REVIEW – When we moved into our new house three years ago, I never thought I would want window coverings on the high-mounted small windows that we have in several rooms, including our master bathroom. I quickly discovered that because we live on a corner lot that has another street running straight into our side yard, while coming downhill, car headlights will shine right into those windows in our master bathroom. I love to sleep in complete darkness, so to have those super white car headlights come blaring in from those master bath windows drove me crazy! I was so excited when the opportunity came to review the motorized shades from Allesin. The fact that they could make shades smaller than their website stated was awesome. Let’s see how well they worked out for me.
⬇︎ Jump to summary (pros/cons)
Price: $149.00
Where to buy: Allesin
What is it?
The Allesin K230 motorized cellular shades use rechargeable batteries that can be mounted with the battery facing the front or the back of the shade. The batteries are easy to remove for recharging. They offer solar panels to recharge the batteries if your windows are south facing. They also have an optional WiFi gateway that will let you control the blinds through and app or Alexa.
What’s included?
I received a total of four shades for three windows. One of the shades was a newly developed no-drill mount version I tested first in my middle window. The other three shades were drill mount blinds. Each shade came with the following items.
- One blind
- One solar panel – This is an extra cost feature and is not part of the standard installation.
- One rechargeable battery pack
- One USB C to USB A charging cable
- One remote control that can control a single shade – it has a battery in it with a plastic pull tab to activate it.
- two mounting brackets and a package of wood screws and drywall anchors and screws
- a small screwdriver to open up the remote to change the battery
I also received some extra items that Allesin offers.
- AC200 advanced remote that can control up to 15 shades.
- A wall mounting kit for the remote.
- A WiFi bridge that will let you connect the blinds to your WiFi and control them via an app or Alexa
Design and features
The Allesin blinds are built to your specifications. Whether you want to mount them inside or outside the frame of your window, their website provides instructions on measuring your window space.
I wanted to mount them on the inside of my windows. I have three windows, the two outside windows having identical measurements, and the middle window being about 3/8ths larger.
The picture above shows a drill-mount shade on top and a non-drill-mount shade on the bottom. This is the back side of the shades, where the only difference is the flexible arm that sticks out of the no-drill shade.
The underneath of both shades is identical.
Another difference on the no-drill-mount shade is that it has a hole where you insert an Allen key. Turning it clockwise locks the slider on the left into place.
The batteries are removable. In the pictures above, you can see the connectors on the shade and the back of the battery. The battery slides into place and is held there magnetically. It is very simple to slide the battery out for recharging.
Assembly, Installation, Setup
The above picture shows the three windows in my bathroom. The master bedroom is just outside the door to the right. I have removed everything from the countertop in preparation for the installation.
I decided to install the no-drill shade first. Allesin provides two different depths of a double-sided silicone insert that goes on the side of the shade without the adjustable arm. This insert protects your wall as the shade is pushed against it.
To mount the no-drill shade in the window, I had to compress it almost all the way. I then used the provided Allen key and locked it in place.
For the other two shades, I drilled two holes in each window. I had to make the rightmost hole 7 inches inside due to the battery not mounting properly if the bracket was in the same position as the battery. I used my drill to predrill a small hole into the wood stud in my window frame and screwed the brackets in place. The shades clip in easily by sliding the front part of the shade into the bracket and then tipping it backward into the back part of the bracket. To remove them, you press in the small plastic part at the front of the bracket, and it releases the back part of the shade.
Here, they are all fully mounted in the open and closed position. I am sorry to say that I did not end up using the solar panels. It did not occur to me how much window space they would take up on such small windows. I also did not want to put the battery packs behind the headers, which was required should you use the solar panels. Since the windows are in such an awkward position, I wanted to ensure the battery pack was easy to get to when it came time to recharge it.
The next step was to assign shade motors to the remote that could handle up to 15 shades. They have a handy video below showing those steps.
Finally, the last thing I did was to set up the gateway to my network. I did that via the Tuya App from the Android store. It is also available for Apple. The gateway was added to my network like any other device I have done before. It should be noted that it will only work with a 2.4 GHz network.
Once the gateway was up and running, it was a simple matter to click the + button in the app to add a shade. After pressing the + button, I had to press and hold the button on the shade battery until the motor made the shade jog. Within seconds, the shade was added to my gateway.
I could then go into each shade and manually control it via the app.
Pressing the cog icon at the top of each shade page presented me with several settings.
The Timer Opera was my favorite setting. I can set specific times to open and close the blinds.
I could also add the Tuya app as a skill to my Amazon Alexa, which I did below.
I put all three shades into a group called Bath Blinds. I can now ask Alexa to close Bath Blinds or fully open Bath Blinds.
Performance
Overall, I have been very happy with the Allesin cellular shades. The brackets for the drill-mount shades were very easy to install. They come on and off the brackets much easier than the Levelor shades I have in other windows. What makes them easy to remove is that the basket does show above the shade top. It is not as clean an installation as my Levelor, where the brackets do not show, but I don’t really notice them.
I love that the battery packs are very easy to remove when recharging. I have another Levelor blind with a rechargeable pack built into the shade. So to recharge it, I need to run a power cord from the top of the shade down to a power outlet. Again, if you want a clean and neat look, you can’t beat the Levalor. The Allesin battery pack is pretty obvious sitting out front. I want to mention that I could install the blinds with the battery pack behind the shade. I chose not to because I have to climb up on my countertop to get the battery pack down. I did not want to contort myself to reach further back to get it.
The automated schedule via the Tuya app works like a dream. I no longer even touch the remote. Should I need to open or close the shades off schedule, I ask Alexa.
The one issue I had was with the no-drill-mount shade. After using the shades for about a week, the right side started to slip down. You could see a gap and light coming in above the right corner of the shade. I ended up installing brackets and using them to hold my alternate drill-mount version for the window.
Final thoughts
I am very happy with the Allesin motorized cellular shades. They were very easy to install and pair with remotes and the provided gateway. The shades have been running on schedule for two weeks with no issues except for the sagging of the no-dill-mount shade. I love that they have the option to mount the shade with the battery in front or back of the shade. They also offer solar panels to keep it recharged, though they recommend that you have south-facing windows to use them.
What I like about Allesin K230 Motorized Cellular Shades
- Easy install
- Easy to pair with the remote
- Battery pack is rechargeable and can be in front or behind the shade housing.
- They offer a gateway and app to allow you to control and schedule the shades opening and closing.
- The gateway will work with Amazon Alexa.
What needs to be improved?
- I don’t recommend the no-drill-mount option. My window was small and I feel the weight of the shade on larger windows may cause it to slip even more.
Price: $149.00
Where to buy: Allesin
Source: The sample of this product was provided for free by Allesin. Allesin did not have a final say on the review and did not preview the review before it was published.
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