SwitchBot Curtain Rod 2 review

Wish to management your curtains out of your smartphone or a distant management, however don’t wish to set up a brand-new motorised curtain pole that wants wiring into the mains or plugging right into a socket?   

Effectively, now you’ll be able to retrofit your present drapes with the Switchbot Curtain Rod 2, a smart-enabled gizmo that connects to your telephone through Bluetooth and closes or opens your curtains on the contact of a button, or through voice command if you wish to join it to the broader Switchbot universe. It’s an improve to the Curtain Rod, with a streamlined design and a repair for a number of the points with the unique.

Design and look

• Motor unit 11cm/ 4in x 4-5cm/2in x 4-5cm/2in
• Weighs 135g (0.3lbs)
• 3m (9.8ft) most runway

Within the field, you’ll get a white plastic unit containing a motor, with two clamps that hook over your curtain pole. Hold the unit between the primary and second ring, grommet or tab in your curtain, and the unit will journey alongside the rod, pulling the remainder of the curtain behind it.

It’s ingenious: a cracking little bit of artful engineering.

The motor unit itself is considerably lozenge-shaped, 11cm lengthy and roughly 4-5cm broad and deep. The clamps that hook onto your curtain pole lengthen from the highest of the unit, and it hangs down with the emblem dealing with into the room. It’s not a good-looking gadget nevertheless it’s unobtrusive.

At 135g (0.3lbs), it’s pretty mild, however it will possibly pull as much as 8kg (17lb) of curtain alongside a 3m (9.8ft) most runway. It does this by turning three rollers, two on the prime of the clamps and one on the prime of the unit, so the unit travels alongside your curtain pole. Consider tree logs rolling down a Canadian hillside, and also you’ve bought the thought – solely that hill is your curtain pole.

Arrange

• Just for curtain rods between 15-40mm/ 0.59-1.57in
• Bluetooth connection to app
• UBC charging

Within the field is a motor unit, a pair of clamps (though one is fitted to the motor unit), a type-C cable, the beads fixer, some curtain clips, and a steel accent to suit to the junction between the outer and inside curtain rods when you’ve used a telescopic curtain pole to suit your home windows.

The very first thing to do is learn the handbook, largely to determine whether or not you will have ring prime, grommet, tab prime or tab again curtains, and double-check that your curtain rod is between 15mm and 40mm in diameter.

Then cost the motorised unit with the type-C cable. We discovered this a bit difficult as a result of no lights got here on the unit once we plugged it in, and we found later which you can solely see the battery standing within the app. The unit was already charged out of the field, therefore no mild. However at first, we thought there was one thing incorrect with our energy adapter. 

Then obtain the Switchbot app (there’s a QR code within the handbook to seek out the correct one), register for an account, and add the Switchbot curtain within the app. Keep in mind that the Switchbot app is large and can take up a good bit of house in your telephone.

It’s then time to put in the unit in your curtain pole. The hook clamps stretch out, however it may be a bit fiddly. The app will take you thru the calibration course of: the motor unit strikes left and proper, and also you inform the app the place it must cease to shut your curtain or open it, and then you definitely modify the settings.

It’s fairly easy.

Efficiency  

• Two Rods wanted for a pair of curtains
• Grommet curtains want loads of further cloth to shut utterly
• Accent equipped for telescopic curtain rail 

If you wish to retrofit a pair of curtains that meet in the midst of a window, you want two Curtain Rods: one for the left-hand curtain and one for the correct.

We examined it first on a pair of grommet curtains.

Due to the best way the Curtain Rod 2 works, you want to set up the bead fixer for grommet curtains. It is a size of beads that runs from grommet to grommet on the highest of your curtain, fastened to stated grommets with clear clips, in order that when the Rod 2 strikes alongside the curtain pole, it doesn’t overpull the curtain behind it to the purpose the place the next grommets begin to face towards the room, moderately than the center of the pole.

If the grommets are pulled in order that they face the room, the stress between them and the pole stops the curtain from transferring alongside the pole — it’s like making an attempt to maneuver a Polo mint sideways alongside a pipe cleaner.

We tried the Rod 2 on bead-free grommet curtains and located it might solely pull the curtain two thirds throughout the window earlier than the stress between the sideways grommets and the pole in direction of the again of the curtain turned too nice.

So we put in the beads. It’s an ingenious answer to the issue. The one challenge is that you just want adequate width in your curtain to permit for the 8cm bead size between the grommet clips, as a result of these beads constrict how a lot curtain can span the pole from one grommet to the following, whereas additionally having sufficient spare curtain width to truly cowl your window.

Briefly, we calculated that you just want roughly double the curtain width of your window: that’s, 40cm of precise curtain for every 20cm size of curtain rod. 

We simply didn’t have this sort of cloth quantity for our curtains, so whereas the Rod 2 labored with the beading put in, the outcome was that our curtain, with what had been primarily moderately deep pleats, solely lined about 2/3rds of the particular window. The answer, after all, was that we would have liked wider curtains.

You can also’t change the size of beads between every grommet clip, so you actually do want that cloth quantity.

We then tried the Rod 2 on a pair of ring prime curtains. You match the Rod 2 between the primary and second curtain ring, after which calibrate via the app. It labored completely.

Alex Greenwood / Foundry

Sadly, we didn’t have any tab prime or tab again curtains to check the Rod 2, so we are able to’t converse to the efficiency for these kinds of curtain fittings.   

When you have a telescopic curtain rail, the Rod 2 might battle to cross the junction between the outer rail and the inside extendable rail. If this is a matter, Switchbot consists of an adjunct to resolve the issue. It’s a sort of steel stick-on attachment that appears a bit like a large-toothed steel comb. It really works nicely, though it might look a bit messy when you don’t stick it down rigorously.

Charging and battery life

• 6.5 hour charging time
• 8 months of battery life
• Suitable photo voltaic panel obtainable

It takes six and a half hours to totally cost the battery of the Rod 2, and Switchbot says it ought to final eight months with no need a recharge. You merely take the Rod 2 down, cost it up with the equipped USB cable, and refit. As we stated earlier than, you’ll be able to solely verify the battery standing within the app; there isn’t any indicator on the unit itself.

Nevertheless, Switchbot makes a photo voltaic panel for the Rod 2 that slots into the again of the unit; this panel shouldn’t be equipped within the Rod 2 equipment and you want to purchase it as an additional accent (US, $19; UK, £25).

The panel has a plug that matches into the motor unit’s USB slot, and two little claws that hook onto the again of the unit on the prime. We managed to suit it with the Rod 2 already put in on our curtain pole, although it was a bit fiddly. In case your Rod 2 shouldn’t be in daylight, you need to use the equipped Velcro attachment that means that you can match the photo voltaic panel additional down your curtain.

App management

• Connects through Bluetooth
• Hub Mini wanted for Wi-Fi connection and voice instructions
• Distant management obtainable individually

That is the place the Rod 2 actually comes into its personal. The app means that you can not solely open and shut your curtains to whichever place your want on the pole, you may as well set them to open or shut at a particular time, or in keeping with a particular mild stage.

The latter is made attainable by a lightweight sensor within the Rod 2, however do bear in mind, we set our curtains to shut when the sunshine dimmed to under a sure stage, solely to find {that a} subsequent rainstorm, and its attendant thick black clouds, meant our curtains all of a sudden closed at 2pm within the afternoon.

You can even set your curtains on a timer to open or shut after so many minutes or hours.

Alex Greenwood / Foundry

There’s additionally the touch-and-go mode. You merely pull or push the curtain alongside the pole, and the Rod 2 kicks in to take the curtain all the best way closed or open.

If you’d like a distant management in your Rod 2, you need to use the Switchbot Distant (US, $19; UK, £19.99). All this requires is solely including the distant to the Switchbot app and setting the perform of the distant’s buttons to shut or shut your home windows.

If you wish to use voice management or arrange extra advanced, Wi-Fi enabled good house techniques, you’ll want to purchase the Switchbot Hub Mini (US, $39; UK, £35), which lets you management the Rod 2 with Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri, Good Issues or Clova. 

That is additionally tips on how to join all method of Switchbot gizmos collectively: the Meter Plus (a temperature and humidity meter), the Contact Sensor, the Switchbot Bot (a gizmo that depresses buttons), the Good Humidifier, the Good Bulbs and extra. You’ll be able to browse all of the gadgets on the US or the UK Switchbot web site.

You can, for instance, create a scene wherein the Hub routinely closes your curtains, turns your espresso machine on, switches your lights to a low heat white and begins a humidifier, all whenever you stroll via a door that’s been fitted with the Switchbot contact sensor.

Value and availability

The Curtain Rod 2 is the newest Switchbot mannequin for good retrofitting curtain poles. It has a MSRP of $99 within the US and £85 within the UK. Don’t neglect you’ll want two for a set of curtains. It’s obtainable direct from Switchbot, however you might get a greater worth when you store round.

Verdict

The Switchbot Curtain Rod 2 is an ingenious and imaginative strategy to smart-enable your on a regular basis curtains. Okay, it’s a contact expensive and the prices can mount if you wish to use all of its performance.

When you have double curtains, you’ll want two models. If you wish to photo voltaic cost, you’ll want to purchase the photo voltaic panels individually. To connect with Alexa or Google Assistant, you’ll want the Hub Mini. Even so, it is likely one of the few merchandise available on the market that means that you can motorise your present curtains with out having to suit a brand new, and dearer, pole.

And it really works, as long as your curtains are broad sufficient if you want to make use of the bead fixer. However when you have oodles of curtain, it’s an amazing and enjoyable product.