With Eve Custom Smart Blinds, you can bathe your room in sunlight or enjoy a darkened, private atmosphere without ever getting up from the couch. Powered by a motor that offers Thread networking and Matter connectivity, Eve blinds work with most smart home device automation platforms and can be controlled using your phone, voice, automations, or a pull cord. The blinds are only available as a roller shade window treatment, but Eve offers three light-filtering fabric choices and a variety of colors. With pricing starting at $546.85, the Eve blinds are expensive, but they work well, are easy to install, and look great. That said, you get more fabric, style, and motor choices for significantly less money with the SmartWings Motorized Roller Shades, which start at $209.99.

Design and Features: Limited Options, Widespread Compatibility

Each Eve blind is custom-made to your specifications, but they are only available in a roller shade configuration, whereas SmartWings offers several shade types, including roller, cellular, outdoor, zebra, Roman, and woven wood. Eve's fabric choices include light-filtering (partial darkness), blackout (total darkness), and light-filtering with insulation (which uses a metallic backing that reflects and filters sunlight). Light-filtering and blackout fabrics come in Ash, Dust, Ink, Oyster, Sand, and Snow colors, while insulated color choices include Anthracite, Black Metal, Grey Metal, Silver Metal, and White Metal. Eve will send you free fabric samples to help you pick the best option for your home.

(Credit: Eve/PCMag)

Prices vary according to the type of light-filtering fabric that you select, your window dimensions, and optional features such as an exposed bracket or enclosed cassette mounting assembly. Our test shade, which was configured using an Ash blackout fabric for a 74-by-52-inch double window with a cassette mount, cost $1,146.58. In comparison, a SmartWings roller shade built to the same specifications goes for $495.96.

Eve shades use a battery-powered motor designed by Motionblinds, a company that specializes in providing smart motor solutions for shading applications. The motor has five speeds and is charged using a USB-C cable and an AC adapter, neither of which is included in the box. Oddly, the shade does not come with mounting screws or a remote control, but it does come with mounting brackets and a setup guide.

The motor contains a USB-C charging port, an LED indicator that glows red when the battery needs charging or green during setup, an end position button, and a Reset/Program button. The end position button is used to tell the motor when to stop when the shade has reached your desired top and bottom positions. The Reset/Program button is used to reset the motor to its factory default settings, pair the shade with a Matter controller app, and change motor speeds. It's strange that the Eve shade doesn’t come with a remote like the SmartWings shade, but it does have a handy pull cord controller that raises and lowers the shade. Simply pull the cord once to lower the shade and pull it again to raise it.

Eve’s only motor choice supports Thread networking and is Matter-enabled, whereas SmartWings offers Matter over Alexa-only, Thread, Z-Wave, Zigbee, and non-smart motor options. Matter over Thread technology allows the Eve shade to work with multiple home automation platforms, including Alexa, Google, HomeKit, and SmartThings. As with any Matter over Thread device, you’ll need a Thread border router and Matter controller to use these shades. A few examples include the Apple HomePod mini, the HomePod, the Amazon Echo, the Amazon Echo Show 8, the Google Nest Hub Max, and the Google Nest Hub.

(Credit: Eve/PCMag)

Eve shades can be controlled using the Eve mobile app (available for Android and iOS) and one of the aforementioned home automation platform apps, whereas the SmartWing shades rely solely on the latter with no first-party companion app. The shade appears in the Eve app in whichever room you assigned during setup. Tap the Rooms tab and the shade name to open a screen with a position slider for opening and closing the shade fully or partially.

Below the slider is a Schedule tile where you can program the shades to open and close at a specific time of day and on certain days of the week. You can have the shade stop at a favorite position, fully open, or fully close. From this page, you can also configure and enable Adaptive Shading, a feature that uses the position of the window and the sun to automatically open and close the shade. Tap the Automation tile to program the shade to open and close at sunset and sunrise, when a compatible motion sensor detects motion, and/or when you leave or arrive at home.

Performance: Smooth and Responsive

Installing the Eve shade was fairly easy, but you’ll need a level, mounting screws, and a second set of hands. Due to its size, my shade required four spring-loaded brackets to hold it in place. My helper and I held the shade up just above the window, at which point I put a level on the cassette valance to make sure it was straight. I marked off where each bracket should be installed, removed the brackets from the shade, and, using my guide marks, attached each bracket to the wall. I then snapped the shade onto the brackets, double checked that everything was level, and pressed the Program button to begin the pairing process.

Using an Apple HomePod as my Matter/Thread controller, I opened the Apple Home app, tapped the plus icon in the upper right corner, and tapped Add Accessory. I scanned the Matter code located on the pull cord, and the shade was immediately recognized. I gave it a name, assigned it to a room, and repeated the same basic process to add it to my Eve app.

(Credit: Eve)

The Eve shade worked well in testing. It responded instantly to Eve and Apple Home app controls to open and close, and had no trouble executing Siri voice commands. Apple Home scenes worked seamlessly. My voice commands to open and close the shade to a specific percentage also worked without issue.

The shade’s blackout fabric did a wonderful job of keeping my den dark. I enabled Adaptive Shading in the Eve app and followed the instructions to hold my phone up against the window to configure the window direction relative to the sun’s position. As the sun shone directly into my window, the shade automatically closed to prevent sunlight from entering the room. Once the sun was no longer shining directly into the room, the shade opened to my specified position.

I created an automation in the Eve app to have the shade open to 50% when I arrived home, and it worked well, as did my automation to have it close completely at sunset.

The Eve shade motor isn’t terribly noisy, but it is louder than the SmartWings motor. Using the NIOSH Sound Level Meter app, the Eve shade registered 56dB while raising and lowering it, while the SmartWings shade registered 43dB.