The smart home company that takes robotics to places no one thought of has come up with a new invention. Today is the launch of the new SwitchBot Blind tilt, with orders expected to arrive before Christmas. It looks as bad as you would expect. It is a promising product that can be used to duplicate the benefits of smart shades.
It is a luxury to have automated motorized shades and blinds as they are very expensive, starting at around $300 to $400 per window. Energy savings, convenience, security, and smart lighting are some of the benefits.
Keeping your home well-lit, keeping out the hot sun, and keeping in the warm air can all be accomplished with smart blinds. It is possible to have them open and close on a schedule when you are away, and it is also possible to use them for people with mobility issues.
Since they don't need to replace your whole shade, retrofit solutions such as the SwitchBot Blind tilt are popular. They look a bit clunky.
The switchBot is a small motor that is attached to your blinds and can be used to tilt them open or closed based on a set schedule. There is a solar panel on the outside of the blind that powers the blind tilt. It has a 2,000mAh battery on the board that can be charged via a Type-Cusb cable, and it can be used to program and control the device.
It can be used with voice assistants such as Amazon'sAlexa and Apple'sSiri. It can be added to smart home routines to have your blinds open when you wake up.
The device can only be used with blinds that have an existing tilt wand. The wand has a motor attached that can be used to open and close it. You can set schedules and control your blinds with the SwitchBot app. If you want to connect to smart home platforms, you need a small hub.
Your blind has a wand. The image is of a switchBot.
There is a small motor that rotates the wand. The image is of a switchBot.
It isn't the first company to come out with a solution like this, but it is one of the cheapest. Somfy has a do-it-yourself solution called Clever. A more elegant solution is to remove the blinds and replace them with Somfy's motor.
It is currently on sale for $230 on Amazon. It comes with a remote control, but you have to use Somfy's Tahoma Gateway for those integrations.
A $199 retrofit kit for blinds and a bridge for control outside of the app are required. A bridge for smart home control is required for the $150 option called Soma tilt.
Smart shading is not an inexpensive proposition, and as inelegant as it is, SwitchBot's blind tilt looks like it will get the job done for less.
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