The purpose of the MotionBlinds upgrade kit is to make your old roller blinds smart by adding a motor and a way to talk to your existing smart home setup. You will be able to add automations that close or open your blinds when doing so, which can save you energy, or you can just ask your phone or voice assistant to let some light in.
The company says that the device can be installed without any wiring or technical know-how, but you will have to charge it via the built-inusb-C port. The kit will allow it to fit into a wide range of roller blind tubes and the battery should last up to a year with regular use.
You will be able to control it via the Apple Home app or Eve's app, but it will connect to your home network via Thread eventually. If you want to get the most out of it, you will want a Thread border router. The upgrade kit will get an update to Matter which will allow it to be used on all major smart home platforms. The kit will be available at a discounted price.
It isn't cheap, but it's not like Eve has a lot of competition. According to the resident smart home expert of The Verge, retrofit blind motors are generally crappy and other premium options are even more expensive than Eve's offering.
Depending on where you live, the $259 tilt kit comes with solar charging capabilities, which means you won't have to refill the battery. If you go with the Eve, you'll get a pull chain for manual control when you don't want to use your phone.
The company is adding new options for people who want to buy custom blinds. Retailers like Blinds.com and Selectblinds.com will sell Venetian and honeycomb blinds with Eve's Motion Blinds tech built-in.
The larger announcement is that all Eve Blind Motions products will get Matter support in the first quarter of 2019. The company will ship its Eve Door and Window, Eve Energy, and Eve Motion devices with Matter out of the box, so you won't have to go through the painful process of updating them before they can use the standard. If you want to update your device to support Matter, you will have to use an Apple device.
According to the company, Eve's devices will work with all four major smart home platforms. The devices will be available on March 28.
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