Smart Shades for Alexa, Google Home and HomeKit
We set them up, name the rooms, build the schedules and test it with you. You get a working system, not a box and a QR code.
“Smart” is three different things, and only one of them is hard
Almost every disappointment with automated shades comes from buying one of these and expecting another.
Motorised means the shade moves on its own instead of by a chain. That is the mechanical part and it is well solved.
Connected means there is an app on your phone with a button in it. Nearly everything sold today does this.
Integrated means it belongs to your home — it answers Alexa, appears in the Google Home or Apple Home app beside your lights, joins a scene, and runs to a schedule without anyone opening an app at all. This is the part that is fiddly, and it is the part that gets skipped.
The gap between connected and integrated is where the box in the closet lives. We do not consider a job finished at connected.
It joins the home you have already set up
You do not change assistant, app or ecosystem to have shades. We connect the shades to whichever one your home already runs on.
Whisper-quiet motors · sunrise and sunset scenes · set up and tested before we leave
You will almost certainly need a hub
Good motorised shades do not talk to your Wi-Fi directly. They use a low-power radio, and a small bridge on your network translates between that radio and Alexa, Google or Apple. Somfy call theirs TaHoma; Lutron have their own. Either way it is one more thing that has to be bought, placed and set up, and it is rarely mentioned in the price you first see.
This is a feature, not a shortcut. A radio motor sips power, so a battery lasts months rather than days, and it keeps working when the network is busy. A Wi-Fi motor in a Manhattan apartment building — where a phone can see forty networks fighting over the same channels — is a far less reliable thing than the specification suggests.
It also means the shades keep moving when the internet is down. The remote and the wall switch talk to the motor directly. Only the voice control and the app need the internet, which is the right way round.
The part we do that most suppliers do not
Fitting the motor is an hour. Making it part of your home is the rest of the afternoon, and it is what decides whether the system gets used.
We pair every motor, set its open and closed limits individually, and group the shades the way the room is actually used rather than the order they were installed. Room names are matched to the ones already in your Alexa or Google setup, so “close the living room shades” works the first time instead of finding nothing.
Then we build the schedules — usually sunrise and sunset, sometimes a mid-afternoon drop on a west-facing room — and we run through it with you before we leave. Favourite positions, the scene names, what to do if a battery dies. If something needs changing a month later, call us.
Are the cheap smart blinds any good?
Often, yes — and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise. IKEA’s motorised blinds and the retrofit motors that clip onto an existing chain, sold by SmartWings, RYSE and others, genuinely work. On a standard-size window, in a room where the shade is on its own and nobody is looking closely at it, they are good value and we will not talk you out of one.
They stop making sense in four situations, all of them common in New York. A window that is not a standard size, because these products come in fixed widths. A long drop, where a small retrofit motor is working past what it was built for. A run of several windows that has to line up and move together — retrofits drift out of step and it shows. And anywhere the hardware is visible, because a motor clipped to a chain looks exactly like a motor clipped to a chain.
The other thing to weigh is who fixes it. A retrofit motor is yours to support. If it stops pairing after a firmware update, that is your evening.
Battery, hardwired or solar
Battery suits a finished apartment, and it is what most Manhattan homes end up with. Nothing is opened up, nothing is wired, and the motor charges with a cable every few months. How often depends honestly on the size of the shade and how much it moves: a small shade cycled once a day goes a long time, a wide heavy one on a sunrise-and-sunset schedule does not go as long. We size the battery for the actual shade rather than the catalogue figure.
Hardwired never needs charging and is the right answer during a renovation, when a cable to the head of the window costs almost nothing to run. Afterwards it means opening a wall, so it is rarely worth it on its own.
Solar is a small panel that keeps a battery topped up. It works well on a bright window that gets real sun, and poorly on a north-facing one or a window that spends the day in shadow from the building opposite. We will tell you which yours is.
You will talk to them for a week, then stop
This is worth knowing before you spend money on the wrong thing. People buy voice control and imagine using it daily. In practice, after the novelty, almost everyone settles into schedules and a couple of buttons, and voice becomes the exception — the thing you use when your hands are full or you are already in bed.
So the schedule is what deserves the attention. Shades that lift at sunrise and drop at sunset track the season on their own, which a fixed clock time does not. A west-facing living room usually wants a mid-afternoon drop in summer that it does not want in December. A bedroom often wants to stay down until an alarm rather than until sunrise.
We set those up as part of the job because a system nobody has configured is a system nobody uses, and an unused motorised shade is an expensive manual one.
What people ask about smart shades
Will motorised shades work with Alexa?
Yes. The shades themselves speak a low-power radio, and a small bridge on your network connects that to Alexa, so “Alexa, close the bedroom shades” works like any other device. We do the pairing, name the groups to match the rooms already in your Alexa setup, and test it with you before we leave.
Do smart shades need a hub or bridge?
Nearly always, yes, and it is the cost most people do not see coming. It is also the reason the system is reliable: a radio motor lasts months on a battery and does not fight for space on a crowded apartment Wi-Fi network. The remote and wall switch still work if the internet goes down; only voice and the app need it.
Do they work with Google Home and Apple HomeKit?
Google Home, yes, in the same way as Alexa. Apple Home depends on the system — some support it directly and others need a particular bridge, and what is true this year may not have been last year. Tell us which one your home already runs on and we will specify to it rather than the other way round.
Are IKEA or clip-on retrofit smart blinds worth it?
On a standard-size window, on its own, where the hardware is not on show, they are genuinely good value and we will say so. They struggle with non-standard sizes, long drops, and runs of several windows that need to move together and stay level. They also look like a motor clipped to a chain, because that is what they are. And support is yours.
How long does the battery last?
Typically several months, but it depends on the size and weight of the shade and how often it moves. A small shade cycled once a day lasts a long time; a wide one on a twice-daily schedule does not last as long. Charging is a cable for a few hours. Where the sun is strong enough, a solar panel keeps it topped up and you rarely think about it again.
Can shades open and close automatically at sunrise?
Yes, and this is how most people end up using them. Sunrise and sunset schedules follow the season on their own, which a fixed clock time does not. We set the schedules up as part of the installation rather than leaving you to work out the app.
Do I need an electrician?
Not for battery or solar motors — nothing is wired, so nothing is opened up. Only hardwired motors need electrical work, and we tell you that when we quote rather than on the day. In a rental, battery is almost always the right answer.
Can I add motors to shades I already have?
Sometimes, and it depends on what you have. A standard chain-operated roller is often a candidate for a retrofit motor. Older, wider, heavier or unusually mounted shades frequently are not, and forcing it gives you something that works badly and looks worse. Send us a photograph of the headrail and we will tell you honestly whether it is worth doing.
Book a free consultation
We bring the samples, measure your windows, and set the whole system up when we fit it. Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and the surrounding boroughs.
Book a free consultation212.222.8288
500 7th Avenue, 9th Floor, New York, NY 10018 · Monday to Friday, 9am–5pm