Contact SwitchBot Support

As usual of many apps, it asks for “Always Allow” location permission without explaining why, or how that’s going to be used. I declined, but connected to BT and gave it what else it asked for. So it detected my Bot, cycled the motor through one spin, but that was it. Bot detection then disappeared as a listed bot to be controlled. GUI is unintuitive and of no apparent help thus far. It should have been easy. A wizard should be helping me decide how to set it up. The printed instructions also tell you things to do without explaining why - e.g., stick it where you want to use it first, even before assessing how it works. No thanks -what a dumb idea: commit first, check and see how it works later. That’s as bad advice is bots as in marriage. So, the struggle to figure out how to use it and how to connect it to Alexa continues. Terrible.

This app appears to be written by a first grader. It certainly make no consideration for the elderly, vision impaired or handicapped. The icons are super tiny. Trying to hit one involves a 50-50 chance of hitting the edit function for that button. The status ring and confirmation “bingo” are equally as small. The “bingo” also is all the way across the screen. A challenging test with perfect vision and youthfully nimble small fingers while waking to activate the coffee pot half asleep. Handicapped, elderly, vision and impaired need not apply. Oh I know, you can add siri for more money and painstaking technical setup, but really.........

You know how you can tell that some apps are probably somebody’s first? Yeah. And it’s bad. This whole setup has exactly one thing going for it: I didn’t have to register for an account. Which is rad. But I’m not ok with the scheduler. There are ways to have a user pick dates and times. Apple builds these things in for a reason. This app doesn’t use the Apple stuff, it reinvents the wheel, and that wheel rolls with a wobble. There are only five schedule slots, total. Why? Who knows. Maybe it has literally under a kb of storage. This wouldn’t be a *huge* issue except that it’s lacking another basic feature — how many times does it press and how long? When you schedule an event, it represents one button push. There’s no way to expand on that and say “press twice” or “press and hold.” Truly disappointing. The hardware seems ok, but the app renders it nearly useless.