Aqara Add More Functionality to The Roller Shade Driver E1

The Aqara Roller Shade Driver has been out for a few months now in China, and a month internationally, and whilst it has been one of the most useful products we’ve tested from Aqara so far, there was at least one function missing. However, the company now seemed to have included a couple of extra functions, although with virtually no announcements – very modest!

The first of these two new features involves the operating speed at which the blinds open and close. Now in the ‘More Settings’ section for the E1 in the Aqara Home app, you now have an option – ‘Adjustment of the operating speed’. From there, you get to choose from High, Medium or Low. It would appear from a quick test, that the original speed of the blinds, prior to this update, was High.

The time difference for the blinds opening and closing at different speeds obviously varies depending on the length and even the weight of your blinds, but it’s good to be able to have a ‘Low’ option, which we assume may extend battery life, although we can’t confirm this without extensive testing (not happening…).

Note: the other addition is regarding the Scenarios option; Before I mention it, in all fairness, this option may have been available from the outset, although, at the time of reviewing the E1, I don’t remember seeing any such option.

So, this option allows ‘Scenarios’ to be added to automations, which as I stated didn’t seem to be available before. Still, if you’re not aware, Scenarios are essentially just Scenes but set apart from the usual Scenes section of the Aqara Home app. Prior to this discovery, if you wanted to run a Scenario, you would have to select it from the Scenarios section (with the disclaimer that it may have always been there…).

Now when setting up an automation, you have the option to ‘Set it to the specified scene’ which I would suggest should actually read ‘Set it to the specified Scenario’ as Scenes are a separate thing from Scenarios – just to make things confusing. This allows you to run these special Scenarios, that involve opening or closing the blinds over specific durations of time, and to specific open/closed positions, automatically.

Let us know if you’ve been using the E1 blinds and what you think of them, and remember, to keep up with all the latest HomeKit news and reviews, subscribe to get all the latest instantly delivered to your inbox. Alternatively, you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit!