I’m looking to add curtain automation to my home assistant setup and wanted to know what good and bad experiences people have had with the Aqara Smart Curtain Motor E1 and the SwitchBot Curtain Smart Electric Motor and which you think is the better option!
I do have a GoControl Zigbee/Z-Wave USB connected to a RP4 and a Sena USB Bluetooth adapter.
Any help is creatly appreciated!
TL;DR - I need a curtain rod motor purchase reccomendation
I dont have the switch bot but I do have the Aquara (a pair of them).
Not knowing what the protocol is for switchbit and knowing the Aquara curtain driver is Zigbee seals it for me. I have an extensive Zigbee infrastructure (driven by Zigbee2MQTT) and these work near flawlessly. (there’s an annoying visual bug with ota firmware where Z2M is currently offering firmware for these that don’t exist. But just hit ignore and it doesn’t hurt anything)
They both should work well. People with SwitchBot gear like them.
But with either. Make sure your curtain ROD itself is up to snuff. They both require a thick (~0.9in) curtain rod to be able to grip properly and you can’t have any seams in the rod. So if you’re using one of those telescopic rods you may have to cut it to reposition the seam (i had to cut mine so the seam ended up under the mounting bracket in the center of the window)
I am looking to get the pole version of these as I am the same as you with Zigbee and 2MQTT. Do you find the curtains get stuck or (trying to describe it as best as I can) the trailing ringlets on the curtain not catch and stop the motor from closing the curtains?
They’re £100 each and you need a pair so quite a lot to spend if they get stuck.
The device comes with a plastic chain to attach to the back of the curtain to help it drag the whole set of panels along. It’s hard to describe but that takes care of that particular issue…
motor is powerful enough to drag heavy curtains along IF
Your rod is smooth and does not have burrs to catch the runner wheels.
You do not have telescopic rod seams anywhere where the rod will run (i had to modify my curtain rod with a hack saw so the seam sat where the wall support for the rod fell so the wheels would clear)
The rod needs to be thick enough to be CLAMPED by the device. Just sitting on a narrow rod will cause it to lose traction and slip.
And there’s a bogus firmware update error to ignore if you use Zigbee2MQTT.
They run great.
Great!
Thanks, I think I will go for it. Thanks for getting back to me!
@NathanCu Would you mind to share how to calibrate the opened and closed position of the curtain motor after pairing it with Zigbee2MQTT? Thanks.
BTW, I have the SwitchBot device. It’s good to work with its own app and it’s own automation/schedule. But I occasionally get unknown status in both SmartThings and Home Assistant and the response time is slow. So, I want to try the Aqara one to see if it works better for me.
I turned it on?