Extra Hub is Needed, and iOS Widget Can't show SwitchBot Switch
The requirement of another extra Hub in order to work with home voice-automated system like Alexa, Google Home is disappointing, a simple light bulb doesn't require any hub to work with Alexa and Google Home. Also, the widget feature in iOS, can't choose any SwitchBot Switch to be showing in the widget even the app is already connected and detecting the SwitchBot already. This definitely need to be patched, what could be more convenient than having a virtual switch in form of widget under the iOS system controlling the physical smart switch.
Been using the app with the Mini Robot Vacuum K10+ for a few weeks now, and it works well. The app is a bit quirky and unintuitive in a few ways, almost as if they went out of their way just to do it differently than iRobot. For example, if you pause in the middle of a job, there isn’t a “return to home” option. Instead, your choices are “Finish” and “Recharge.” Does “finish” mean stop cleaning and return home? Or does it mean resume the cleaning job? Obviously the app knows if the device is charged or not, so why would I pause a cleaning job and tell it to “recharge”? I just want it to stop and return to base! Besides the quirks, the app features are quite extensive. Once you get used to it, the mapping functionality is great, much more robust than iRobot. I have my robot 2 floors below my bedroom so I have it set to clean around 3am each night, and I like that I can see where exactly the device is on the map. Pretty neat.
Initially I bought one curtain rod 2 device and it worked beautifully. So then I bought a second and decided to redo the first so I could rename it - while also setting up the second. Now neither of them will finish calibrating. They each make it to the final step, but when clicking “move to open/close position”, nothing happens. I reached out to support and attached a video of the issue. While it took a while to figure out the emails were going to the “Promotions” folder, once I started actually speaking with tech support, it’s been painful. Although they sent over new firmware for me to install, still didn’t fix the issue. Afterwards they said their “devs” detected its because my devices are backwards, but they are not and have never been, and I’m not sure how they can know that lol I followed the installation guide and had one of them working before. Haven’t heard from them since. I’ll probably just return them and get a refund if this persists
Not usually one to rate but wow this is pretty annoying
I would rate this app even lower just for the irritation and poor deployment of firmware updates and essentially locking people out of using devices on cloud. I have several switchbot curtains but cannot connect to alexa or google home. It will tell me that the firmware on the hub mini is incompatible. I have checked my internet connection, the bluetooth, and each curtain. They are not the problem. When I go to update the firmware nothing happens, I have searched all over the internet and other people have BEEN having the same problem. Am I supposed to go buy a new hub just to use things I’ve already paid for? There is no reason for this to be happening, to still be happening. People have been complaining about this on other forums and I am sure they’ve contacted support. So why is it not fixed????
You know how you can tell that some apps are probably somebody’s first? Yeah. And it’s bad. This whole setup has exactly one thing going for it: I didn’t have to register for an account. Which is rad. But I’m not ok with the scheduler. There are ways to have a user pick dates and times. Apple builds these things in for a reason. This app doesn’t use the Apple stuff, it reinvents the wheel, and that wheel rolls with a wobble. There are only five schedule slots, total. Why? Who knows. Maybe it has literally under a kb of storage. This wouldn’t be a *huge* issue except that it’s lacking another basic feature — how many times does it press and how long? When you schedule an event, it represents one button push. There’s no way to expand on that and say “press twice” or “press and hold.” Truly disappointing. The hardware seems ok, but the app renders it nearly useless.
I have 2 switchbots and a hub to control outside the home. Been great so far. I mostly use these bots to control my bathroom fan, makes it very convenient and easy to turn of after a set amount of time. I can either turn it on or off or set a schedule which is great. Only one big improvement addition that would make it better is having a timer feature that counts down. You can either set a time or pick from a default menu. This would be so much better to have aside from scheduling. For example I can set the timer to just go off in 5 or 10mins.
I thought this was a wonderful app but each time I try something else I find that the experience goes bad. I installed the app on my phone and all was good. I then installed it on my iPad and that was fine. I go back to my phone and the app no longer has access to the mini hub or meter plus devices I have installed. I delete the iPad version and the phone app works again. So don’t try using this on more than one device, how archaic. I was advised to contact support for this problem. The support desk is terrible and I will not subject myself to it. I already tried contacting the support desk for a different issue and got no where. They don’t translate the given problem correctly or the developers have their own idea of the described problem. Yeah, no.
As usual of many apps, it asks for “Always Allow” location permission without explaining why, or how that’s going to be used. I declined, but connected to BT and gave it what else it asked for. So it detected my Bot, cycled the motor through one spin, but that was it. Bot detection then disappeared as a listed bot to be controlled. GUI is unintuitive and of no apparent help thus far. It should have been easy. A wizard should be helping me decide how to set it up. The printed instructions also tell you things to do without explaining why - e.g., stick it where you want to use it first, even before assessing how it works. No thanks -what a dumb idea: commit first, check and see how it works later. That’s as bad advice is bots as in marriage. So, the struggle to figure out how to use it and how to connect it to Alexa continues. Terrible.
I was looking for a simple device to push a button to start my tile stove when I am on my way home and want a warm place when I arrive. First I had my doubts if a young startup can deliver a great solution for my problem - but it is not only a great solution for pushing a single button - it was a great experience: Ordering worked as expected, the packaging is simple but elegant and the design of the SwitchLink (hub for remote access) is really beautiful. I didn‘t expect to be able to change the colors within the app! I have some products from the Philips Hue family but this hub in form of a cloud is really unique and I am sure some people would buy it just because it is a wonderful lamp. There are only 2 issues that I hope will be fixed soon: The IFTTT support is not available yet and the Apple Watch app is not supporting the ‘light switch add-on’ mode (on/off setting). After all I really recommend this innovative product!
Tried upgrading the firmware for the curtains and constantly get an error to try again later. I have tried this with different devices with the latest app version and that Bluetooth was on and in close range of each device. It's the same story for different sets of curtains. 2 stars for it working. Other than that, the upgrade process is a non-functionally terrible waste of my time. I still haven't been able to upgrade the firmware over a month later! Aslo the remote switch that is powered with a button battery is terrible with maintenance because I barely use two of them but already have to replace the battery. The battery drains by itself.
The only way to fix a jammed lock is to have the owners phone near the lock. This was inconvenient when I was out by of town as my friend was unable to recalibrate the lock. So he was stuck at my house all weekend since he was unable to calibrate without me giving him my log in info. When I complain to the company, they suggested that I give my friend my login information. When I explain to them how unsafe that was being that if I give someone my password, they could totally lock me out of my account and out of my house. They did not have a sense of urgency to try to rectify that security lacking. I will sell it if I could but who would buy a smart lock for me if I’m trying to get rid of it. Do not buy the products.
I like this app. It is simple to use. May I make a suggestion that I would appreciate you implement if possible. I need the timer to set the switch not to perform a command at a set time and then turn off shortly after. The shortest interval of time between having the switchbot click a button twice is one minute. Therefore, please make it possible for the switchbot to click something more than once in under a minute (maybe it clicks it once at 12:01:10 then 12:01:20. Thank you!
I went all in, bought four switchbots for blinds and two for curtains....I was excited to get them set on a schedule to open/close in the morning/evening. You can imagine my disappointment when a majority of the time the app doesn't trigger the scheduled activities. I confirm that they are scheduled correctly in the settings but absolutely nothing happens and I check the activity log and it doesn't show any attempts to do anything. It just....doesn't do anything. So my house is left exposed with the curtains wide open in the evening half the time and I don't even know until I get home. SUCH a disappointment and a waste of money. This is why I purchased the products and the app does not do it's job.
I needed a smart button pusher urgently so I bought this product. The UX of the app is HORRIBLE. They couldn’t even get the spinner right. The product card does not give away where to press to toggle the product switch or edit it’s info. BUT if you wanna get the job done, it does it. If I could have found another solution on the market, I would have returned this and got that. You do need a hub to control the SwitchBot remotely, because it by itself works with Bluetooth. If they had just put a wifi chip in the SwitchBot and hired a half decent UX UI designer to review this app, it’d be an INCREDIBLE product.
I was able to get this little bot setup and running quickly. Easy to use. Pretty easy to figure out app. My only disappointment was the limitation of 5 time schedules for the bot. I was really hoping to trigger a switch every two hours throughout the day but I can only do it 5 times a day due to the restricted number of allowed schedules. Hoping that they can add the option of something like recurring schedules to the app.
Every time I make *any* adjustment to my curtains schedule, the opening time advances by 1 hour. If I save the opening of the curtains for 8:00am, the app saves 9:00am. If I then add a closing time for the curtains, the opening time changes to 10:00am. If I edit the closing schedule again, the opening time will be 11:00am. I was excited to purchase more curtain bots, but this app is so unreliable that I’ve canceled my plan to purchase any more bots. Switchbot needs to fix the basic functioning of their app before doing anything else.
I have a remote thermometer from Switchbot. I opened the app to check the temp outside and it started downloading a very large update with no warning or permission given. Where you usually get a progress bar themed like the app, this was just a grey counter in a generic, thin typeface. I closed the app immediately suspecting it was downloading malware. I came to the App Store to check when it was last updated. It was 1 week ago, and this is the first time I opened the app since then, but I still don’t trust an app that doesn’t give you a choice on whether or not to download a huge update. Bad form! And you lost a customer, SwitchBot.
This was the only easy way to open the door since this device doesn’t have the feature of auto unlock when nearby like every other smart lock. I wish they would just allow for an auto unlock when bluetooth is connected as the NFC pads don’t work either and siri shortcuts unlocking is unavailable. There’s a ton of ways to lock this device but almost none to unlock it without having to open the app first. Let us decide how secure we want to be, if i want to unlock the door when i’m near, let that be up to me. If i want a siri shortcut to unlock the device, let that be my choice.
Whose bright idea was it to make the teeny tiny little itty bitty circle on the card the switch activation button? The card should be the activation button because it’s so much easier to press, and the circle should be the settings. Users will be activating switches way more often than tinkering with the settings and we don’t wanna have to snipe the three pixels that is the activation button every time. Fire the person who did this or at least publicly shame them so they never do something so disrespectful to the customers ever again. Thanks
I bought a thermometer system for a new greenhouse and placed the sensors around the greenhouse. The range on the wireless receiver is really good and the system was easy to set up. On the first really cold night I watched as the temperature slipped below the set point on the heater. I rushed to the greenhouse to find someone had mistakenly turned off the electrical line to the greenhouse. This system saves thousands of dollars in sensitive plants.
Having access to my door automatically is a blessing. I had the privilege of having another lock for a different type of door before, but moving and having a deadbolt lock was a challenge. I could not find anything for that particular lock, I was stressed, but with continue searching I came across your guys and I have to say I’m very thankful.
Used your products forever and use to rave about them - no more! The last bot I got malfunctioned and died - your customer service was worthless and never resolved the dead device. I had to toss it! I gave you another chance but now your app update totally wiped out all my devices!!!????!! It won’t even recognize new ones I try to setup! This is total foreign J-U-N-K! If my app is not fixed within the week and devices restored, I’m returning the additional hub and devices just purchased and purchasing the new systems from the competitor products I’m seeing instead. So over this garbage.
App works great to control my ac and tv with the hub mini and it gives me no problems. One thing that really annoys me is that if you have a custom button controls for your TV and you hit hide invalid buttons, all the buttons that have a command saved are spread out. Maybe have a condense buttons button, or just map the buttons to the top. It’s not user friendly to have to be scrolling up or down for any little thing.
I have been looking for an affordable option to control my blinds and curtains. SwitchBot has the answer. Easy install and setup. I use the solar panel to charge the blind bots. I use my portable battery pack that I use for my laptop to charge my curtain bots when needed. I have them on a schedule so I don't need to do anything. They are wonderful!!! The app is easy to use and understand as well.
At least you updates along with the last iteration of devices has shown the maturity of this product in the company. Bugs are rare, and quickly fixed and found, feedback is integrated with reasonable pace, the product evolves to meet evolving demands. A solid product now.
We got an indoor camera to use as a baby monitor and it works great. The only problem with the app is that if I’m watching the camera and switch to another app then try to go back the camera video won’t load until I clear out of everything and reopen it. Other than that it works great. It would also be nice if the app was available on the Apple Watch to watch the camera video there.
Bot will completely not work if your Wi-Fi isn’t the perfect kind asked for
The instructions are of no help because they do not explain any setup to a level that any person could use. There are no alternatives to the way the bot must be setup. I have open-access internet and the bot refuses to connect to the open-access internet. This means I’ve wasted my money since my bot literally will not work without the internet capability. Will be returning immediately. It could simply provide a monitor along with the capability of phone monitoring to eliminate the issue. The company has serious troubleshooting issues.
I just purchased my first device from this company, the Hub Mini. I added a “Other” device for IR candles using learned remote commands which works fine from the iOS app. I successfully connected the Switchbot skill to my Alexa account. However, the candle devices did not get discovered in Alexa. It turns out that you need to create scenes in the Switchbot app. Those scenes are what gets discovered/integrated into Alexa. Works great! Thanks!
We have 6+ curtain devices, 3+ hubs, multiple switchbot button pushers, Door lock with keypad, etc. We use all of this with Hubitat, google home, etc. No issues, so not sure why it's difficult for some others in these reviews. We started when the original swichbot came out, then curtain, followed by curtain 2.
Needs major improvement + horrible customer service
The device “widgets” don’t even work half the time. Requires a constant restart just to get them to work properly, which is counterproductive! Makes no sense. Also have reached out to “customer service” multiple times to change my primary email on file since they don’t offer the option to through the app and they never got back to me. Honestly save your time and hard earned money and go for another smart home device/platform
This app keeps improving and is extremely useful. As the owner of an older cat it is very nice to easily have litter box usage and weight information available for the vet. I never have to worry about something going wrong with the litter box (which almost never happens) because I know a notification will alert me.
This app appears to be written by a first grader. It certainly make no consideration for the elderly, vision impaired or handicapped. The icons are super tiny. Trying to hit one involves a 50-50 chance of hitting the edit function for that button. The status ring and confirmation “bingo” are equally as small. The “bingo” also is all the way across the screen. A challenging test with perfect vision and youthfully nimble small fingers while waking to activate the coffee pot half asleep. Handicapped, elderly, vision and impaired need not apply. Oh I know, you can add siri for more money and painstaking technical setup, but really.........
The app has come a long way since it’s original release. Great features. Still looking for native Apple HomeKit support for the hub mini and curtain products. I’m hoping SwitchBot is working on support for Matter technology which was recently released. This could allow for native HomeKit direct integration instead of the Siri Shortcuts workaround they’ve been using.
I love that I am able to view my room through the mobile app but it's ridiculous how defective the indoor cam is! It just stays red when I got in contact with their customer service they told me it's defective. Their customer service is awesome but every time I am sent a new indoor cam, by a month or two it stays red and stops working. I've tried unplugging, resetting, deleting the device from the app and again it just stays red so I am unable to connect it to the app again. I've gotten it replaced twice already and I am giving up.
There are a lot of bad reviews about the UI on here. But I had no problems and got everything set up really fast. And I especially like that they added an option to turn off the indicator light on the device and prevent turning it off accidentally. Nice app.
I bought the curtain 3 and it won’t even let me install it in the app. Not so great first impression. When I press bluetooth button to pair it then gives you two options. 1 is to open the curtain from one side and the second option is to open from middle. I chose 1 side and the confirm button doesn’t work. Takes you no where. Please fire your developers immediately, if a button is not working I can’t imagine how chaotic and unorganized your entire company is.
I have the baby monitor and when I close out the app, it won’t reload until I come out of the app completely. It will randomly close out on my son while I’m watching him and if the Wi-Fi isn’t good for even a second, it won’t allow me access to the camera. Like I’m currently trying to look at my son right now and I’ve unplugged it and plugged it back in and it still won’t turn on while I’m trying to wash my son take a nap.
App works great, never encountered any issues after a month of using it. Would like to see some enhancements in the app line recurring presses after a certain intervals feature. For example every 5, 10, 15 minutes. Also would love to be able to schedule more than 5 presses.
1. Can’t assign room. 2. Can’t change home name. 3. Have to create an account for their data mining to use devices at all. 4. If you delete and re-install the app, which is SUPPOSED to delete all its data, when you re-install and try to create a new account using a different service, it RETAINS the prior login across installs and REFUSES to allow any other option, giving an error instead. What a scam. Apple needs to remove this from the store until these issues are fixed.
Super limited functionality… no repeating option other than daily?
I was thinking this would have a repeat press option, anywhere from every few seconds to a number of minutes or hours. It only allows repeat by day at a given time. Completely pointless for what I needed it for. Probably going to just return it and look for a better option. 😐
Can’t even create an account. After spending over $50 on these devices I can’t use them for what I intended to use them for because I can’t create an account. I get a message “unexpected token “<“ in JSON position 0” after trying to verify my email when creating an account, then “cannot verify user, user status is CONFIRMED” when trying again. Tried a couple times with different emails, no luck. I can’t believe such basic functionality isn’t there…
Overall, great product and decent app. Feature request: would be really nice if there was support for Apple Shortcuts. That would allow a user to say, “Siri, make a coffee” and the SwitchBot could be activated to start the coffee machine. This would provide great additional functionality without having to buy the cloud hub.
The products are good, but the software is just buggy and glitches. I have a routine that at night it closes all the lights and turns on the AC , and closes the curtains. But each time there is always the same thing, one of them is set to turn off the light, but it decides to open it instead. It needs a lot of work. If the light was off and the routine runs, then it decides to open the light instead of keeping it closed. It’s getting harder to like this
When motion is detected, I tap the notification which brings me to the app. I spend another 2 minutes tapping the icon to bring up the camera and nothing happens. Approximately 6 out of 10 times motion is detected, I just get up and walk across the house to figure out what’s going on. The delay is long enough to be dangerous if something bad happens. Buy elsewhere and trust these reviews!
This app has been really fun to have along with being useful for my plants and the greenhouse and the ones outside. I have suggested it to several other people who are also plant lovers and plant growers and they have been happy as well. Thanks a bunch.
I opened a support ticket last week when I noticed the three older small thermometers were not reporting data to the app past March 30. New version of the app was released today but did not resolve the issue. There has been no response from the app developer since the initial contact. So I need to make everyone know that this app does not work. Perhaps that will get their attention.
Neat concept but the app has a really bad user experience. It’s taken a lot of googling just to figure out how to even toggle the switch. I mean, it’s there on the app screen, tap, it goes into the setting screen. Huh? I finally figured out if you tap the teeny tiny circle in the switch card it works. This could be great with some basic UX design with proper affordances. But for now, the overall unboxing experience, documentation, was really rough.
This is a very nice smart home App that I have ever used.I can easily control my devices with the card on the home page. But I hope u can add widget or some buttons on home page that I could tap to trigger the scenes quickly
I received the switchbots, which look like good quality, but were too weak for my curtains. So far so good - but when I started asking for a refund, the whole mess started. The company asks for several videos, photos, and after final proof that the product doesn’t work for me, I sent it back and now have been waiting for weeks for my refund - and still didn’t get it. Watch out, the comoany doesn’t follow US standards!
Works great but can you guys make a setting where it gives me a option in the app to make repeated presses for every 4 minutes untill I want it to stop. It only lets me put 5 timed presses really wished it had unlimited set presses
You can control the SwitchBot Bot with a tap on the icons. You can schedule your appliances to turn on or off according to your preference with SwitchBot Hub Mini. You can monitor the environment of your family and properties with SwitchBot Thermometer and Hygrometer. And that’s just the beginning. Purchase a SwitchBot device and download the app to get started today. Stay tuned for updates as we add new features and new products to the SwitchBot family. 【Cloud Service Subscription Instructions】 -Subscription cycle: 1 month (continuous monthly subscription products). -Subscription price: Continuous monthly subscription product: $1.99/month. -Payment: The user confirms the purchase and pays. Users can manage subscriptions and auto-renew through their Apple ID. -Cancel renewal: If you need to cancel the renewal, please manually turn off the automatic renewal function in the Apple ID settings management at least 24 hours before the expiration of the current subscription period. - Renewal: The user's account will be debited within 24 hours before expiration, and the subscription period will be extended by one subscription period after the deduction is successful. Term of Use: https://www.switch-bot.com/pages/switchbot-terms-of-service Privacy Policy: https://www.switch-bot.com/pages/switchbot-privacy-policy - Website: switch-bot.com - Facebook: @SwitchBotRobot - Instagram: @theswitchbot - Twitter: @SwitchBot
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