shareez Posted April 26, 2013 Share Posted April 26, 2013 Hey guys,We are in the market for some automatic shades for some of our windows but the Lutron dealer gave us a quote that was a little on the high side. I was wondering if any of you guys are using automatic shades integrated with C4 that are a little more economical but not with a huge sacrifice in quality. We are in the Houston area. Any help would be appreciated!!Thanks!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Godzilla Posted April 26, 2013 Share Posted April 26, 2013 THEORY has a driver to intergrate all Hunter Douglas Powerrise products into C4...which is cheaper than Lutronhttp://www.theoryav.com/http://www.theoryav.com/blog/?p=207But you can contact him about this driver, or I can or you can have your dealer do it ......however you want to handle it.i attached 2 links so you can see some of the other useful drivers as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyknight Posted April 26, 2013 Share Posted April 26, 2013 Then there's also Somfy and Mechoshade.Plus any motor using contacts can be integrated using generic relays. Although that will depend on if your dealer is capable of setting it up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
urbanmark Posted April 26, 2013 Share Posted April 26, 2013 We had the Somfy Sonesse 30 RTS motors (with the Somfy URTSII to integrate with C4) retrofitted in our current home. And we just had our new home pre-wried for the the Somfy Sonesse 30 RS485 motors. (They're very quiet and much less than the Lutron quote). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
malelan Posted April 26, 2013 Share Posted April 26, 2013 i know that "texasbill" has automatic blinds, and loves pimping out his shade guy, hes also coincidentally in texas, but i dont know if hes in the houston area. i'd definitely shoot him a msg though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Godzilla Posted April 26, 2013 Share Posted April 26, 2013 Somfy is a shading parts manufacturer and mechoshade is a shading fabricator. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zaphod Posted April 26, 2013 Share Posted April 26, 2013 We have Hunter Douglas honeycomb blinds that are powered by Somfy motors - they were installed in about 2007/8. The C4 integration is done via IR blasters as there is an IR remote control with the blinds. Two downsides - it is noisy and (for some reason) with C4 you can only stop and start blinds, not reverse direction. So if you open halfway then you have to open all the way before closing and vice-versa. But with other IR control (like a Harmony remote) I can choose up or down, so this may be a driver issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
c44me Posted April 27, 2013 Share Posted April 27, 2013 funny was just thinking about doing my blinds today (cheapos finally broke) and was hoping there was a newer/cheaper/better solution from all the past threads? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Godzilla Posted April 27, 2013 Share Posted April 27, 2013 The new Hunter Douglas Powerrise are quiet and not Somfy motors. The driver allows you to set specific positions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DawnGordon Posted April 27, 2013 Share Posted April 27, 2013 I've been using the HD PowerRise shades with the HD RF adapter and a Control4 Wireless Outlet Switch. Works perfectly.I'll likely test out the bridge unit and Theory's driver when it's ready. Definitely something my customers will want going forward. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyanE Posted April 27, 2013 Share Posted April 27, 2013 ... was hoping there was a newer/cheaper/better solution from all the past threads?I'm 100% certain there are *newer* and *better* solutions, but I've never heard of blinds solutions getting cheaper.They tend to go the other way...RyanE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
c44me Posted April 30, 2013 Share Posted April 30, 2013 I've been using the HD PowerRise shades with the HD RF adapter and a Control4 Wireless Outlet Switch. Works perfectly.I'll likely test out the bridge unit and Theory's driver when it's ready. Definitely something my customers will want going forward.I need new shades. is it worth waiting for this? any idea how far out it is? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Godzilla Posted April 30, 2013 Share Posted April 30, 2013 I've been using the HD PowerRise shades with the HD RF adapter and a Control4 Wireless Outlet Switch. Works perfectly.I'll likely test out the bridge unit and Theory's driver when it's ready. Definitely something my customers will want going forward.I need new shades. is it worth waiting for this? any idea how far out it is?The driver is readywill only be sold at the moment with hard coded MAC:......your dealer sends THEORY your director MAC and the driver is coded to it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DawnGordon Posted April 30, 2013 Share Posted April 30, 2013 I went to the Theory website and couldn't find any info on the driver. Would love to see some screenshots. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
c44me Posted April 30, 2013 Share Posted April 30, 2013 I went to the Theory website and couldn't find any info on the driver. Would love to see some screenshots.exactly - can we get some info? what if my MAC changes? I change things from time to time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Godzilla Posted April 30, 2013 Share Posted April 30, 2013 there's a phone number on the bottom of webpage Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyknight Posted April 30, 2013 Share Posted April 30, 2013 I went to the Theory website and couldn't find any info on the driver. Would love to see some screenshots.exactly - can we get some info? what if my MAC changes? I change things from time to time.On any driver like this, changing the director will mean changing the driver so a new one would need to be created and put in. Wether Steven will be willing to do so is up to his discretion though I doubt he'll give you much hassle in an upgrade or replacement situation. Wether he'll do it every other month for you because your constantly messing around..... Again that'll be up to him.It's a bit of a pain (recluse is the same unless they changed it) but not a big problem generally. For a "tinker" it can be a bit more so. But not everyone is EV with the capability to set everything up the way they have - in part the reason EV also sells drivers made by others (Cinegration for example). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
c44me Posted May 3, 2013 Share Posted May 3, 2013 has anyone tried hunter douglas or century blinds? I was told century blinds are about 40% cheaper and as good (owned by hunter douglas) so has anyone installed them and/or motorized them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jobu604 Posted May 3, 2013 Share Posted May 3, 2013 I used Somfy motors and components (a combo of wired and battery powered) which I bought online from avoutlet.com. They were great. Probably cost me $200/shade (if not less) to retrofit existing rollease tubes. The RTS interface was a bit of a bitch to integrate, but my dealer was able to figure it out without too much trouble. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
urbanmark Posted May 3, 2013 Share Posted May 3, 2013 Huge +1 for avoutlet.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shareez Posted June 18, 2013 Author Share Posted June 18, 2013 we had a somfy dealer come by to do a measurement and she quoted us the CT 32 (vs the Sonesse 30 that i've been hearing about). She said that the Sonesse 30 will be significantly more expensive. Anyone heard about these CT32's? how quiet are they? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zaphod Posted June 18, 2013 Share Posted June 18, 2013 How long do the motors last and do you have to do any maintenance on them? My blinds have been up for about 6-7 years and one of the motors is getting noisier - doe they occasionally need lubrication? My blinds are Hunter Douglas and I think that I have Somfy motors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
THEORY Posted June 19, 2013 Share Posted June 19, 2013 I doubt you have somfy motors as HD has had their own Platinum motors for a number of years. The chances of them being Somfy are very slim. There is no need to lubricate the motors, make sure the shade is balanced properly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
discipulus1 Posted June 19, 2013 Share Posted June 19, 2013 We have Hunter Douglas honeycomb blinds that are powered by Somfy motors - they were installed in about 2007/8. The C4 integration is done via IR blasters as there is an IR remote control with the blinds. Two downsides - it is noisy and (for some reason) with C4 you can only stop and start blinds, not reverse direction. So if you open halfway then you have to open all the way before closing and vice-versa. But with other IR control (like a Harmony remote) I can choose up or down, so this may be a driver issue.Do you know which IR driver you used to integrate the Hunter Douglas blinds into your system? My blinds are from about the same time but I cannot find an IR driver that will work with them. Mine are the non platinum PowerRise 1.0 which was the IR only models before they went to the IR/RF remotes. Thanks in advance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snipboy Posted June 20, 2013 Share Posted June 20, 2013 I read about Arduino automatic shades the other day and was quite intrigued. Looks like you can retrofit most shades for under 50 dollars each. If all you want to do is set them and forget them, it might be a good option for some people like me who is moderately DIY handy and unable to spend the $$$ for the Somfy, Lutron and other brands. http://lifehacker.com/automate-your-window-blinds-with-an-arduino-477587897 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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