Motorized Window Shades: The "Smart" Versions, And Why You Want Them
Smart home this, smart home that—the eventual goal of all smart home stuff is to have your house all on automatic voice control so you never have to do anything but give commands. That is the way of the future, as it was first envisioned back in the 1950s. Ads about talking houses and cartoons that depicted automated-everything were not that far off from what is happening now, and what will happen very soon.
Virtually every thing in your home can be automated now. Everything can be turned into a "smart" object. For example, motorized window shades are now not just motorized; you can get "smart-controlled" motorized window shades. Here are some examples of these smart shades, and why you will want them.
The Five-Channel Remote Version
Five shades or five sets of shades, based on which room they are in, can all be controlled with a single remote. You can also control these shades through your smartphone or tablet via an app. The five-channel version means that you can control the blinds in any room of your home regardless of which room you are in at any time. You can even tell your AI communication devices (e.g., Google Dot, Alexa, Siri) to raise or lower the blinds in any room.
This is very convenient from the standpoint that you can create privacy in the one room you intend to enter next before you even enter it. If you are in the bathroom, but you realize the blinds are still up in the bedroom, speak to your AI communication device and ask it to lower the motorized blinds in the bedroom. Before you can even open the bathroom door with a towel around your midsection, the blinds in the bedroom will already be closed.
Programmable Timer
Better still, you can put your blinds on a programmable timer. Then the blinds will raise or lower at the time specified. Have a hard time getting out of bed in the morning? No problem—just set the timer on your blinds to raise at the same time as your alarm clock. People may hit the snooze when the room is still dark, but they can hardly avoid the blaze of light coming in at the window as their blinds open.
Best of All
Motorized blinds controlled by an app that does all of the above and then some is what you are looking for when you want total "smart" blinds—command them by voice, program them with an app, open and shut them with your smartphone as the remote. Whatever you want the blinds to do, you can do it with an app that does it all. It can even open and close your blinds for you while you are on vacation, or you can close them and stop the timer even when you are thousands of miles away. Neither your neighbors or potential prowlers can figure out if you are home or not. These smart blinds will keep them guessing.
Why You Want Them
It is really quite simple. You want smart blinds because they are convenient, easy, useful for dual purposes (e.g., as a backup for the alarm clock you just chucked across the room), and provide tons of security for your home. They can just as easily block out or let in light as non-motorized blinds, but non-motorized blinds will eventually go the way of the dodo. You could be ahead of the transition into full home automation with motorized smart blinds. Finally, you want them because you have already made so much of your home into a fully automated smart home that having manual blinds seems ridiculous.