Smart-home technology is becoming increasingly mainstream while its cost keeps shrinking, and the supply and demand of the motorized shades and blinds are a classic example.
Motorized shades solutions come in a variety of different styles, such as:
- Drapery Tracks – Your traditional paneled draperies with rolling mechanism from left to right across your window panel.
- Solar Motorized Shades – Roller shades that roll down from a window frame.
- Blackout Motorized Shades – they are pretty much the same as drapery or solar shades but effectively keep as much daylight out of your room as possible.
- Skylight Motorized Shades – these are even shades used for tricky conditions and ascend from the window’s bottom instead of rolling down from the top frame.
That said – controlling your windows’ shades via motor was a noisy, glitch, and inelegant solution. Thanks to the evolution in motor technology, form factors, and control protocols, the motorized shades are quiet, elegant, and a seamless solution at your disposal.
2 Types of Motorized Shades
There are two types of motorized solutions for shades.
1. Battery Powered Motorized Shades
It is the more affordable of the two routes, as you do not need any controls or wirings for powering these shades. These shades are also the least disruptive resolution for your retrofit applications.
Nowadays, you can get an astonishing impressive performance out of the battery-powered shades. There are certain battery-powered motorized shades you can operate for over three years before the need for replacement.
You can get roller or honeycomb styles with a variety of colors and typically with four levels of opaqueness to suit the time of the day. Some motorized shades come with a remote allowing you to control multiple shades for unison.
2. Wireless and Wired Motorized Shades
This is the more advanced or futuristic version of the two shades solutions available in the market. In wired motorized shades, there is a separate power line attached to each shade that connects it to the central controlling panel.
However, in wireless motorized shades, the motor has a connection to a controller via a wireless network, i.e., your smartphone or a tablet in most cases.
Both of them tend to come with a similar price tag and reliability. Wireless motorized shades are expensive, but the extra wiring needed in the wired motorized shades even out the cost difference between the two.
Benefits on Motorized Shades
Automating your home or office shades or integrating them into your already automated system offer numerous neat features.
For instance, you can automate the timers based on the positioning of the sun, time of the day, and even the temperature. This will automatically open and close your motorized shades as per defined parameters.
Some motorized shades come with a sun position sensor that you can mount on the rooftop. This helps the motor assess the time and adjust accordingly to prevent sunlight from entering through your windows.
Do you know direct sunlight can cause fading, discoloration, and even damage to your artwork, fabrics, and furniture? It can also adversely affect your cooling and heating expenses.
You can even integrate a wakeup scene into your master bedroom, so when your alarm goes off, the positioning of your shade and light settings in your room will help you wake up.
Some motorized shades come with a security feature, so when you leave your premise and press the “away” button, the shades on the lower floor levels will drop down to stop anyone peeking into your residence.
Costs of Motorized Shades
The price tag of the motorized shades and blinds usually surprise the customers. They can be fairly expensive, well at least the decent ones are.
The bigger chunk of the price tag is due to technologies and motors used to integrate the shades into home automation systems. However, there are a couple of easy ways to keep your cost down.
One way to lower the cost is by reducing the number of shades used per window frame. Some people like to apply multiple shade settings to the same window to suit different day timing. But, this adds up to the overall cost in a big way.
Preparation of Motorized Shades and Blinds
The preparation to install motorized shades requires some type of backing material. This way, you can affix it to your window casing (having some easy surface or plywood backing for mounting is necessary).
Beware of the obstacles that may cause hindrance to your shades operations like handles on your windows etc.
Installation of Motorized Shades and Blinds
When it comes to installing the wireless motorized shades, most service providers do offer a standard install. All you need to do is simply install an electric outlet by the motorized side of the shade. Do not connect any other control wires to them, but the ones for the shade only.
Your motorized shades use proprietary wireless technology to connect with your smartphones or other controlling devices and panels. This also allows you to simplify the pre-installation process.
The motor itself will vary depending on the patent technology and how noisy the motor is. Clearly, the more expensive the motor, the lesser the noise will be while opening and closing the shades.
Once done with the installation, the simplest method to control your motorized shades will be via hand-held remote or, in more advanced cases, using a smartphone mobile app.
A step-up from this automation level is installing a keypad in the wall, which allows you to install some presets and a permanent control panel wherever you like in the building.
This way, you can either add controls to a keypad to manage the lights or use a touch screen in the room. This setting also comes with advanced programmings such as triggers and timers.
Conclusion
If you are a company or a homeowner looking to install motorized shades on your windows, contact us today. BBD Lifestyle is one of Central Florida’s market leader Savant dealers, offering some of the most innovative designs for motorized shades.
