The QuietDrift mode is extremely quiet at the price of battery life and speed. It’s hard to actually put a noise level to it, you basically hear nothing! The drape rings moving and creating noise is what you will hear, not the SwitchBot Curtain 3. This mode is great for opening the curtains in the morning when you are asleep. Like other SwitchBot products I’ve tested, the Curtain 3 is built really well and feels like a premium device. It’s certainly a significant improvement over the Curtain 2, but if you already own the previous generation of SwitchBot curtain motors I do not feel it’s necessary to upgrade. I’m going to be fitting the SwitchBot Curtain 3 to a wooden curtain pole that’s about an inch and a half in diameter. The curtains are the grommet type with hole punched into them for the pole to go through. I was a bit concerned at first that I might need to change the pole because if I pull on the curtains then they don’t move freely and easily along it. They just kind of get jammed. But… SwitchBot have thought of this problem and I’ll discuss their solution in a bit. You might get a little overwhelmed when looking at all the things inside the box, but it’s actually really simple to install. If you get the solar panel too, it’s even simpler as you do not need to charge the device with an USB-C cable.

The above images show an example for installing the bot on ring top curtains. The method is similar for any kind of curtains, the side hooks are spring loaded so all you have to do is pull them down and clip them onto the rod. My curtain rod is fairly thin (around 18mm), but the Curtain 3 was able to grip it firmly. If you followed by API video exactly then your token and sign entity names should be good. Don’t forget to make sure that the DEVICE_ID value matches the ID of your paired curtains device, which you’ll find in your All Devices entity data. Now QuietDrift mode will use up a lot more of your battery compared to normal fast mode. So whilst it is brilliant to watch QuietDrift in action, I am struggling to find a reason to use it myself. Let’s say you are automatically opening the curtains in your bedroom in the morning, you might use QuietDrift so as to not wake you up. But your curtains are opening, surely that will wake you up anyway so what’s the point?

It wouldn’t be a true SmartHomeScene review if the device isn’t dismantled, no matter what kind it is. The SwitchBot Curtain Rod 3 ships in a branded box containing the main unit, a pair of hooks, beads chain, some clips, USB-C cable, magnet attachment for positioning and a user manual.

Provided you have the SwitchBot Curtain installed correctly, and it isn’t too tight, it works brilliantly. There’s a pitched whine to the motors as they power your curtains open or closed, but the system worked flawlessly for me over a period of weeks. Another interesting feature that you can turn on/off in the app is the Touch & Go setting which is basically a manual switch. As soon as the Curtain 3 senses you’ve pulled the drapes for over 5cm, it will automatically open or close them depending on the current position. Home Assistant Integration The solar panel can supply unlimited power to the Curtain 3 according to SwitchBot, as long as it gets 3 hours of sunlight per day. It’s attached permanently with a clip via USB-C and hangs behind your drapes facing the window. The Curtain 3 bot carries the solar panel whenever it moves, keeping the battery charged at all times.

The DC motor and each of the gears are installed in a plastic enclosure which is one of the main reasons the Curtain 3 is so quiet, even in Normal mode. Beside a couple of screws, this piece is sealed shut with some kind of glue, significantly lowering the noise level the motor and gears produce.

And finally we create a cover entity to bring all of those components together. The cover entity calls the script and passes in the requested position. Because the SwitchBot API is actually expecting a value which is inverse to that used by Home Assistant, we just do a bit of maths to calculate the correct position value. The cover entity gets the current position from the position sensor we created earlier, but filtering out any values above 95 as 100, and below 5 as 0. Restart everything just to make sure it’s all created and you’ll be good to go! You can use your new cover entity on your dashboard, and even share to HomeKit / Alexa so as you can control it that way. cover: The SwitchBot Curtain 3 is powered by a encoder motor operating at 3V, labelled PR-520SV. SwitchBot claims a life span of over 10 years on the motor, tested at standard room temperature and humidity conditions. It’s suppose to greatly exceed the lifespan of the rubber roller. Using the SwitchBot Remote was the preferred method of interaction. Thanks to the direct Bluetooth connection between the Remote and SwitchBot Curtain, I never encountered any issues with the system failing to respond.

The two rod hooks can be detached from the main unit of the Curtain 3. This is because SwitchBot has three different models of hooks for the Curtain 3: Rod, U-Rail and I-Rail which can be changed if needed. They attach by pressing the side clip buttons with your finger and only go in one way, so you can’t mess them up. I like the convenience of automatic closing curtains. It's handy! I set it to close the curtains at dusk; it helps keep in the heat and saves me a chore, something I've often forgotten before bed. But it's hard to look past the aforementioned issues. SwitchBot is running a sale currently in various online stores, here’s how to get the most of it depending on your location. SwitchBot also offers Scenes, which let you control your curtains automatically. You can set a manual action – say, setting curtains to a default position, such as part-closed – or you can automate by using a schedule.