I'm sure you've heard the theory mentioned over the years that sometimes when
science fiction, TV shows and movies especially, have predicted something that
then has become a reality in the future.
It's not just that they've predicted it accurately it's that
they've helped to make it happen.
By showing something before it was a reality, children watching those
shows in the say, 1960s and things.
End up as adults helping to make those things happen, whether
subconsciously or not, they kind of will them into existence.
Things that they saw once as a prop as something that looked
cool, they then end up creating.
Examples like Star Trek's communicators, or the tablets that you could see in
2001 or in Star Trek The Next Generation.
The flat screens out of Things, to Come, Dick Tracy's wrist communicator, or if
you're a bit younger, Michael Knight's.
All those kind of things that form a very strong image in a
memory in children,that stay with them for the rest of their lives.
So that then as adults, it ends up influencing the things that they do.
And now this goes was the other way as well, because for me, I have featured a
lot of things on this channel that I saw as a child in those formative years when I
was sort of seven, eight, nine, that kind of thing, watching the Six Million Dollar
Man for example, and I'd see Nixie tubes or I'd see reel to reel tape recorders.
I never saw those was in real life.
I never knew anyone who had anything like that.
But then as an adult, It's still there in the back of my head.
It's kind of like a thing that, an itch I've got to scratch.
So that's why I've got into picking things up, like Nixie tubes and Reel
to Reel machines, all purely based on just a few years at the end of the
1970s, when these things were kind of indelibly imprinted in my mind.
Now, one thing that I haven't yet managed to achieve, which is
a little bit along those lines.
and this is a big long intro that has no relevance really.
But the thing that I remember from those 1970s shows and through to
the eighties, automatic curtains.
Yeah, there we go.
We got there in the end.
I don't know why, but there was always this thing.
There was a kind of big automation thing around the late seventies, early eighties,
where there was a lot of like pressing buttons and wooden panels that open and
things would flip out a desk and stuff.
Of course, it was all prop men back in the day, just like in Star
Trek with the, with the doors.
There was a couple of grips shoving these things together behind the scenes.
But you know, stuff like that, it kind of sticks in the mind, you think - oh
I'd like an automated house, but of course it's all possible now.
Always been a bit of a hassle though.
Although I've always wanted automatic curtains and I really don't know why.
I just, you know, you get that guy who would press a button, the curtains
would close, the projector will pop out the ceiling and it's this
week's mission that kind of thing.
So anyway, finally, this is what the point is.
I've gone and got myself some automated curtains, well, a kit
to automate my existing curtains.
Yeah.
You could get people to come in and put in super cool automatic
curtains and stuff, but it always seemed like a massive hassle.
This seemed like it might be a lot easier.
So let's see how I get on.
Okay so the product we're talking about here is the SwitchBot Curtain.
It first showed up as a campaign on Indiegogo in 2019, which
is where I got mine from.
It arrived about a year after the campaign closed in December, 2020.
Although it is now available on the SwitchBot website.
If you go there, you'll find a choice of two colors.
They're separate versions for curtain, rod, or rail.
And if you plan on closing two curtains together, then you'll need two units,
which will cost you a total of $189.
The curtains are controlled by a smartphone app, which is
available for iOS or Android.
But if you add the optional extra Switchbot hub to your network, you can
then control them via your voice through the Amazon, Google or Apple assistants.
Set-up is supposed to be simple, taking as little as 30 seconds.
And on this side of the box, they mention a touch and go feature, which is activated
as default, but can be switched off.
This means that if you briefly pull the curtains just a little bit, the
SwitchBot will complete the job for you.
The version I bought is designed for use with a curtain rod rather than a rail.
And it clamps over that rod and in the bottom of the part that clamps
there's a motorized roller, which then propels the device along the
rail, which pulls the curtain with it.
Before I start though, I need to set up a SwitchBot account, as well as
charge the device for four hours.
So much for setting it up in 30 seconds.
I should mention the supplied USB lead is about two meters long, which for
me means I can charge the device once it's installed without having to take
it back down off the curtain rod again.
Now, whilst waiting for it to charge, I set about downloading
the app and creating an account and it's definitely worth watching the
installation videos that are in the app.
There are a lot easier to understand than the illustrations are in the manual.
Once it was charged and with the type of curtains I have, it was as simple
as just clamping it onto the rail between the first and second eyelet
on the hidden side of the curtain.
And once it was installed, there were no signs it was there.
So the next job is calibration.
Running through this process, tells the device where either end of
the curtain rail is, and therefore how far it has to travel to either
open or close your curtains.
And once that was done for me, it was then onto installing the
second one and going through the whole process again on that side.
And that's it.
I've now got app controlled curtains and to make things easier rather than just
controlling the left or right curtain individually I linked them together
in the app using the scenes function.
So now it's just one tap to open both curtains and another one to close them.
They always operate as a pair in this delayed fashion though.
One is a few seconds after the other and it's a bit slower than
I was imagining, but it all works.
However, I'm not finished.
I really don't like the the idea of having to dig out my phone just
to open or close the curtains.
So I bought a couple of extra things at the time I ordered
this to make this even easier.
And first we'll take a look at the one on the left, the SwitchBot remote.
This is a small two button remote control that runs off a coin cell.
And once paired up will allow easy app free operation of
anything from the SwitchBot range.
Unfortunately, I found to my cost though, that it could only be paired
with one device at once and it couldn't activate a scene or at least
I couldn't figure out how to do it.
That meant I could only control either the left or right
curtain, but not both at once.
So I thought, well, just scrap that idea and move on to
activating the SwitchBot Hub Mini.
This hub enables you to get your SwitchBot devices, talking with
the network and therefore make them accessible to other devices.
In my case, a Google Home smart speaker.
Now I've set a few things like this up recently, so I've become used to
the convoluted process of getting one device to talk to another, entering
your password, in this case for the SwitchBot account into the Google home.
So that then it can access that it's all a little bit complicated though, for
someone who perhaps hasn't done it before.
I often think that this is going to be a barrier that somebody needs to figure
out a way of resolving before all this smart home stuff becomes second nature.
It's just going to put a lot of people off.
But anyway, once you've got both devices talking to each other, I'm now
able to tell my curtains what to do.
And it's not just limited to fully opening or closing both at once.
It can be more specific than that as demonstrated in this thrilling sequence.
Hey, [Google] close both curtains to 50%.
All right, opening two curtains to 50%.
Now unless I mention it I'm sure someone will say, why do
you need blinds and curtains?
Well, just trust me.
This window gets a lot of sun on it on a sunny day, and it makes
it very hard to watch the TV.
Open the right curtain.
Got it, opening right curtain.
And this level of granularity is ideal for my needs.
As I can just close one curtain to stop the sun, hitting the TV, whilst
keeping enough light in the room.
It's also helpful to me in my situation as previously, whenever I wanted to close
the curtains, I had to kneel on the couch.
Now everyone's house is different.
Don't pay too much attention to my specific installation.
But I should mention that these curtains can still be used completely
manually without any hindrance, despite the presence of those mechanisms.
Now, from previous experience, whenever I mentioned battery life,
loads of people seem to miss it.
I don't know why, but we're going to try it again here.
Let's make it very clear.
So this is the bit about battery life.
Here's the battery life.
Eight months on a recharge, assuming you open and close your curtains twice a day.
So there it was, that was the battery life.
Eight months, eight months, battery life, battery life, eight months.
Moving on.
Now, when I bought these, I ticked a few boxes for some extras.
One of which was a solar panel attachment.
I just wanted to test it out.
I'd need two if I was going to use them properly.
But in the end I decided not to bother using it.
It can be attached via adhesive hook and loop connectors to the curtain itself or
hooked directly onto the motor mechanism.
But given the amount of opening and closing I do in a year, it's
likely I'd only need to charge my devices perhaps once a year.
So I'm going to use this solar charger for something else.
It also stops too much weight being put on that curtain mechanism, which does
seem to labor a bit with my curtains.
Maybe they're a bit heavy for it.
So I thought that might be just a bit too much.
Now, finally, something not related to curtains, and the crowd goes wild.
You may have spotted this mentioned in some of those app
menus I was showing earlier on.
It's called the SwitchBot.
I think this is how the company started.
This is their original product and I wanted to try out.
So I bundled one at a discount with my original order too.
It's a little app controlled motorized finger that can be used on any device
you want to be able to control remotely that has a push button mechanism.
It comes with adhesive pads, as well as just prodding something though, like a
momentary switch for example, you can use it in a mode where it'll push and pull
a switch with the help of an adhesive hook of which there are two in the box.
Now I don't have any great ideas where I'm going to use this at the moment.
But for the sake of demonstrating it here, I'm just going to
attach it to a light switch.
And again, just like the curtains earlier on don't pay too much
attention to my specific installation.
I'm just demonstrating how something works.
So that was controlling it with the app, but of course I've got that hub, so I
could also control it with my voice.
Hey [Google] turn off the light switch.
And in this particularly redundant demonstration, I can also link it up
with that spare switch that I have and control the light switch from
a switch just a few inches away.
I mean, this is one of those things that could be incredibly useful
if only I could find a use for it.
If you want to learn more about the SwitchBot range of home automation
devices, well visit their website.
The address for which is shown on the screen now.
But that's everything I wanted to show you today.
I'm slowly progressing towards living in my 1970s, vision of my
home of the future and the Mrs absolutely hates Home Automation.
She says it's like living in the house from Honey, I shrunk the kids.
So there you go, that's another positive.
Anyway, that's it for the moment.
As always, thanks for watching.