be good to go! You can use your new cover entity on your dashboard, and even share to HomeKit / Alexa so as you can control it that way. cover:

However, this may not be that useful. After all, walking into a room, pulling out your phone, opening the app and then closing or opening your curtains is actually more difficult and time-consuming than simply walking over to them and opening/closing them manually. Provided you have the SwitchBot Curtain installed correctly, and it isn’t too tight, it works brilliantly. There’s a pitched whine to the motors as they power your curtains open or closed, but the system worked flawlessly for me over a period of weeks. The QuietDrift mode is extremely quiet at the price of battery life and speed. It’s hard to actually put a noise level to it, you basically hear nothing! The drape rings moving and creating noise is what you will hear, not the SwitchBot Curtain 3. This mode is great for opening the curtains in the morning when you are asleep. You might get a little overwhelmed when looking at all the things inside the box, but it’s actually really simple to install. If you get the solar panel too, it’s even simpler as you do not need to charge the device with an USB-C cable. The better method is to just automatically schedule your curtains to open and close at preferred times. There’s also a light-detection mode to trigger automatic opening when it identifies a certain level of illumination, but this feature is still in beta and did not work well for me.But let’s pretend for a minute that you actually have a use-case for QuietDrift – if you are also using Home Assistant and Matter, then you won’t be able to make use of QuietDrift that way. You can use the SwitchBot automations if you like, but if you prefer to use Home Assistant automations then you’ll need to use the SwitchBot API. Using the SwitchBot Remote was the preferred method of interaction. Thanks to the direct Bluetooth connection between the Remote and SwitchBot Curtain, I never encountered any issues with the system failing to respond. The installation is super easy and took me maybe 5minutes, including wrapping the connector rod. The included beads fixer can be used to even out the distance between the ring in grommet curtains. I did not do this, since the bot operated without them just fine. After the pathetic first attempt at opening my curtains, I tried refitting the SwitchBot. I placed one on the right curtain and one on the left. There's a kind of ratcheting arm that goes over the curtain rod, with little wheels on the inside, and you clamp it on the rod between the first and second curtain rings. (You can also get SwitchBots that work with U Rail and I Rail curtains.) The app isn't the most intuitive software I’ve ever used, but I eventually discovered a Silent option in the Motion Mode settings. “Silent” is an exaggeration, but it does run much quieter. It's a trade-off, because it runs much slower and opens the curtains only about halfway. Still, it does encourage me to get out of bed rather than doomscroll for half an hour.

I use all SwitchBot devices with Home Assistant, if you are interested in digging deep into their ecosystem and HA Integration, here are a few of my articles: The SwitchBot Curtain 3 is a next generation curtain controller which is advertised as being extremely low noise yet twice as powerful as it’s predecessor, the Curtain 2. It ships with an optional Solar Panel 3, which is supposed to provide “unlimited power” to the curtain bot, whose battery should last up to 8 months on a single charge otherwise. If you want remote control, you need to install the SwitchBot Hub Mini, which can also act as an IR transmitter if you want to control practically any device, from a TV to air-con. With the Hub installed, your SwitchBot Curtain will automatically communicate with this device (provided it’s within Bluetooth range). That gives you remote control over your curtains, including scheduling. To house the batteries and a motor powerful enough to move a set of curtains, SwitchBot Curtain is rather large (116 x 65 x 51mm). Its clip slides up and then you squeeze the top to ratchet the motor into place. It’s important that you only clip the SwitchBot Curtain into place to the point it feels secure; squeeze it too hard and it won’t move. It wouldn’t be a true SmartHomeScene review if the device isn’t dismantled, no matter what kind it is. The SwitchBot Curtain Rod 3 ships in a branded box containing the main unit, a pair of hooks, beads chain, some clips, USB-C cable, magnet attachment for positioning and a user manual.The SwitchBot Curtain 3 is the quietest curtain motor out there, without a doubt. The trademarked QuietDrift mode produces virtually no noise at the expense of battery life and speed. Depending on your windows, you can simply get the solar panel combo and not worry about battery ever again. Take a closer look at the ‘parameter’ value – the number ‘1’ means that QuietDrift is enabled. If you don’t want to use QuietDrift, change this to ‘ff’. To be honest, if you don’t want to use QuietDrift then you are better off using Matter, but perhaps you have your reasons! Save your configuration and restart Home Assistant to make sure the REST command entity has been created.