If you’ve been following along with our 12 months of smart home improvements series (reading such articles as Front Door Security is Part 1 of 12 Months of Smart Home Improvements and, most recently, Energy Management is Part 4 of 12 Months of Smart Home Improvements), then today you’re in for something just a little bit different. This month’s article is all about smart blinds, which I’d have to say make their  primary impact on the smart home pillar of Energy and Efficiency.
Of course, I’m once again referring to the 3 pillars of smart home products, which are not only a major theme throughout this series of articles, but quite possibly the major theme of the series. The other 2 smart home pillars are Comfort and Convenience and Safety and Security, which also are impacted to some degree by smart blinds. If you’d like to explore how and why modern connected blinds (particularly those from the smart blind experts at Hunter Douglas) have become a significant component of today’s fully connected home, then continue reading to learn all about their major features and benefits, as well as a few of the different types of smart blinds that are currently available from Best Buy.
Step Five: Smart Blinds
It greatly surprised me to learn that homes lacking energy efficient window treatments can lose up to half of their heating and cooling energy directly through the windows. This fact alone is more than reason enough to install smart blinds in your home. However, just in case you needed a few additional reasons, smart blinds are also stylish, innovative, and the offerings from Hunter Douglas feature a limited lifetime warranty for complete peace of mind. These blinds are also convenient, easy to use, and they allow you to strictly manage just how much light enters your home and how much heat escapes it. But what about some of their more specific features and benefits?
Key Benefits of Smart Blinds
Above I mentioned that smart blinds have their biggest impact on the smart home pillar of Energy and Efficiency, but that they also impact the Comfort and Convenience and Safety and Security pillars in a fairly significant way as well. The following list of a few of the key features and benefits of today’s smart blinds is sure to bear this out:
Integration – Hunter Douglas blinds can easily be integrated into a larger smart home ecosystem via voice assistants such as Google Home. This allows for efficient and advantageous voice based control thanks to IFTTT functionality, meaning that smart blinds are not just great energy savers, but they’re also supremely convenient!- Energy Efficiency – An effective set of blinds can not only prevent your home from overheating in the Summer, but they can also significantly prevent heat loss in the Winter. Both of these benefits will lead to energy cost savings, from reduced air-conditioning expenses in the warm times, to lower heating costs in the cold ones. This is because blinds make excellent window insulators—even better than standard double glazed windows.
- App-Based Control – Wouldn’t it be great to be able to control your blinds via the power of your smart phone or tablet? Well, thanks to the PowerView App from Hunter Douglas, now you can do just that. Manage your home’s incoming light by adjusting your window coverings at will, or set up special scenes and schedules that will suit your comings and goings and adhere to your lighting and shading wishes. It’s all just part of what’s possible with the PowerView App and Hunter Douglas Blinds.
- Child & Pet Friendly – Thanks to their use of motorized and cordless lift systems to raise and lower the blinds, Hunter Douglas Smart Blinds are completely safe for both your children and your pets, making them 100% worry free. With today’s smart blinds, any fear of kids or pets getting tangled up in cords is thankfully a thing of the past.
- Home Security – As with smart lighting, smart blinds may be used to create the appearance of someone being at home when nobody is in fact there. This is due to their ability to be controlled remotely via app. If you’re away on vacation, simply manipulate the blinds throughout your house so as to create the impression of a constant presence in your home. Make those burglars think twice before invading your space!
Smart Blind Types and Styles
Smart blinds come in a variety of different types or styles. Among them are Silhouette window shadings (which diffuse sunlight through their soft, adjustable, fabric vanes and may be adjusted to let any amount of light get through that you wish), Pirouette window shadings (with sheer backings and soft fabric vanes that can either draw the light in or provide just the right amount of shading from it), Duette Architella honeycomb shades (providing excellent energy savings no matter the season thanks in part to their unique, multi-honeycombed pattern), and Solera soft shades (featuring both woven and non-woven fabrics and offering options for both light-filtering and room-darkening).
You may be wondering why I’m not linking to any specific smart blind models in this section of the article? This is typically where I would link product examples. However, smart blinds are a little bit different from many other smart home products that are carried at Best Buy, and as such they have their own special purchasing process.
Essentially what you need to do is schedule an appointment with one of Best Buy’s special Hunter Douglas certified design consultants. This process involves a free in-home consultation with a Certified Designer who possesses the knowledge and expertise you need to help you choose the exact window treatments that are perfect for your home. This expert will assist you with product selection, accurately measure your windows for size and the perfect blind fit, and even provide you with an all-inclusive estimate of the fully installed cost of your blinds.
Once all the details are settled, a special team of installation experts will visit your home (by appointment) and install your blinds professionally. These folks will even provide you with a beginner’s tutorial on how to use your new blinds and all of their great features. Simply visit this page at Best Buy to get started by booking your free consultation. After all, blinds are by no means a simple purchase, and you’ll want to make sure that you have all the details and measurements just right before you finalize your purchase.
Final Thoughts
Well, that’s all I’m going to say about smart blinds for now, but if you agree with me that these attractive accoutrements are an energy saving essential for the modern smart home, you now know just where to find them. Schedule your free consultation today and get started on the process of bringing your home’s windows into the twenty-first century.
And be sure to check back in next month when we take a comprehensive look at the smart voice assistant as an ever more essential component of today’s connected home.
Check out Best Buy’s other great articles in the 12 months of smart home improvement series!
