Hunter Douglas says PowerView Gen 3 makes its shades smarter

Hunter Douglas is our present-day top select in clever window shades, and the corporation has just introduced a 3rd era of its PowerView ecosystem that guarantees to make them even superior and a lot easier to use.

PowerView Gen 3 is a comprehensive overhaul of a good window-covering ecosystem that was released in 2015 and tweaked in 2017. The detailed alterations vary from the motors in the shades to the app–and the physical distant control–end people face on a day by day basis, irrespective of whether they are programming scenes or opening the shades in the early morning and closing them at evening.

Hunter Douglas merchandise manager Scott Stephenson informed us the firm focused on a few vital locations through growth: Simplicity, trustworthiness, and scalability.

Hunter Douglas

Some of the simplification work was directed at generating the PowerView application less difficult for customers to use, but the experts putting in the shades in consumers’ properties will see the major rewards. Stephenson said the business focused on taking away a whole lot of steps that essential installer teaching, but the determination to fall the proprietary communications protocol Hunter Douglas experienced been making use of in favor of Bluetooth Low Vitality yields a host of rewards that will accrue to both get-togethers.

Thanks to Bluetooth LE, Stephenson spelled out, the homeowner’s smartphone routinely knows which shades are closest in proximity. And many thanks to two-way interaction between the shade and the application, close end users can control the shades working with nothing at all more than their smartphone—they can even application the shades to open and near on a routine, many thanks to a clock built-in into the shade motor by itself. Go away the PowerView application managing in the history, and the application will periodically link to every single shade and update its clock, so scheduled functions occur in sync with each other.

Hunter Douglas

The PowerView-based mostly shade we reviewed in late 2020 was driven by a rechargeable battery wand, but switching to Bluetooth LE enabled Hunter Douglas to include a rechargeable battery inside the roller tubes of quite a few of its intelligent shade styles. The organization says the battery need to final a complete year, and when it desires to be recharged, the house owner need to have only touch a cable to a magnetic call place and depart it there for a couple of hrs.

Stephenson says adopting Bluetooth built Hunter Douglas’ smart shades far more trustworthy, too. “You can crank up the [Bluetooth] radio electric power and remain inside of FCC guidelines to get superior range—we’re looking at a 4x advancement in range [compared to the company’s proprietary protocol]. Even firmware updates can be accomplished over Bluetooth.

Hunter Douglas now presents two versions of its PowerView gateway, and you’ll have to have a single or the other if you want to manage your shades while you’re away from property. Perhaps a lot more importantly, you are going to require a gateway for third-social gathering integrations—including Alexa and Google Assistant—because those people depend on cloud-to-cloud conversation.

The PowerView Gateway connects to your router above Wi-Fi, even though the PowerView Gateway Professional offers the reliability of hardwired community relationship. The Pro product also has dual Bluetooth radios, and it supports electrical power about ethernet (PoE), reducing the have to have for a different electricity source for the gateway.