Zigbee Smart Curtain Motor, or commonly called ZBCurtain, is a new product of SONOFF family.
ZBCurtain is an innovation from a construction and design point of view by SONOFF which opens the door to a new concept of home automation devices.
SONOFF has accustomed us to smart home devices for controlling lights and electrical appliances, for measuring temperature and humidity, for motion detection and cameras, but it had never designed and marketed a device to automate movement.
Well, SONOFF ZBCurtain is the ideal device for automating the curtains in our home.
With ZBCurtain, it is possible to automate the opening and closing of the curtains that we have on doors or windows of the house, making them smart and which will be able to interact with all the other home automation devices that we have installed in our smart home.
ZBCurtain comes in an unusual white box, large enough to contain the installation kit:
In the package we find:
1 Curtain motor (main motor, vice motor, drive chain, main clamp)
1 Remote control
1 Magnetic base for remote control (with double-sided adhesive included)
1 3m USB Type-C charging cable
1 Secondary terminal
2 Screws
2 Fixing brackets
In the package there is, as in every SONOFF product, also a small installation and user manual.
Main features:
Model: ZBCurtain
Power supply: 5V DC 1A
Connection: Zigbee 3.0
Maximum power: 5W
Max length of the chain: 3.5 meters
Max diameter of the curtain rail: 40mm
Battery model: 103450 (2×3.7V)
Battery capacity: 4000mAh
Charging interface: USB Type-C
Shell material: ABS
Dimensions:
Main motor 115x78x29 mm
Vice motor 115x58x28 mm
As can be seen from the name, ZBCurtain is a device that uses the ZigBee standard as a communication protocol, therefore a HUB will be required for its correct operation which may be that of SONOFF (ZB Bridge, ZB Bridge pro, ZB Dongle-P) but also Amazon Echo next generation or any other manufacturer as compatible. The ZigBee standard allows you to create a separate subnet from your home wifi and therefore to operate autonomously even in the momentary absence of an internet connection.
Operation:
The operation and installation of ZBCurtain are quite simple: a main motor positioned at the left end of the curtain rod is connected via a chain to the secondary motor which is positioned at the right end of the rod. The chain can be adjusted for the width of the curtain and can be used for both double and single curtains. A fixed clip on the chain is used to hook it to the flap of the left curtain while another clip will be hooked to the flap of the right curtain: these two will be pulled by the chain and will press the opening of the curtains. in the case of a single curtain, only one clip will be used.
The maximum weight that the motor can pull is 8 kg.
The instructions state that the curtain rod doesn’t have to be curved, but that’s logical.
Main motor installation
Slide the chain into the clip
Vice motor installation
Fix the clip to the curtain
Fix the second clip
Clip on single curtain
Pairing the ZBCurtain to the ZigBee gateway is, as always, very simple: once open the eWeLink app, select the gateway and add the sub-device. To put ZBCurtain into pairing mode, press the button at the bottom of the main motor located near the USB port for loading and wait for the small LED to flash. Near the USB port there is also a switch to turn the device on or off.
Pairing with eWeLink
Pairing button
USB charging port
It is expected that SONOFF will market a solar panel to be applied to the window to keep the battery charged. Sonoff declares a battery life of about 3 months with two daily openings.
Once paired with the eWeLink app, it is possible to remotely control the ZBCurtain device, but first, it is necessary to calibrate it using the remote control by opening and closing the curtain.
However, following the procedure indicated in the user manual is very simple.
It will now be possible to control ZBCurtain via the supplied remote control or via the eWeLink app, but also using voice commands thanks to compatibility with Amazon Alexa, Google Home, SmartThings, etc. One useful thing is the manual opening: by pulling the curtain, the device starts up and opens or closes as we wish.
Of course you can make percentage opening and closing adjustments and create specific scenes, for example opening the curtains when more light is needed or closing them when the sun is annoying, in the field of energy saving it is a good solution.
In conclusion, it can be said that once again SONOFF has made a good product available to its users, different from the usual ones it offers but equally functional and useful. Every time, SONOFF tries with its devices to make our lives smarter and the house easier to manage.
To purchase click HERE
With ZBCurtain even curtains become smart!
Thanks for Michele Sammuri’s permission. The original text ( in Italian ) is here: https://domofacile.altervista.org/zbcurtain/
A short video of ZBCurtain from SONOFF channel:
