Graywind Motorized Roller Shades 100% Blackout Alexa Voice Control Cordless Window Blinds Thermal Insulated Window Shades with Valance, Customized Size, Passion Red

I love my Graywind Mortorized Roller Blackout Shades. I ordered the pure white as the color went better with my decor. However, I was concerned that they wouldn't really be blackout shades as I had ordered others in the past and been disappointed. They turned out to be fantastic. The motor is smooth and works great. The best part was how responsive the company was when I had questions. There's only one other item that I have felt so strongly in favor of and therefore have recommended on Amazon. And, I have ordered on Amazon frequently since 1998. Great shades, great company!

Here are the stars by category for the Graywind motorized blackout roller shades Alexa compatible.Quality of the shades 5Shipping speed 5Ease of Installation 5Remote Pairing & limit setting 3.5Alexa setup 1Customer service email speed 5Customer support shades 4Customer support Alexa 2Written Instructions 3Customer support effort 5Solar Panel 4Motor Charging 2The shades came in quickly compared to the typical shipment from China. That was a big plus for Graywind. The shades are well made and easy to install. I'm a retired engineer, so I pay attention to build quality, materials and other parts. Graywind uses good parts. I can't speak to durability yet, but initially, things look good.The installation was easy and quick. The install hardware is very good. Programming the remote was about average for these types of RF controls, but some people are going to have trouble with it because the process description isn't totally accurate in the Graywind setup book. The jogging is the key. If you follow the steps exactly and have the correct number of jogs, everything will go okay. You may want to consider pairing the remote and then doing a complete reset (it's easy) and then pairing again. This is a good idea because it's impossible to know what might have been programmed into the motor during manufacturing or testing. If anything is in there, it could cause problems down the line.The shades open and close smoothly and quietly. That's another plus for Graywind.So far, so good. Where the wheels came off was when I setup Alexa. Graywind used the Zigbee control board. Zigbee is okay, but it has its issues. Some of the Alexa models have built-in hubs that can control "some" Zigbee devices. If your Alexa doesn't have a built-in hub, you'll need an external hub like Samsung's SmartThings.I have a 4th generation Alexa with a hub. I bought it to use with these blinds. I found out that Graywind doesn't have a specific SKILL for their shades. That's not a plus. I had to use basic Alexa functions to control the shades. That's not a plus either. Different Alexa models with hubs use different control protocols. In other words, what works with a 3rd gen Alexa with a hub might not work with a 4th gen Alexa. That's why not having a specific SKILL is a big issue, and a pain in the rear.I've automated my whole house using smart technology and Alexa. I've only used the switches and other devices that work well with Alexa and avoided the ones that are flaky or have protocol issues among other things. Believe me, not all smart devices are smart. My favorite dumb ones are the ones that lose their pairing, or internet connection, every week or so. Generally, don't reconnect themselves without my intervention, which now is usually a trip to the garbage can.The first time I set up Alexa, I put the shades in pairing mode, and Alexa found all of them. That was the good news. Unfortunately, there weren't any commands, pairs of commands, keywords or anything else that would raise and lower the shades properly. Mostly, I heard that whatever phrase I had used was "not supported by this device." One time I asked Alexa, "Well, what the hell is supported by this device." Of course, Alexa had no answer for that.In addition, the few times I got the shades to move, repeating the process often resulted in failure. This is where Graywind's technical support really falls down. They do a good job with a lot of things, but not with Alexa support for THEIR product.Finally, I gave into to the number one technical support suggestion for every product--reset and start over. That's a real pain since I have to stand on top of an eight foot ladder to get it done on every shade. Anyway, I did it all over again.When I finished, I set up Alexa again. This time I could get the shades to close using "Alexa, close X to 100%" and that's the only keyword phrase that would work. Absolutely, nothing else did. I had read reviews written by people who said Alexa worked with Graywind using other commands, but mine didn't.The open command is "Alexa, open X to 0%" This is irrational. Open and close implies open all the way up and close all the way down. Open X to 0% is the type of phrase thought up by electrical engineers who really don't have a life and don't want you to have one either.Having gotten to this point, I felt the rest would be easy. Wrong! Some Alexa app options like Groups, don't support special characters like % (No, writing it out as percent doesn't work.) which means I couldn't raise and lower all the shades at once by putting them in a group. Again, this is why Graywind needs a SKILL for their shades.The next option was setting up a routine--one for open and one for close. Using custom commands, the routine accepted "Alexa, close X to 100%" That's the good news. The bad news is I needed two routines for every shade. This is definitely the case if you want to use scheduling to open and close the shades. One shade--no problem. Lots of shades-bigger problem.Once I had the shades setup as routine's and working properly. I decided to figure out why I had to the use the 100% in the open phrase. Well, it's because every version of Alexa that has a hub in it, uses a different protocol. Like I said before, I have a 4th gen Alexa. Since I don't have all of the various 4th gen Alexas, I can't tell if there's a different protocol for each version like the plus and the show. It wouldn't surprise me.I appreciated Graywind's efforts to give me support. Especially, their responsiveness, but they weren't much help with Alexa. In my final email, I was told they knew about the 4th gen change requiring the 100%. Great, why didn't you tell me that in my first email since I told you the problem involved a 4th gen Alexa. Oh, well. Just another long night.Graywind needs to rewrite their instruction book, create a specific Graywind motorized blind SKILL that actually works, and continue training their customer support people in Alexa issues.I gave the blinds 4 stars for the solar panel which is larger than a closed blind, so it's visible. I assume Graywind used the smallest solar panel they could find. Without the solar panel, charging blinds 8 feet in the air is a pain. In one place, Graywind was quoted as saying the shades would have to be recharged every 2 weeks or so. In another place, they said every 300 uses or more. Which is it? I hope the solar panel gets it done. My past experience with solar charging of batteries suggests the roller shade batteries will need full recharging every few months for a 120v source, and the solar panel will extend the life of the charge, but not eliminate the need for a full recharge periodically.. I hope that's not the case with these. We'll see. The USB cable for the solar panel was at least 24 inches long when a 6 inch cable would have been better. It's hard to position the USB cable so the shades don't catch on it in the down cycle.I would buy the blinds again—especially now that I've figured out all the problems.

Our old blinds were falling apart, and we'd been wanting motorized blinds at our house for about 2-3 years. Did a bit of research over that time, but never found anything we really liked enough to spend such a premium...I believe prices were usually around $500+ per blind most of the time.Fast forward, and we recently started seeing a handful more options that work with Alexa and other smart home setups. We wanted them to be Alexa controlled. We had considered the Ikea option, but read many reviews noting how difficult they were to pair. Same with some other options here on Amazon. Finally, we came across these blinds by Graywind. Most of the reviews were positive, no overwhelming amount of complaints on the smart home pairing (if any at all)...we decided to give them a try.Ordered the swatches first, found the color we liked, then placed an order for 4 blinds with Zigbee (we have Echo Show 2nd Gen that pairs direct, which is nice). The blinds arrived within specified timeline, plenty of extra hardware for install. Remote pre-programmed. Blinds sized correctly and well-packaged. Pretty much everything was a breeze!For install, the only note I would point out is this...we opted for an inside hung blind, and had limited space to mount the hardware. These are reasonably deep, maybe 4 inches (guessing), so keep that in mind if considering this. I ended up having to drill a separate hole in each of the mounting pieces farther towards the back to make it work for our windows, but it did work and wasn't a big deal in the end. I'm not a handyman, just your everyday mid-30s-Dad-of-3 that routinely fixes a minimum of 10 things daily...I handled this one in my sleep :)All in all, we love our new blinds! It's great to be able to just ask Alexa to open/close the blinds when we want. I would certainly recommend these.

Ordered one for a large room that has lots of sunny windows to try it out. I liked it a lot. It worked very well and installation was quite easy. The mounting brackets snap into the valence easily. I ordered 6 more and have now installed all. Product came faster than promised. The company recognized that I had ordered something I didn’t need and contacted me to correct it before shipping. Great job! Only watch out is that programming the remote is a bit tricky, but it also has a lot of options. They give you good directions and if you take the time to look at it carefully and go slowly, it does work. Good news is that for most people the remote will come preprogrammed correctly. My issue was since I separated it into two orders I needed to straighten out the channel numbers to get all blinds on one remote. Also make sure to obtain a remote battery before installation since it is not shipped with the order (this is stated in the product description but I missed it). Blinds look great and customer service was prompt and helpful. I was concerned about this coming from China and the current issues with shipping, etc. but no problems were seen. My favorite feature is that each blind can be controlled off of an individual channel but channel 0 lets all blinds work simultaneously with one button push.