The Ultroner Alieno Lite is a new single battery vape mod from the folks that have brought us some very fancy mods.
Ultroner is probably most well known for its stabilised wood mods, we haven’t tested many of their products with Ian, aka Neash Vapes, testing out the Ultroner Mini Stick way back in 2019.
But the Alieno shows that it doesn’t have to be stabwood to have the Ultroner name!
What Can We Expect From the Ultroner Alieno Lite?
Technically there are a few different variations of the Ultroner Alieno mod.
What I have in for review is technically the Alieno Lite Version. The only difference being what they are made of.
The full fat Alieno is a Stabwood model, whilst the Lite Version is made of ABS.
Just to further confuse matters they also make a version of the Alieno (stabwood only) which has a DNA chip in, the DNA 60 to be exact. Whereas the standard Alieno’s use a Sevo 70 chipset.
Regardless which version you go with, it’s a single 18650 battery mod with an interesting dual fire button. More about that as we get into the review!
This was sent over free of charge from Ultroner for the purpose of review (thank you).
As usual freebies do not impact my review, and I shall report back honestly with what I find.
Inside the Box
- Ultroner Alieno Lite mod
- Instruction manual
Yup, it’s a pretty minimal selection. But really you don’t need other “stuff” when you’re buying a mod.
Specs
- Dimensions – 30 x 39 x 88mm
- Weight – 85g
- Power Output – 1-70W
- Battery – Single 18650
- Chipset – Sevo 70
- Modes – Wattage, Bypass, TC (SS, Ni, Ti)
- Material – SS & ABS
Design and Build Quality
The Ultroner Alieno Lite version comes in a range of possible colours.
Although Ultroner’s own website only shows the Translucent Yellow, and Translucent Clear. I have also seen it for sale in White, Black, Translucent Smoke and even a Translucent Blue.
I have the Clear Translucent in for review.
Ultroner Alieno Lite Body
Lets get the elephant out of the room first!
There are two fire buttons!
Not something I’ve seen before, and it kind of makes sense. As no matter how you hold it, you should always be able to reach one of them easily.
Having said that, I did find that this is set up best for someone that likes to thumb fire. Not sure why, but I couldn’t find any particularly comfortable way to finger fire this.
In all honesty, I think this is more a design feature for it’s own sake, than actually bringing anything useful to the table.
I tested out holding it as though it had a single fire button placed on the straight edge between the two fire buttons, and it would have worked perfectly well like that.
Also if you look at it from the front, the fire buttons kinda look like the eyes of an Alien, hence the name!
Ultroner Alieno Lite Battery Tube
The battery tube is made of stainless steel, and there’s a cut out in the ABS so that you can see it.
One thing I didn’t notice to begin with is that the battery tube is threaded on both the bottom and the top. This means that you can unscrew the battery tube, and replace it with another.
In fact it looks as though Ultroner are already making some different battery tubes to change up the look of your device.
Ultroner Alieno Lite 510 Connector
The top of your mod has your 510 connector (as you would expect!) and it has a raised lip of ABS around the side that has the screen on it.
Obviously this will restrict the size of the tank you can put on it, Ultroner state that it is 24mm.
It’s a self adjusting connection, but it doesn’t feel like it is sprung. It’s either a very stiff spring or a a rubber washer that is giving it some give.
Ultroner Alieno Lite Base
On the bottom of the mod is your battery cap, that has your usual regulatory marks on it.
More on that in a moment.
The base is also where you find your adjustment buttons, which are two small ball bearing type buttons.
Ultroner Alieno Lite Battery Cap
Yeah, it’s a screw down battery cap again!
As you know I’m usually quite a fan of these, and this one has some good points, as well as not so good.
Firstly it has a little handle that you lift up to help make it easier to unscrew, one thing I hadn’t seen before is it actually has a tiny magnet built in to it.
This means when you’re done unscrewing, it snaps back into place and won’t end up dangling underneath you mod.
Nice…
You’ll also notice there’s a gold screw in the middle. This is important because there is no give at the top of the battery tube at all.
18650’s should all be the same size, 18mm in diameter and 65mm long. However you will find that especially in length, they can vary slightly.
Because there is no spring loading or movement in the top of the battery tube, this means you have to take up any slack by screwing down the tiny screw on the battery door.
Be careful to not screw this down too much, as you don’t want to risk damaging your battery.
So long as you stick to one type of 18650 this shouldn’t annoy you much, set it and forget it.
But if you often switch around your single batteries, you might find yourself having to screw in or out this adjustment screw to take account of different lengths of battery.
Ultroner Alieno Lite Chipset – Sevo 70
The Sevo 70 chipset is a designed to be basically a drop in replacement for Evolv’s DNA 60 board, having very similar dimensions.
I’m not sure who is ultimately responsible for this chip, but SXK often use it, well known for producing products that are “styled” to look like those from other manufacturers.
For that reason a variety of manufacturers make two versions of a mod, the more expensive one having a DNA 60, and the cheaper using the Sevo 70.
Even noted e-pipe maker Créavap has gone down this route!
Ultroner Alieno Lite Screen
The screen on the mod is long and thin, with the text running from the top to the bottom (without inverting it).
It’s an amazingly sharp and clear screen, very bright and very easy to read.
It has your resistance in the top right, with the volts being draw while firing and your battery status underneath.
There’s a nice big wattage indicator on the right side of the screen, with your mode indicated below this and a puff counter.
No extraneous information or details and it’s very easy to read.
Ultroner Alieno Lite Controls
As mentioned you have 2 fire buttons on this mod, one of either side.
And no, you don’t get double the vapour if you press both of them! (I did check!)
On the base of the mod you have 2 ball bearing type buttons for your + and –
- 5x Fire – Turn On/Off
- 3x Fire – Change Mode: Wattage, Mech (Bypass), Ti, Ni, SS
- “+” and “-” – Power Lock
- Fire and “-” – Menu
Not much to say about all of these except Power Lock. When I saw this I thought it was just going to lock the adjustment buttons. Make sense right?
No. What it actually does is lock the whole mod, so you can’t fire it until you press the two adjustment buttons to unlock it.
Genuinely not sure why you would want to do this, when clicking the fire button 5 times to switch is on/off is just as easy, if not easier! So not a terribly useful function.
Going into the menu you’ve got a few options
- Number of Puffs
- Taste Adjustment
- Screen Off
- Screen Rotation
There’s no obvious way to exit the menu, but I found that pressing the fire button quickly twice, will get you out.
Selecting number of puffs allows you to reset your puff counter. Also it allows you to set a maximum number of puffs, and when you reach that it won’t fire anymore until you go into the menu and reset it.
Not honestly sure why you would want this? But if anyone has any ideas let me know in the comments!
Taste Adjustment is a basic curves type adjustment to adjust the power vs time.
Screen off, does what you would expect! Basically it’s a stealth mode, where the screen won’t light up when you’re firing.
Interestingly it doesn’t reset when you power on/off the mod, so you need to open the menu again to switch it back on.
Finally my biggest bugbear is with Screen Rotation.
As the screen is a sideways display on the mod, you would expect that the the adjustment button at the “top” of the screen display would be your Plus adjustment. So the one at the bottom is your Minus adjustment.
However flipping the screen doesn’t change the buttons over. So if you rotate your screen from the default. You need to remember that the Bottom button (as you look at your screen) is Plus, and the top button is now Minus.
It’s a weird quirk of this chip, and so I never bothered rotating the screen as it just feels odd.
Ultroner Alieno Lite – Wattage
Speaking of weird quirks. Another thing to be aware of is that the pressing you “+” or “-” button adjusts in 0.1W increments… all the way to 80W!
It does round robin when you get to 1W or 80W, but I honestly can’t see any reason why someone using this at anything more than 30W would want to adjust in 0.1W increments.
It also make scrolling through the whole range very slow!
Ultroner Alieno Lite Temp Control
I didn’t spend an awfully long time testing out temp control. It seems to work OK, with a couple of things to be aware of.
There’s no full TCR function. So you are at the mercy of what Ultroner has set as the TCR for the various different materials. You can however go in adjust this.
When you’re in a temp control mode pressing Fire and “+” does allow you to “adjust” the value on a 1 to 100 scale… but I’m honestly not sure how this corresponds to an actual TCR value.
Stainless Steel 316 has a TCR value of 0.000915, which I guess corresponds to 9 on the Alieno’s scale, which is where it was set by default.
Titanium meanwhile has a TCR of 0.00350, whereas the Alieno had it set to 55.
You can also set the maximum wattage that will be supplied when vaping in Temp Control mode by pressing the fire button twice.
To adjust your temperature you use the + and – buttons as you would expect, but there’s some weirdness even here!
It adjusts in 10° increments for Fahrenheit (5° for Celsius), and if you use the minus button to go all the way to the bottom (200°F) it will switch to Celsius.
However if you scroll all the way to the maximum in Fahrenheit, it will round robin from 600°F back to 200°F.
So it will only switch from Fahrenheit to Celsius (or vice versa) when you adjust down. Otherwise, if you adjust up, it will round robin and keep the unit type the same.
Very weird!
I’m not sure why so many mod manufacturers feel a need to include Temp Control functions still.
In my experience there is a small, but dedicated following of people that love Temp Control, and they will typically go for a device that is known for top notch temp control functionally.
How Does the Ultroner Alieno Lite Perform?
So I’ve been testing out the Alieno for a couple of weeks now.
I’ve used both mouth to lung, and direct lung tanks on it, mostly rebuildables, along with a dripper to test out it’s temp control.
Ultroner Alieno Lite – Best Tank Size?
With a raised lip around one edge of the mod, you’re restricted in size to 24mm tanks. However depending on the tank, you may still run into some problems.
If the airflow ring is right at the bottom of your tank, it can be a pain to try and turn it.
Also I’ve found that at least one tank that purports to be 24mm doesn’t actually fit.
This may be due to detailing on the base of the tank making it slightly larger. But it’s something to be aware of.
Ultroner Alieno Lite – Wattage
Aside from the irritation of adjusting in 0.1W increments, I didn’t have any problems with vaping this in wattage mode.
It’s quick to respond, and there’s no noticeable delay between pressing the fire button and vapour production.
Pressing the fire button is worth noting though. It may just be my unit, but the two buttons don’t feel the same.
For me the one on the left is noticeably “mushier” than the one on the right, which is really clicky by comparison.
Doesn’t really affect anything, but I can’t believe it’s deliberate, and so my opinion of the build quality drops a little.
Ultroner Alieno Lite – Temp Control
Temp control seems to be relatively accurate, switching over to a dripper with a stainless steel coil, it definitely stopped firing as the cotton got dry.
However rather than the normal ramp down of power that I’m used to with temp control, it would tend to just stop suddenly when it decided it was getting too hot.
Not sure quite what is going on with the chip, but it felt a little sudden!
The other thing I noticed with it, is that especially when it was firing at higher wattage, I was aware of a “flutter” on the output. I can only assume this is some pulse width modulation going on.
But the fact I could feel this happening, just reinforces my view that if you’re getting this for temp control vaping, there are better mods out there.
Ultroner Alieno Lite – Battery Life
Battery life seemed to be a little on the short side of a single 18650. Obviously it’s incredibly hard to give you hard and fast numbers on these things.
But whereas I can usually eek out a full day from most of my single 18650’s when I’m vaping MTL at around 25W, I was often finding myself running out a bit before the end of the day on the Ultroner Alieno Lite.
So by no means an exact science, but I feel like it’s a little less efficient than a DNA 60 for example.
Pros
- Nice Compact Design
- Super sharp screen
- Interchangeable Battery Tubes
Cons
- Chipset is a bit temperamental in Temp Control
- Adjusts in 0.1W increments between 1 and 80W
- Inverting screen does not switch buttons over
Final Review Verdict
So that was the Ultroner Alieno Lite!
I have to say that I really love the look of this thing, especially in the clear frosted I think it pairs up beautifully with a lot of my 24mm mouth to lung tanks.
I’m less impressed with the chip in it, as there are quite a few oddities like the fact that locking it locks all the buttons, or that if you flip the screen the adjustment buttons become the wrong way round.
It’s also not something I’d personally want to use for any temp control vaping, but to be honest I feel like that’s not what this is set up for.
It’s also worth noting that as there is no USB, even if Ultroner did decide to update the firmware on later versions, there’s no way to update it on device.
As a single 18650 wattage mod, it does the job, and it looks good doing it.
Though it definitely has a few odd quirks!
