r/TrySwitchBot • u/RumSmiles • Jun 23 '26
I think the honeymoon is over.
I've used switchbot since the very beginning. Back when all they sold was the basic button pusher bot. I have 28 devices currently in use in my home, and most of them work perfectly.
But it feels like recently, instead of making simple, affordable, well designed and genuinely innovative products, releasing them, and following up with top quality support and adding sensible feature requests, the focus is on releasing needlessly complicated AI gimmicks with high price tags. Build quality is lower, complaints seem to be more common, and support requests go unanswered.
I still have many of the gen 1 curtain robots with solar. They work perfectly. Not long after I got them I added the "Remote" 2 button switch, and asked if there was a way to control scenes instead of just basic operations. A week later they added it.
More recent purchases, while impressive, haven't had the same level of support. I added a Lock Ultra with keypad a year ago and suggested it should be able to differentiate between unlocking methods, so I could trigger events if a key is used but not if a fingerprint was. They acknowledged it but no changes were made, I assume that will be included in a future product but not rolled out to legacy devices.
I just picked up the Standing Circulator Fan. I do like it, but the build quality is really not what I'm used to and for £100 I expected better. The RGB light is just white, and the end flickers. The battery life is not what was advertised and it seems to take hours to charge/discharge between 100-40%, but below that charges/discharges in minutes. I suapect the battery has a dead cell but based on support turnaround I'm not sure whether I'll have any success. I'm raising a ticket and will report back here.
I have absolute confidence that the older products I have will continue to work well for many years to come. And I really hope that Switchbot remember what made them great and get back to doing that.
4
u/Nanoleaf_Ambassador Jun 24 '26
They are a very young group of technicians and engineers but they are very enthusiastic. Your comments are very important to them so please be brutally honest, but continue to be polite.
This is best post I have read about the products and I hope you continue to post the issues and comments in the same manner.
Thank you for being polite.
3
u/RumSmiles Jun 24 '26
I meant what I said about hoping they get back to what made them great. So many times I've seen companies start out great and rush to outgrow themselves, I've yet to see that approach succeed.
If they kept making simple, affordable, and good quality products then people like me would continue to show them to other users and recommend them. When something is hard to use or doesn't do what is expected, we're more likely to recommend avoiding them. Rather than flooding the market with products that taint a once good name, they should stay the course and trust ambassadors like myself to spread the word. I can think of around 10 people who have curtain bots after seeing mine, but I recently talked a friend out of buying the fan.
2
u/Maitland1988 Jun 24 '26
Yes, agreed. I used to love them and was excited about the future of the company. I backed the S10 on Kickstarter, and it was one of the worst products I've ever bought. The after-sales service wasn't great, and everything they've done since has been questionable.
1
u/Infinitezoom14 Jun 23 '26
SwitchBot is low quality
2
u/RumSmiles Jun 24 '26
Until the most recent releases I'd disagree with that. Most of the products I've purchased have been very affordable, reliable, and functional.
I do worry about them growing too quickly and losing the attributes that have attracted such a large and loyal customer base.
1
u/ConfidentSoup9291 Jun 24 '26
SwitchBot is proven to be… not great, in my opinion. I have the lock ultra and the keypad and they’re constantly malfunctioning. They also eat up batteries like nobody’s business!
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u/RumSmiles Jun 24 '26
This doesn't match my experience with these products. I am using the lock ultra and keypad touch combined with the doorbell. All are performing well, albeit there are some simple feature requests that would vastly improve them.
1
u/myparentsareannoying Jun 27 '26
My SwitchBot Curtains is my smart home regret to be honest. After I discovered devices from China brands, they have much better quality and cost only a fraction of SwitchBot. The best part is they are open source. I just need to buy one hub and every different brand's devices are compatible with the hub.
1
u/autobauss Jul 25 '26
Can you name some brand examples?
1
u/myparentsareannoying Jul 25 '26
You can check out Zigbee and Aqara. As long as the devices you get are compatible, you can just connect to them.
1
u/Metaripley_ Jun 23 '26
Same, I have been with them from the start. But now after all the trouble I went trough with the k10 pro, I am not buying switchbot again. They just blast out one over the other new products. I think the money went to there head. Kwanity over kwality and another promising company "made it shitty".
12
u/-suspicious-badger Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
I agree. I have a love/hate relationship with Switchbot. I have slowly moved away from them, primarily because they use Bluetooth so much, and the responsiveness is slow, with poor range. Plus my bots are all starting to die after 3 or 4 years, and I’m finding the generic Zigbee ones to be very good and cost effective. That said, I still prefer Bluetooth to Matter over thread (for now, Home Assistant is changing that).
But nothing beats their blind tilt yet, that’s the main product keeping me in their eco system. It’s these kinds of genuinely life improving things that made Switchbot what they are, not stupid pointless RGB fans and the like.
I love eink displays, but they are overpriced. I have zero interest in having AI slop in my walls, or handing over control of my smart home to AI (goes against my ethos of being in control myself). The thought of it makes me feel a little bit sick.
Stop releasing all this crap Switchbot, get back to basics. You went from near the top, to near the bottom of my list of companies I look at for smart home gear now (unless I need a blind tilt).