Switchbot – for the times you can’t just plug something in!

I’ve wanted a Switchbot for AGES and hey, ZBANX sent me a couple of Switchbot Bots to play with Back in 2022. Nice. I have a February 2023 update on the Switchbot thermostat at the end.

In case it’s not obvious, the Bot is a little battery-powered box with a tiny lever to physically turn things on and off from an APP. The device will work in pushbutton or one-way modes as required.

Spouse won’t let you interfere with the wiring? Is automating your light (or other appliance) hard or is it just inconvenient to wire it electronically?

I’ve got a better one for you: I’ve a tiny computer – CHUWI which is WONDERFUL but for one fatal flaw which the company who make the Chuwi have no intention of fixing…. it simply will not turn on automatically after a power failure… and that’s when I first took an interest in Switchbot.

If the computer is here in Spain and I’m in the UK, I’m stuffed. You’d think there would be a million (not amateur-night-out) products to get around this by physically pushing the power button – but no.

To cut a long story short, I’m back in Spain and JUST as I was leaving the UK my PC there died – won’t turn on – it’s either a new PSU or the BIN. As the UK is no longer part of the Euro-party, shipping stuff back and forth is no-where near as easy as it used to be, but this tiny PC would be easy to take in someone’s bag – but without the ability to ensure it stays on over there regardless – useless. Enter the BOT.

I’m so excited I can try this while writing to you guys… first things first – the packaging tells you a lot about the Switchbot Bot so here goes… as a bonus, Switchbot Bot is compatible with all of your speech-gadgets – Alexa, Google and more. Before I forget – here’s the ZBanx link for the BOT (no I’m not on commission etc)

I’ve never actually been near one of these devices until now. Sorry, I had to obscure the codes (right) to protect the innocent (i.e. me). But then I didn’t have to use any codes – I just grabbed the APP and the BOT started communicating with it.

I already have a feel for this and at this point in the blog entry, I’ve not yet taken the device out of the box but it is so well-explained on the box.

So the claim is nearly 2 years battery life – I’ll assume an annual battery with room for a short pandemic pause….

Ok, first question – what on earth is a CR2 battery? Doesn’t matter – they included one – I’ll worry about that in (let’s say) 500-600 days 🙂

As you see left and above, every panel of the box contains useful info, including spec… range up to 80 metres Bluetooth (I’ll believe that when I see it)… the bottom of the box contains the spec, range and more.

So this device runs on Bluetooth – I’d have preferred WiFi but I guess battery life would be an issue and using a BT dongle on my Raspberry Pi can’t be that big a deal? – I already have a BT dongle here in Spain (for a plant sensor) so adding one to the UK setup should not be an issue hopefully.. BUT read on…

Anyway, I took Switchbot Bot out, pulled out the tab protecting the battery, downloaded the APP and that’s IT, no signing my life away, no add devices or other stuff – it’s just there, my first Switchbot Bot… and pressing the icon makes it physically LIFT UP – WHEEE – that’s with the APP over BT of course. Using the APP is really simple.

I then tried my HCITOOL LESCAN on my RPi to see if I could spot the Switchbot and ultimately find a way control it remotely ovre WiFi, The device uses BLE…. I can see the device MAC after the button is pressed, meanwhile I’ve asked for a HUB MINI and I’m checking out ways to talk via some kind of gateway. Meanwhile, all is not lost as you can set a schedule, so the next step would be to have it reboot my mini-PC overnight…. at this point the PC is here in front of me (see video below) so it’s easy to test…

Why did I take some photos (below) outside? Because it’s April and sunny – at last…

I removed the battery protection tab – (battery included), downloaded the Switchbot APP from the Playstore and the Bot is working… adhesive tabs are supplied – and now to my little PC problem.. firstly on the left, the Chuwi mini-PC. Note the round on-off button has a light – you CANNOT turn this machine on without pressing that button. The Chuwi is reliable – sadly my power is not 100% reliable and well, with Windows updates, anything could happen.

Here below, we see the Bot and Chuwi working together using the standard Switchbot APP which picked up the BLE Bot automatically:

More when I get the HUB. Of course if someone had a device setup like this, for example in the loft, it would be possible to press that button using Bluetooth via the APP – but my requirements are a little moer awkward – like 2 different countries…

I’ve tried getting the bot talking to my Raspberry Pi 4:

sudo hcitool lescan

That command above picks up the device MAC number after pressing the button…. but the python code out there won’t run for me… example (with changed MAC address of course):

# Activate switchbot by python with bluepy on Raspberry Pi
# https://github.com/IanHarvey/bluepy
# 
# Switchbot's API is taken from this
# https://github.com/OpenWonderLabs/python-host

import binascii
from bluepy.btle import Peripheral

# find your switchbot address by
# pi@raspberry:~ $ sudo hcitool lescan
# replace "ff:..:ff"
p = Peripheral("ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff", "random")
hand_service = p.getServiceByUUID("cba20d00-224d-11e6-9fb8-0002a5d5c51b")
hand = hand_service.getCharacteristics("cba20002-224d-11e6-9fb8-0002a5d5c51b")[0]
hand.write(binascii.a2b_hex("570100"))
p.disconnect()

sudo python ./switchbot_bluepi.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./switchbot_bluepi.py", line 8, in <module>
    from bluepy.btle import Peripheral
ImportError: No module named bluepy.btle

I guess somehow I’m missing a “blupy library” or module… I also tried python3 rather than python… different error, same result. Ok, I give up – I’ve tried various Node-Red BLE nodes – “not authorized (not started) etc. I cannot get anywhere on remote access…

MORE ideas anyone? There has to be a reliable way to get bluepi.btle installed and running on a standard up to date Rpi4….

Meanwhile, I can see this one is going to go on and on for a while (see comments already) – I should take the opportunity to mention – importantly – the adhesive seems fine (unlike some Chinese LED strips I’ve had over the years who’s adhesive can fail in hours) and the BOT is stuck solidly to my Chuwi computer.

Update April 21. 2022

I just received the Switchbot Hub Mini, Switchbot Remote and Switchbot Thermometer and Hydrometer Plus. My remaining fears of Switchbot Bot not working remotely just disappeared. I now thave the Hub working in the cloud (I’d have preferred VPN into the house but hey, it’s solved the problem of remotely turning my little Chuwi on and off from anywhere in the world. The hub is USB powered and easily hooks into the WiFi providing a bridge between WiFi, Bluetooth and IR. Good stuff.

The thermometer and wall switch are just a bonus for now. I have both running, I’ve had the REMOTE controlling the BOT and also the HUB controlling the BOT – also noticed the temperature and humidity appear on the APP display.

Caviat – May 2022

I do need to add this at the end…. I’ve been using Switchbot on a tiny PC to control the on-off button – and got very excited at the thought of using it on our Hotpoint dishwasher which outright refuses to cooperate with a timer in a country which now charges considerably less for electricity after midnight Switchbot will save me, I thought. erm, NOPE – not nearly strong enough grip.

Update February 17,2023 – Renewed interest in the Thermostat

My Switchbot kit has been sitting doing nothing for some time and today I grabbed the Switchbot Thermometer and Hydrometer Plus – just as it was on the shelf – and, trying to remember how to use it, I recalled it works on it’s own (no hub) with the Switchbot APP, simply using Bluetooth. So nothing special there, then.

BUT, it seems that the logging is kept on the phone, so having not had the APP turned on for months, I powered up the APP and a flourish of activity began, taking several minutes to complete, during which I could see both temperature and humidity readings along with Min and MAX values, filling up before my eyes (it probably doesn’t help that I’ve changed phone since I last used the sensor). You can view values hourly, by day, week, month or year.

Nearly done… and…. right – I have it. I normally graph all this stuff on my Raspberry Pi but I could see how someone might find it useful to have one of these (pretty, not backlit but quite clear in poor lighting) displays in every room of the house and one outside (within Bluetooth range for local data collection of course) and leave it up to the phone to keep track of historical data.

On the left, a photo of the last 24 hours once my phone was finished collecting data – clearly showing thst I’m NOT in an air-conditioned building – max temperature 22.5c last night and now, 17c. Time to turn on the office reversible air-con – I wondered why my fingers felt cold 🙂

As a final point- back in April 2022 I set up the thermometer and it’s had the same CR2450 battery in there since and the display is still indicating full battery.

It’s important to note that I took this photo of the thermometer in poor lighting yet it’s still very readable. I’ve several of these LCD displays from various manufacturers and some look great in bright lighting but off-centre in normal to poor lighting they can be pretty dire – not so the Switchbot.

OK, I’d still prefer a backlight but I guess you can’t have it all ways. Check out the top right battery state indicator… It seems that the company claim 5 weeks storage in the thermometer – I just noted the history I’ve just downloaded to my phone goes as far back as the beginning of December 2022.