SwitchBot Roller Shade Review

SwitchBot Roller Shade: Introduction

Most smart blinds are bought made-to-measure, with a wait time while the blinds are made to your precise requirements. The SwitchBot Roller Shade is different, as these blinds are designed to be cut to size in your own home, using the clever provided razor. That certainly makes them easy to get hold of, with little waiting time, but they’re quite fiddly to install and there’s not much colour choice. Those two factors are a shame, as the ease-of-use and Matter compatibility otherwise make these blinds great.

Installation

• Needs to be cut to size
• Quite fiddly to set up

Although the SwitchBot Roller Shade is designed to be cut to size in your own home, you still need to choose from the four options (S, M, L and XL) to get the correct size to fit your window. Each size has a minimum and maximum width, and the range runs from 22.8” wide to 72.8” in size. That will cover most windows but, as with most smart shades, very narrow windows are out.

Disappointingly, the blinds are only available in grey or white, and no other colours. Buy Somfy smart blinds or SmartWings blinds, and you get a much wider range of colours and fabrics. Given that blinds are also part of the decoration in a room, the lack of choice with SwitchBot’s option is likely to put many off.

Although the sizes are different, the installation process is the same for all blinds. First, I had to remove the blind from the motor, which let me resize the main mount. This is held together by a series of screws, which can be loosened using the provided screwdriver.

Once done, I had to hold the mount to my chosen window and resize until it fit, tightening the screws.

When the mount is the right size, the balance weight that goes at the bottom of the blind also needs to be resized, making it the same width as the mount.

As well as acting as the bottom weight, this balance is also the guide for mounting the spring-loaded brackets. I had to first attach the cardboard templates to the weight.

Next, I added the stick-on spirit level, and then used the weight to mark drill holes in my window. This part of the installation process is very easy, and I soon had my brackets attached to the wall.

At this stage, the actual blind is too long, so it needs to be clipped back into the motor, and then the special razor attachment needs to be screwed to the end. This has a screw that you turn to lower the blade.

Once the SwitchBot Roller Shade is added to the SwitchBot app, there’s a special cutting mode, which turns the blind and cuts through it. Once done, the app suggests that the inner metal tube should just be snapped off, but that didn’t work for me. Instead, I had to use a hacksaw to cut through this to get a neat finish.

It’s quite a fiddly process, and I’m not it’s worth it compared to choosing the style of blind you want from a different manufacturer and having it made at the size you want.

Still, once cut to size, the blind can be mounted properly and clipped on to the mounts, but there’s another fiddly job to do: fitting the weight.

Rather than clipping on or fitting into a loop of fabric, the bottom of the shade has to be folded over and stapled, with the weight then hanging off this. It’s a bit cumbersome and doesn’t look as neat as you’d get with a pre-made blind.

There’s an option solar panel that plugs into the USB-C port on the blinds. My window is North facing, but gets enough ambient light to help top up the battery, although I do need to occasionally charge directly. If you’ve got a window that gets more light, you won’t need to manually charge.

Features and performance

• Matter compatible (with Hub)
• Wired remote
• Optional

Once connected to the app, there’s a simple set-up routine you need to go through that configures the fully-rolled and fully-open positions. It’s similar to the setup routine for the SwitchBot Curtain 3, and only takes a few minutes to fully calibrate the blinds.

Once calibrated, the SwitchBot Roller Shade can be controlled via the app and opened, closed or put in any position in between.

While app control is nice to have, for most instances, it’s easier to manually control the SwitchBot Roller Shade using the provided plug-in wired remote. This has two buttons: one to open and one to close. Press any button while the blind’s in operation and it will pause where it is, allowing for a part-open position.

If you don’t like the wire, then the SwitchBot Roller Shade is compatible with the Bluetooth SwitchBot Remote, which you can place anywhere. As this pairs directly with the blind, the operation is near instant.

For more advanced control, you need a SwitchBot hub, which opens up the cloud services for remote control and let me enable either the Amazon Alexa or Google Home Skills. However, if you have a Matter-compatible SwitchBot Hub, you can conncect the blinds directly to any Matter-compatible smart home system of your choice, including Apple Home.

Matter is the connection of choice, as it’s faster and more responsive than using the Cloud system, and gives you more automation control. I’ve paired my SwitchBot Roller Shade with Apple Home, and the control is very quick and responsive.

In the app, there’s Automation control using other SwitchBot devices, such as opening the blinds when the SwitchBot Lock unlocks.

More usefully, with a Solar Panel attached, I could automate the blinds based on the ambient light level, closing them when it’s very bright and opening them with there’s no direct sunlight. Cleverly, this automation can be timed to only operate in certain hours, so there’s no danger of the blinds opening automatically in the middle of the night. I found the blinds to be smooth to operate and reliable, quietly opening and closing to the set positions time and time again when using the remotes. Using the app is a bit more hit-and-miss, and the app occcasionally timed in when I was trying to control the blinds.

Final thoughts

A clever idea, the SwitchBot Roller Shade works smoothly and has a wide range of control options, including Matter compatibility. Its fiddly installation and dull choice of colours let the side down, and made-to-measure blinds will be a better option for most people.

How we test

When we publish our reviews, you can rest assured that they are the result of “living with” long term tests.

Because we’re testing smart home kit all day, everyday, we know what matters and how a particular smart blind compares to alternatives that you might also be considering.

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