SwitchBot Bot - Review
By now you know I am a massive smart home enthusiast and I will find a way to make almost anything smart! Luckily one company has a similar goal, and that goal helps turn anything with a switch or button smart!
SwitchBot is a company that isn’t that old but is already making waves in the smart-home industry with its SwitchBot Bot. It’s a tiny Block with an electric arm that will move to press a button when activated via app or voice controls (if you have the Hub)
You can add it to any button that can be pressed and even to a switch. The Bot comes with a pull tab as well so you can stick it on a light switch and have it press or pull the light switch on or off!
In my situation, I wanted to make my Electric projector screen smart. We have way too many remotes for our setup and I wanted to reduce it dramatically. Unfortunately, my projector screen doesn’t use IF so I couldn’t use a harmony hub. I tried to find other solutions but came across nothing. That was until I remembered SwitchBot. The projector screen has controls on the power wire and Just need one press on the up or down to achieve my goal. I reached out to SwitchBot and they were happy for me to get my hands on some bots. And. Well, I’m shocked.
Price!
SwitchBot Bot - £30 - https://bit.ly/2ZWLvmz
SwitchBot Hub Mini - £38 - https://bit.ly/35TmH2B
Website - https://bit.ly/3kGcgng
Set-up
I got sent 2 SwitchBot Bots and a Hub. The hub would allow me to control my devices when I'm not at home or over a wifi connection. once I had downloaded the Switchbot app onto my phone I was prompted to make an account. Once I had made an account it took me straight to the dashboard, and surprisingly I could already see and control my Bots.
I got the Hub and plugged it in and hit add the device in the app. In setup, you connect to your wifi network (2.4gh only) and its good to go. I did find after playing around just how many features the Hub has, and I will go over them further down, but for short it can control IR products. This means you can control your TV, Aircon and anything that uses IR remote. My use for it was to be able to control the SwitchBot Bot from anywhere!
Now you can add the SwitchBot Bot itself. Again super easy setup, give it a name and the room you want to assign it to and its added. You will then want to go into the bot you want to control the setting and tap "Cloud Service" Make sure the toggle is on and choose from the list what assistant you would like to use. For myself I wanted to use my HomePod in the living room, so I opted for Siri Shortcuts. This will give you the option on what the Switchbot will do. I wanted it to press on the down button on the controller so that the screen would start coming down. I gave it the name "screen down" and saved it. I repeated this for the other Switchbot Bot and called it "screen up" to make my screen rise.
Once done, I stuck the Bots to the controller with the pre-installed adhesive (it comes with extra if you decide to move it) And from there I could say "Hey Siri screen down" and straight away the button is pressed and my screen comes down. This is amazing, I've been looking for so long for a way to make my screen smart so I can control it with my projector and it only got better once I started playing about!
Voice Control
So my only Con with SwitchBot is the lack of HomeKit support, which would have been nice but that's about it on the Cons. I opened the Shortcuts app on my phone and started to make a new shortcut. The Shortcuts app is a middle man for anything you want to control on your device or a device that supports shortcuts! A shortcut is a way for you to ask Siri to run a bunch of tasks for you in order. For example, you could have a Shortcut called "Reading Time" so when you say "Hey Siri reading time" it will set a scene in HomeKit, Play music from a speaker, put your phone into do not disturb and set a timer for 30 minutes.
I wanted to create a shortcut that would turn on the projector via HomeKit, set a scene in the living room and turn on my Apple TV.
So I went into Shortcuts and started making a new shortcut. It might look confusing at first but ill run a step by step.
1. Tap apps
2. Scroll down till you see SwitchBot
3. Select the Bot you want to control
4. Tap add again and select the Home app
5. Select "control Home"
6. Choose the scene you would like or set lights individually
7. Tap Apple Tv remote
8. Select "wake apple tv"
9. Tap the 3 dots and give your shortcut a name (this is the thing you will have to say to Siri to run the shortcut)
Your Shortcut should look like this ^
Here's a video of my shortcut in action!
Results
There are so many ways I can think of to use the Switchbot Bot in the home with Siri shortcuts. You could have it turn on your coffee maker when your alarm goes off. Elder or people with disabilities could use a SwitchBot Bot to press a button that might usually be hard to press. The possibilities are endless and I've already ordered myself more.
For the price and features of this device, I would recommend anyone going a grabbing some for your home! I'm truly amazed at how simple everything was to set up and use. Siri Shortcuts might take some time to get used to, but it unlocks so much potential! I would give a 9/10 to SwitchBot for the Bot and the Hub. Again my only downside is no HomeKit support, but hopefully, in the future it will come!
Many Thanks to Switchbot for sending me the Bots to test and I'm so happy with the result.
If you would like further information or need more help with setting up - send a DM to our Instagram > https://www.instagram.com/thetechup/
Links Below to take you to the website!
SwitchBot Bot - £30 - https://bit.ly/2ZWLvmz
SwitchBot Hub Mini - £38 - https://bit.ly/35TmH2B
Website - https://bit.ly/3kGcgng