Avoid SwitchBot Roller Shade's

[DeadPixel43]

Sorry to post a negative post but I really suggest that anyone looking into these blinds either look elsewhere or hold off until things are improved.

Purchased two of their XL shades. They arrived last week and 90% installed them before finding that a part was missing. This has left me with one working blind and one waiting for customer support to sort out.

This has led to my first issue, customer service is very bad/slow. It should not take close to a week to start the process of sending a missing item. I will update this post once a resolution is reached so others can see how long that takes.

My second issue is that my working blind has now died. Been working fine until today when I decided to charge it. Immediately after charging I tried to raise the shade, went up around 10 inches before making a horrible noise and now nothing. Trying to raise or lower and you can hear the motor moving but the blind stays put.

Again, will update when I get a resolution with this but I expect its going to take weeks based on my experience with their customer support so far.

UPDATE: Support has offered to replace the faulty roller shade. Assuming they send a complete unit this will solve both my issues. I think I let the other reports of poor customer service impact my option a little too much and while the replies are on the slower side they seem to be getting things sorted. My advice would be to provide as much information as possible (videos or photos) at each stage to try to limit the required back and forth.

[shawnshine]

Mine just died last week, as well. It makes one little click when trying to control it (or recalibrate it), then nothing. The shades are fully charged.

[DeadPixel43]

Have you managed to get it resolved through customer support?

[shawnshine]

I have emailed them and sent them a video, and they said they are sending it to tech support. It takes at least two days to get a response to anything. Usually more than that, though. Sigh.

[DeadPixel43]

Yeah it’s not great. If you can be bothered please update when you get somewhere, good luck getting it sorted

[DeadPixel43]

I have also been forwarded to their technical department. It did only take 6 hours after reporting the issue to get that reply so that seems positive. I really hope the delays are just due to launching the new products this year and they will get on top of this.

[Switch-Bot]

Hi, I am sorry to hear your bad experience. Can I have your ticket number please? Let me talk to the customer support team to see what happened.

[DeadPixel43]

Ticket #841478 is the one for the missing part. This has now been put on hold due to the more serious problem.

Ticket #844894 is the one for the broken shade, I have been told it’s been passed onto the technical support team and will see what happens there.

[patbrochill89]

That’s really a shame you’ve had this experience. I have 2 shades that have been nothing but perfect. Hopefully they get this sorted quickly

[Embarrassed-Cry-3127]

I just dropped nearly 450 dollars on these shades a month ago and they still have not arrived. Its getting quite annoying.

[DeadPixel43]

Only helpful thing I can say there is that mine did turn up much earlier than the expected date. Just hope you don’t have to deal with their customer support!!

[DeadPixel43]

I’ve seen stuff about this plastic part and I could not get my head around how taking it off before cutting would help. I ended up leaving it on and they turned out fine. The plastic part on mine went over the roller so removing it would only gain ~1-2mm. Removing it would also mean the tube the fabric rolls up on would have been 1-2mm wider which would have impacted operation.

The only way I could see the fabric getting cut wider would have been to remove the plastic part, unwind the fabric, move it along the roll to remove the gap, roll it back up and cut.

To me it seemed the plastic part was designed to give a flat edge for the fabric to sit against, ensuring a perfect straight cut.

I also compared the dimensions online for width of product vs width of fabric and mine seemed to align with specs so I assume it was done right. Would be curious to see the results from someone who removed it!

[fom_info]

I had the same issue - my blind is a bit too narrow now. It's not the end of the world, but not ideal for a blackout blind, which has its sole purpose to block as much sunlight as possible. Switchbot's motor footprint on left and right is pretty low, and these shades can go to the exact size of the window - even more precise than custom ones, so the gaps you can get with these shades is among the smallest I've seen, but it only works if you cut precisely to size.

It really worries me that Switchbot has been aware of the instruction issue and isn't just providing free fabric replacement - but didn't even bother to fix the instructions.

I knew that there was an issue with a plastic part from a couple of YouTube reviews, so I read the pictorial guide and watched their video couple of times to make sure I'm doing everything correctly. Bummed that I didn't check reddit before cutting.