Turn your stone age curtains into voice-controlled super-curtains with Slide

Are you embarrassed by your dumb curtains? Do you spend hours each morning simply shouting at them to open before giving up and cutting your way through with a knife? Well, stress no more: Slide is here to automate your shades.

Currently raising funds on Kickstarter, this little gizmo can be retrofitted to a wide range of horizontal curtains, before connecting to your Wi-Fi to automate opening and shutting. You can use the Slide app for iOS and Android to set alarms, and support for If This Then That (IFTTT) means you can connect it any number of smart devices such as the Amazon Echo (which lets you control it with your voice). Prices start at €69 ($72) and the Slide is estimated to ship to consumers in June 2017.

Now, believe it or not, this isn’t the first smart curtain and/or blind operator we’ve seen. Earlier in the year we tested out the FlipFlic, a similar device that works with blinds instead of curtains. We were impressed with the simple installation of the hardware, but found that the software was hit and miss — with a confusing app and an annoying lack of manual controls. Hopefully Slide can avoid these mistakes, and let in a little light to our stone age homes.