Teptron Move Motorised Blinds Review

NeilTh

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Hi

Thought I'd post a quick review of the Teptron MOVE product, others might find it useful

So we have Morley bi-fold doors on the rear of our house looking out onto our garden, 6 doors in total and all with integral venetian blinds on a magnetic control through the glass. It was a real pain putting each one up in the morning and down at night so I'd been on the hunt for something to do the job for a couple of years.

I'd initially purchased 1 Teptron unit when they became available and was pretty pleased with the performance, so went ahead and bought 6 more, so 1 for a spare.

Setup is straight forward using the iOS app, but its very basic at the moment, with no scheduling, macros etc. Just calibration and then up, down. This limited app needs to be improved to make them really useful. The unit is stuck to the glass on the doors using 3m foam tape and its pretty secure. It comes with various adaptors for different types of blinds.

Each unit has an up, down and stop button, and I find myself using these instead of the app most of the time.

I'm using 4 x AAA Duracell rechargeable batteries to power each one to avoid running USB power cables to each door, however when the batteries are around less than half charged the unit does struggle / fail to lift the blinds, so I might look to try an neatly run USB cables in the future. A fully charged battery seems to raise and lower the blind around 8-10 times, so I guess 4-5 days worth if I'm only using twice a day.

Under battery power Teptron raises the blinds in around 4 minutes, I tested with USB power at 1000mA its almost half this, I haven't tried it at 1800mA which is the specified power requirements. USB also charges the batteries, albeit slowly.

I did try the small solar panel, however despite the doors being in the sun most of the day, this didn't seem to add much power to the batteries. I guess as summer approaches this might improve.

Overall I'm really pleased with the Teptron product - its priced very well, seems sturdy, the motor is powerful and the support from the Teptron guys so far has been good. The app definitely needs improving, so hopefully this is in their plans.

Hope this helps anyone else looking for similar. I'll try and post some pics when I get a moment.

cheers

Neil
 
Interesting - I backed the new Z-Wave kickstarter version (Movez) but your comment on the battery life is concerning me! 5 days? I've backed them for a bay window with 3 blinds and that sounds like a big hassle. Is it really that bad? Otherwise, it looks like I'll have to think about hard-wired power options.
 
waste of money - really struggled with connection between the units and my galaxy s8 - connected one minute then not connected the next minute. scheduled open/close did then didn't work. Couldn't figure out how to do the sunrise/sunset open/close and there are no instructions, no guidance and support just said - 'set the settings' which didn't help.

Its just not reliable. Very poor bearing in mind the cost of each unit.
 
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I've got four of the units, and I've got to say I'm also not that impressed. I've had them a year now and they do the job...basically. I've been using the solar panels for charging, but they're pretty useless. I've resorted to using usb power and now have hideous cables running up my walls to the units.
They have only just released the firmware update to allow automations but it's only on Android for now. I had a lot of issues getting a couple of the units to update, and then they provided no information on how the sunlight and temperature automations work. I ended up just using the time based ones because the other ones were not doing anything. For the first couple of weeks the automations were also driving me nuts. My bedroom blinds would randomly open in the middle of the night. My living room ones wouldn't go at the times I set them, and my office blinds would only move a tiny bit on the automations at first. I ended up factory resetting a few days ago, and so far I haven't been woken up in the middle of the night. I'm now a little nervous about adjusting the times on any of my automations because I'm worried they'll go back to doing their own thing at all hours.
Also, don't expect the Bluetooth mesh network to function very well if your devices are on different sides of the house. It's a nice idea, but nowhere near good enough. I have three devices on one side of the house and they are all ok, but my office one is one room over upstairs and it constantly loses connection.
I definitely wouldn't recommend getting the plain Bluetooth ones. You will probably be better off with the Movez z-wave version if you have z-wave in your house (and when they're finally available). I have contemplated getting them but I don't know if I want to give Teptron more of my money at this point.
 
I have to agree with inspectorgadjet. I had also several units, and if you only use one it works fine. Mechanically the devices are ok, it works in lifting blinds up and down.
The problems starts if you want to connect more than one. the bluetooth connection with the app is a disaster, if you are able to connect more than one (I was only successful in 5% of the attempts, the chance that one or more of the devices will lose its connection is 100%! When that happens, you can't adjust anything in the settings.... but surprisingly it still reacts on commands to go up and down.
Automations can't be saved in more than one device, if you try it on another one it will guaranteed fail to save. Groups don't function or can't be saved (give errors). After some frustrating weeks I have send all of them back to Teptron.

Though the concept is absolutely promising, but these devices shouldn't be sold in the current state. Tepron has some real quality problems with the bluetooth and the app they have to solve first.
 
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4 minutes to open a blind and change the batteries every 4-5 days? Doesn't sound like a great solution if I'm honest.
 
4 minutes to open a blind and change the batteries every 4-5 days? Doesn't sound like a great solution if I'm honest.
The device has an USB micro connector so you can power it constantly. Together with rechargeable batteries power is not a issue. If up and down time really matters you are right, but mind my previous comments...
 
As I've posted above, I had significant issues with these units. Support from Teptron was very poor if any reply was actually given. I gave up trying to get them to work at the end and retunred the units BUT my problems didn't end there. Despite having had the units for 3 week they still haven't refunded the money. Onto the credit card company to get the issue dealt with.

Good news though, I ended up buying some blind motors from uk.somasmarthome.com much better, so far 100% reliable, they look better, have a better solar panel and the app is so much easier to use so my blinds finally open and close themselves!
 
As I've posted above, I had significant issues with these units. Support from Teptron was very poor if any reply was actually given. I gave up trying to get them to work at the end and retunred the units BUT my problems didn't end there. Despite having had the units for 3 week they still haven't refunded the money. Onto the credit card company to get the issue dealt with.

Good news though, I ended up buying some blind motors from uk.somasmarthome.com much better, so far 100% reliable, they look better, have a better solar panel and the app is so much easier to use so my blinds finally open and close themselves!
Hi, I subscribed to their kickstarter project by no product as yet and don’t think it’s coming any time soon. So do the solar panel fix onto the glass panel?
 
Which kickstart? Trotting or soma? Either was they are selling direct so if query if you'd not had anything. The solar panel for both plug into the unit with a wire (Soma's is longer wire). The panels stick to a window - teotrons uses a metal strip and Soma's had sticky pads on the panel. Soma's solar is much bigger.
 
Teptron on Indiegogo over a year ago, still waiting. I have a bifold door with integrated blinds. what’s the size of the Soma solar panel not sure if they will fit if they are bigger?
 
As I've posted above, I had significant issues with these units. Support from Teptron was very poor if any reply was actually given. I gave up trying to get them to work at the end and retunred the units BUT my problems didn't end there. Despite having had the units for 3 week they still haven't refunded the money. Onto the credit card company to get the issue dealt with.

Good news though, I ended up buying some blind motors from uk.somasmarthome.com much better, so far 100% reliable, they look better, have a better solar panel and the app is so much easier to use so my blinds finally open and close themselves!
I did the same, the Teptron is promising, but far from a marketable product. In current state absolutely unusable. Returned them and got my money back almost the same week.

Bought two Soma devices as well, and these work much better... but if someone considers Teptron motors as slow, the Soma devices are twice as slow! It takes almost 10 minutes to pull a blind 160 cm up...
And I have an issue with one of them which is not pulling the blind far enough up, despite a proper configuration. And mind as well: Soma devices can't be controlled manually.... If for some reason you want to operate them by hand, you are in trouble.....

Generally, all these products are not really well thought off and developed through and through. There are to many issues with both of them to recommend.
 
Teptron on Indiegogo over a year ago, still waiting. I have a bifold door with integrated blinds. what’s the size of the Soma solar panel not sure if they will fit if they are bigger?
You need to get in touch then as they have been actively seeking these for some time . The soma solar panel is 6cm x 21cm approx.
 
Teptron MOVE works well as a mechanical device, but does not work in automation (for example, make it go up and down at specific time every day). It only works for the first event, then stops working. Their website acknowledged this fact and said a software update will be coming. I have been in contact with their support and waited three months, but it never came. The support initially promised refund, but stopped replying to my e-mail.
This Swedish company does not know how to do software for the device. They got stuck, my money got stuck there too. Be aware.
 
Is the company Teptron still in existence? They have stopped replying to me. Im trying to get some replacement parts. Can anyone help? I need some of the metal wheels that have the teeth on it that turn the blind cord. My cord got stuck and snapped one of the teeth off. Now unit is useless without a replacement wheel.
 
Is the company Teptron still in existence? They have stopped replying to me. Im trying to get some replacement parts. Can anyone help? I need some of the metal wheels that have the teeth on it that turn the blind cord. My cord got stuck and snapped one of the teeth off. Now unit is useless without a replacement wheel.
Their website is still live. Have you tried the online chat function? You could also message them on social media, although they haven't posted for a month or two on FB or Twitter
 
Where is the online chat facility? Ive tried social media but had no response.
 
Where is the online chat facility? Ive tried social media but had no response.
It might not be an online chat, but on the home page there is an orange chat icon on the bottom right hand side, if you click on it a window pops up to enter your details, in the bottom corner it says "Helpdesk via LiveAgent", which is often a chat facility. It may just send them an email though.
 

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