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We all want a little luxury in our lives, and modern gadgets are making that more accessible than ever. For relatively little money, you can transform your home into something akin to a luxurious Dubai hotel room, complete with every possible convenience. Conveniences like, for example, automated curtains. Do you need it? Probably not. Is it cool? Absolutely. Let’s take a look at what the Aqara Curtain Driver E1 is all about.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Design
This small but weighty device is manufactured by Aqara, a Chinese brand that focuses on smart home devices such as locks, doorbells, and so on. The Aqara Curtain Driver E1 serves only one purpose: to automate your curtains. There are two types of E1 – one for curtain rods and one for tracks. Both are compact, rounded gadgets with two hooks on top. Visually, there isn’t much to say about them except that the build quality is at the highest level, as usual for the company.
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Setting
Before you start installing the Curtain Driver, take a moment to charge it – running wires to the curtain rod is probably not very convenient. It took me about an hour to fully charge the device out of the box. A USB cable is included, but there is no charging adapter.
The installation process itself will take you next to no time and won’t require any knowledge or skills – even I managed to figure it out in ten minutes. All you need to do is use the hanger that’s already in the box. Attaching it is elementary. Then, all you need to do is double-press the button on the device itself to extend the hooks from it. Hooked it to the hanger? Press twice again, and the gadget will automatically rise to the desired distance so that the mechanism touches the curtain rod. The maximum weight the E1 can move is 12 kg. Its speed is around 12 cm per second.
That’s about it! Now into the app.
The app
Like all smart devices, the Aqara Curtain Driver E1 needs an app – if only for the initial setup. If you prefer, you don’t have to use it – you can either give voice commands or even just manually pull the curtains, after which the gadget, having understood the hint, will start moving on its own. But it’s unlikely you’d consciously avoid the app, especially since Aqara’s is quite good.
Before I tell you how the setup process works, I must note that for optimal operation, you need not only a phone but also an Aqara Zigbee 3.0 hub. Wait, what? Why? Why not just connect it to Wi-Fi and control it with your phone? Technically, that would be possible – but impractical.
Wi-Fi is convenient because it allows for quick sending and receiving of large volumes of data. Games, movies, streaming, etc. However, it’s energy-intensive, which is why smart devices need large batteries. If all you need is to send a few numbers or commands approximately once every 5 minutes, using Wi-Fi is overkill.
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Zigbee is a low-power, low-bandwidth alternative designed to allow battery-powered devices to operate for as long as possible. It’s very useful for lights, sensors, and similar devices. However, for this to work, you need a compatible hub. I agree, it’s inconvenient for those just starting their smart home journey. But that’s the price of admission to this club – at least in this case. The hub itself costs around $150, although it’s often sold at a discount.
If you already have a hub, synchronization is very simple: the device is detected automatically. To configure its operation (how wide you want the curtains to open, and so on), you just need to follow the instructions. There are both automatic and manual settings. I used both: my window required two Aqara Curtain Driver E1s in tandem, and while the first one automatically determined where its “territory” ended, the second one refused to turn off. I solved this problem with manual adjustment.
From here on, everything depends on you. The level of automation (sunlight outside the window, rainy weather, voice command, open door, etc.) is entirely up to you. I didn’t go overboard and simply set up a Siri voice command. The hub, by the way, also works with HomeKit, but for some reason, it constantly threw an error for me. It’s hard to say why.
My task was to automate two windows in my house – in the bedroom and the living room. For this, I needed four Curtain Driver E1 devices – one for each side of the window. But these are my large windows – you might only need one. Understanding this, Aqara made sure it’s possible to combine two devices into one, so there’s no need (though it is possible) to open each curtain separately.
Drawbacks
Aside from the aforementioned instability with HomeKit, it’s worth noting that the mechanism cannot be called silent. This isn’t a problem at all, but when you watch videos, you don’t really think about the sound. But it’s there. Well, you can’t fight the laws of physics.
Another feature of the gadget is its built-in light sensor. Thanks to it, it always knows when the sun has risen. It’s great that it’s built-in, but I couldn’t test it because my curtain rod is too high, and the camera doesn’t “look out” to the outside. Again, not fatal, but annoying.
Each E1 has a 6400 mAh battery, which should last you about a year. After that, you’ll have to stand on a chair and connect a USB-C cable. I think this is the most inconvenient device to charge in my collection – but once a year, it’s bearable.
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Verdict
The Aqara Curtain Driver E1 is a small luxury. At around $75.80, it’s not a cheap toy from Amazon. But sometimes you want to treat yourself, and I can think of many worse ways to spend money. Among all its counterparts, this is one of the most pleasant to use. Considering it’s completely out of sight, Aqara could have cut corners on the plastic quality and appearance – but they didn’t. With the E1, I can start watching movies in comfortable darkness, without the sun reflecting on the screen – and wake up with the sunrise. It’s a small thing, but it made me feel like a royalty, if a little bit.
Where to buy
- Amazon
- Best Buy