Apologies if Aqara seems to be dominating the news cycle again, but the company have now revealed an updated, international version of their popular roller blind motor, known as the equally wordy ‘Smart Roller Shade Controller’, that is now listed on the global pages of their site.
This product is designed to fit inside a roller tube, with the mains-powered roller turning the blinds connected to said tube. This means that you can select your own material and also the right length of tube for your windows, as the motor only sits inside a portion of the tube itself.
It also supports Zigbee 3.0 so it’s going to be best suited to work with the newer Aqara hubs, like the M1S, M2 and recently released E1 USB hub. As it uses Zigbee, it will also be exposed to HomeKit as standard and can be used in all sorts of automations, as well as supporting various types of roller blinds. In fact, with the right fittings, it can also be used to control your projector screen, should you be lucky enough to have one.
The original version of this particular device has actually been available in China for some time now but was only officially for sale in Mainland China. The original model has since been superseded by a T1 version and the T1C version, both of which are still only designed for China, so the new Global version is good news – although only good news for those countries that use 220-240v, as this model only supports this voltage range.
Oddly enough, the aforementioned T1C version, which we have here, is actually suitable for the entire voltage range (110-240v), so it could be that whilst the global version is currently only suitable for some regions, like the EU for example, a US version of the T1C (maybe the T1US…) is in the works.