SwitchBot Curtain and essential accessories
We live in Southern California and get the late afternoon sun into our bedroom through large sliding glass doors. While this is awesome in the winter months
when the temperatures are reasonable and the light is limited, it is unbearable in the summer when the
bedroom heats up like an oven and then we try to go to sleep. We would rather not turn on the AC while the rest of the house is relatively cool. This is our story of how we solved our annoying summer sleep problem.
We were not financially compensated for this post and the samples were provided to us for review purposes. The opinions are completely our own based on our experience with the products.
Our Story
We had been looking at curtains, shades, blinds and other window coverings to mount on the inside of the doors to fix the problem. Our manual, insultated
shades worked OK when we were around to lower them early enough to block
the afternoon sun, but the bedroom still became pretty warm as the shades are on the inside and the afternoon sun heated the shades.
BUT WHAT IF we could put them on the outside and block the sun's rays before they even got through the windows?
First though - an awnings! but after some research, it would only be a slight improvement unless we wanted to pay an arm and a leg to have automated ones.
Then, while walking past a pair of some $16 outdoor sunblock curtains at Costco, an idea formed. WHAT IF we installed these curtains on the outside of the windows and got the SwitchBot Curtain Motor we had seen on YouTube late one night while venturing down a home automation rabbit hole?
We bought the Costco sunblocking curtains and one SwitchBot Curtain (rod version) to test it out. We had an extra indoor curtain rod
that was just long enough when fully extended to work outside the
double sliding glass doors, hung the curtains and hooked up a single SwitchBot Curtain. It worked after spending just 15 minutes configuring and testing the
little robot. We started by programming the bot with timers that closed the curtains in the early afternoon and opened them in time to enjoy the sunset.
It seemed that we were off to a great
start...for a couple of weeks.
As with all quick fix projects, we ran into challenges we hadn't considered. Southern California is pretty dry most of the year and
the bot is up under an overhang so it wouldn't get wet if we did get rain. Which we did one night - a heavy rainstorm that put our bot to the test. The bot was fine, but the curtains got
wet and heavy, and the rod ended up slippery in the moist air - the little SwitchBot Curtain bot was in over it's head and really struggled to pull the wet double curtain across the 3 yard span.
The rod was also bowing in the middle from the weight of the curtains and this also created a literal uphill battle for the robot when it got past the midpoint on the rod.
Back to the drawing board we went and installed a second SwitchBot to share the load. This time they were each assigned one window to manage and this has worked perfectly since. We also replaced
the rod with a heavier duty plastic covered, metal rod meant for hanging clothes (in walk in closets) that we got at Lowe's for a few dollars.
Since this installation was now working perfectly, it was time to hook this up to our extensive home automation setup. We currently use SmartThings for automation, Hue for lighting and Google Nest hubs for voice control.
The SwitchBot curtain cannot communicate to any external automation systems and this was the first real weakness we ran into. We had to install the SwitchBot Hub to get it to talk to the rest of the world.
The hub itself also has one big limitation in that it needs to be very close to the robot it controls. Since our SwitchBots are outside, this meant that the hub needed to be right inside the sliding glass doors to work. Not a deal breaker for us.
Next, we installed a temperature sensor from SwitchBot inside the windows that allowed us to only close the curtains when the temperature rose over a set limit. We changed it from being time driven
to being temperature driven so that on cloudy days we could still enjoy the view.
We thought we were all set - an inexpensive (compared to AC cost) and automated solution to our summer sun problem. But we needed a few more tweaks.
Trying to use the SwitchBot Hub to close the curtains when the temperature rose worked only about every second day so it was highly unreliable.
We also purchased the remote control button so we could manually open or close the curtains off schedule. Each button can only control one action per button, so we can only use it to open and close one of the curtains. You can technically pair the two curtains to act as one, so it
could control them as pair but we chose to keep them independent so we can ask "Google" to open Curtain Right or Curtain Left only.
In the end, we settled on connecting the SwitchBot system to SmartThings and let the reliable automation there take over.
Now it works perfectly. When the temperature in the windowsill goes above 80 degrees Fahrenheit, the outside curtains close and then open up again 30 minutes before sunset so we can enjoy the last part of the evening light.
The curtain also closes at 5am just before it gets light outside and then opens gradually to wake us up with the morning light at a more reasonable time than the actual sunrise.
The Gist
We are extremely happy with the SwitchBot Curtain bots we have and after we added the solar panels to them, we have not even had to recharge the batteries (without them you would need a charge every few months)
The rest of the components have some limitations and could have been executed better, but if integrated with an external automation system like SmartThings to control the functionality, is a great option and has made a big difference to our mornings
and given us cooler summer evenings in our bedroom.
GistGear awards the SwitchBot Curtain 6 (out of 6).
But some of the supporting automation components need upgrades to be on par with others out there.
SwitchBot Website