The shades can be controlled using Apple HomeKit, Amazon Alexa, and Google Home, as long as you buy IKEAs $35 Tradfri internet gateway (a small device that wirelessly connects your shades and is plugged into your router).

(However, you dont have to purchase the hub if you can connect to an existing Z-Wave setup.) The shades come with a remote. We reached out to the companies that produce our top picks and asked them to respond to an extensive questionnaire to confirm issues we think should be of primary concern to any potential buyer. Self-installation is an option, but its not as straightforward as with our other picks. After wading through four or five different manuals, we figured it all out. But the required smart-home hub cost significantly more$285 for the hub and $70 for the remote. A second pro-install option we tested was Somfys RTS shades, which connect to Somfys new TaHoma hub ($199) to allow integration with Amazon Alexa and Google Home. His company helps homeowners integrate tech with interior design, and he has more than a decade of experience with a wide range of smart window coverings. Wirecutter is the product recommendation service from The New York Times. The Fyrtur shades are well made, and in our testing they worked reliably. Our favorite feature on these shades is the simple pricing and ordering process. Axis Gear is a $249 retrofit device that works only with existing corded or chain-pull shades. Although you may be enticed to go DIY due to the cost savings, it is really easy to mess up measuring and installation for custom window coverings from our picks, potentially wiping out those savings and then some. Every shade is $499, no matter the fabric or size (notably, the price has increased $100 since we first tested them in 2020). There are no on-device controls, so you cant open and close the shade manually. Although ordering was wonderfully easy, the process for installing and setting up the shades was the most complicated among all the models we tested. They are well made, well designed, easy to buy, simple to install, and inexpensive. So if you want voice control or the ability to adjust your blinds from outside Bluetooth range, we do not recommend purchasing these at this point. If you arent comfortable with that risk, we recommend that you get your shades and blinds professionally installed. We self-installed each shade and blind, set up the standard motorization features, and tested any included hardware controls, such as remotes and buttons. However, the new TaHoma app has limited functionality, with just the option to open and close (no partial settings), and creating Schedules was unnecessarily complicated. This might be an option if you have just one or two large shades you want to automate. In our tests, the shades responded immediately, whether we used Lutrons app, the Pico remote (which controls multiple shades in one room out of the box and can also operate any connected Casta Lutron lighting), or voice control through Siri, Google Assistant, or Alexa (all of which require Lutrons Smart Bridge). The shades come pre-paired to a simple remote, and there are on-device controls. Serena blinds can also be set to close and open automatically whenever you leave or arrive home. The shades use Grabers new Z-Wave wireless motors and gateway device (which costs up to $200; you could instead pair directly to an existing Z-Wave hub you may have, including SmartThings). And they work with Lutrons smart-home ecosystem for control with the Lutron app, which also enables integration with Amazon Alexa or Google Home (strangely, theres no HomeKit or SmartThings compatibility, as there is with Serena Shades). We ended up with a smaller size that had to be mounted on the frame of our window, as opposed to entirely over the frame. For a professional perspective on automated shades, I interviewed home-technology design consultant David VanWert, of VanWert Technology Design in Los Angeles. The process was very similar to that of the Lutron smart shades, as was the ordering process, which can be done entirely online.

If spending more than $500 per window is not in your budget, IKEAs Fyrtur shades are a very good option, assuming your window openings are the correct size and you like gray blackout fabric. The Lutron blinds dispense with unnecessary cordsyou just push them up and pull them down. And yet its really not. Graber says it will last 12 months. Grabers smart roller shades use Z-Wave motors that have to be paired either with the Graber VirtualCord Gateway or another Z-Wave hub (such as Samsung SmartThings). They are also the most widely compatible with smart-home platforms. But overall the pricing is in line with that of Hunter Douglas, yet with fewer smart features. Although the shades use Zigbee wireless, theyre not natively compatible with any of the other smart-home systems that use Zigbee (SmartThings and Wink, for example). And the removable, rechargeable battery lasted six months before needing to be recharged. They work on windows as small as 21 inches wide up to nearly 74 inches. In our testing, Hunter Douglass shades performed excellently and were just as quiet and smooth when opening and closing as the Lutron Serena Shades. The Lutron Serena Smart Wood Blinds have the best smart-home integrations and most innovative features of any of the smart blinds we considered or tested. graywind motorized If you do already have corded shades, be prepared to spend $150 to $250 per window to improve them with what is, at best, an inelegant solution (a large, chunky white box on your window frame and wires everywhere). These blinds are a flat $419 and dont require a smart hub or bridge. The process is well-thought-out, though, and the kit comes with everything you need in a variety of sizes, plus a detailed instructional video. And it has very limited controls, allowing you to combine its lighting and shades products into Timers, which are basically Schedules for different uses (such as when you leave the house, when you wake up, and when you want to adjust the light in your home). Its pretty smart.

Also, this takes virtually no setup on your part, other than just toggling a switch in the app and giving it access to your location (so it can determine which way your window is facing). There are on-device controls, which is good since the remote wont work if the power goes out (the remote relies on a chunky signal repeater that you need to plug into an outlet). We also really like SmarterHomes hardware and installation process. Like smart lighting, smart window coverings make life more convenient, and they add ambiance by providing the right lighting at the right time of day. So you have to use your app, set up Schedules, or use voice and your phone or a smart speaker to control them.

You will also be able to control the shades from outside the home, which you cant do if they are just connected to IKEAs hub that works only locally. Compatibility: Samsung SmartThings, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Z-Wave hubs.

When its time to recharge, youll have to hop on a ladder and remove the battery to recharge with a USB charger. SmarterHome does sell a long-charging cable, should you run into solar-power issues. Compatibility: Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Apple HomeKit, Samsung SmartThings. As such, they are a good choice only for people who have windows that precisely fit those standard sizes. There are a couple of interesting options here (see What to look forward to). And there is no remote-control option, as there is with Lutron. According to VanWert, the cost for smart shades is around two to three times that of regular, manual options. The app is well-laid-out and simple to navigate. Smart lighting is arguably the easiest smart-home gear to install and use, yet has the power to transform your homeinside and out. Theyre also much louder and work with fewer smart-home systems. But it took us about an hour to install one shade, and we did mess up the valance slightly. Scheduled for release this fall, its a retrofit device for adding motorization to existing shades. Compatibility: Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant (not Google Home).

An excellent Natural Light Optimization feature tilts the blinds automatically as the sun moves throughout the day, ensuring your room has balanced light while minimizing glare. These arent top-quality shades, but they do have good home-automation options (when they work). As with the Lutron Serena Blinds, with MySmartBlinds you can control the tilt of the slats. Weve added the Eve MotionBlinds to What to look forward to. IKEAs own app is not intuitive. But in practice, figuring out what to do was relatively simple. Once theyre paired with the Lutron bridge, you can use the Lutron app to control the blinds remotely, put them on a schedule, and integrate them with Amazon Alexa or Google Home for voice control (currently theres no Apple HomeKit support). Although its well designed, with a sleek touchscreen panel, it has to be plugged into power or used with a giant solar panel, so its more obtrusive than our picks. Ultimately, it comes down to whether the added cost of professional installation, around $100 per shade, is worth it to you, and whether you have any specific needs related to design and installation that only a professional can help with. Its very simple, and the instructions are well-laid-out and brief.

And the new Graber VirtualCord Motorization app works well for scheduling, creating Scenes, and adding voice control via Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant through Google Home (not Siri/HomeKit). So, if style and quality are less important to you than price and utility, and you dont mind troubleshooting every few months, these will be a useful addition to your home. The Lutron app lets you set the blinds on a schedule (in addition to the Natural Light feature) to open, close, or partially tilt based on a time of day or sunrise and sunset. Of all the shades we tested, Lutrons Serena Shades have the smoothest movement, the quietest motor, the easiest control options, and the best, most useful smart-home integrations. (That is, you can adjust the angle of the slats using an app or voice command, but you still have to manually open or close them.). But it doesnt offer any particularly innovative smart features, such as geofencing or temperature controljust basic scheduling using day and time or sunrise/sunset. Lutron does offer professional installation through Budget Blinds. You can set it up so that every night at 9 p.m. all your shades lower, and it will do it 365 days a year, automatically adjusting for Daylight Savings. Whether it's finding great products or discovering helpful advice, we'll help you get it right (the first time). They also dont have as many options for controltheres no remote at allso you need to use Schedules, a smartphone app, or a smart speaker. Owned by Spring Window Fashions, Graber has been in the window-covering business since 1939. Though we think the Lutron Serena Shades are the best choice for smart shades, if you cant find the right fit for your decor needs, or you want Z-Wavebased motors to fit into your home-automation setup, Graber Motorized Shades are a very good alternative. However, if you know what you like, are comfortable with a tape measure and a drill, and are not installing these in hard-to-reach places, youll have no trouble self-installing any of the models we tested. Plus, a visualizer tool lets you upload a photo of your room to see how your choices will look. Additionally, Lutron Serena offers the option of professional installation of its blinds and shades through BudgetBlinds, and Graber sells directly through professional installers (see Pro install options for more on this). These shades come in just one color and in fixed sizes. If you want to power up your smart home, then you need to install smart sensorstiny detectors that tell other smart devices what to do automatically. The Soma Smart Shades 2 works similarly to the Axis Gear but is about a third the size and $100 cheaper. But the blinds themselves arent motorized, so to raise or lower them, you have to manually lift or pull down. But Hunter Douglas and many custom shade manufacturers simply wont let you. Battery life varies by model and how often you use them. When it happens, we will update this review. In the app, a useful Control All Shades button makes it easy to open and close multiple shades at once. For blinds, the process is a bit simpler, since all the device has to do is tilt the wood slats, not raise and lower an entire shade. shades bali motorized natural motorization blinds All of these extra controls do make for a less clean aesthetic, though. This shade is not as well designed or as easy to set up, and it requires a $99 Soma Connect bridge to pair with Alexa, Google, and HomeKit (though this integration is uncertified, and we had problems with it in our testing). You dont need it for the smart features such as scheduling and remote control, but you do need it for voice control or to adjust your shades when you are outside of Bluetooth range. And the MySmartBlinds have a wand for manually controlling the tilt of the blinds (which the Lutron blinds dont have). Our journalists combine independent research with (occasionally) over-the-top testing to save people time, energy and money when making buying decisions. All of these customization options add up quickly, however, and making aesthetic choices (such as a fabric-wrapped fascia, which conceals the top of the shade, and different colors) would have increased the price of our test shade by $250 to nearly $750 (and more for a larger model). The install process was almost identical to Lutrons, so much so that we would have been totally comfortable doing it ourselves. Although any properly installed honeycomb shade would provide identical insulation, smart ones take care of the process of opening and closing without your having to worry about it. Actually getting our hands on these blinds was difficult; even though they are now sold online, its only at select locations (enter your zip code at checkout to find out if yours is one of them). They also have a quiet motor and smooth movement, and theyre easy to control with an app or voice. The Serena Shades are expensivearound three times the price of our budget pick, IKEAs Fyrtur. He points out that although wiring is easier in new construction, it is usually feasible to retrofit. Battery life varies by model and how often you use them. That said, the included remote is a bit finicky, and installation and setup can be just as frustrating as it is when youre putting together an IKEA cabinet. But theyre also the most expensive, starting at $599. Our test shade cost $316, including the purchase of a remote and solar panel to charge the included battery (you can also plug it into an outlet). Also, the hub for smart-home control with Amazon Alexa and Samsung SmartThings costs $109and it is out of stock until 2022. This change will allow the blinds to be used in Alexa Routines, as the shades already do, and will bring Google Home support to all of its products (currently the blinds have a very limited Google Assistant integration that doesnt work well). Unlike with the Lutron blinds, with the MySmartBlinds you dont need a bridge to connect to the app (which oddly is a different app from the one used for the companys shades). The downside is that the smart-home integration is quite basic: There is no control app, so you also need a Zigbee hub to control it (that could be an Alexa Echo). And the process for mounting the shades was similar to Lutronsjust drill in two brackets (find your own screws; theyre not included), and snap in the shades. Also, they look great.

These blinds are responsive, quiet, custom-sized to fit your windows, and available in four painted and four stained finishes. To understand how useful they really are, I spent more than 35 hours researching the category, over 600 hours doing hands-on testing, and about two years living with smart shades. Despite some interesting features (like a Quiet Morning Mode, which raises the shades more slowly to cut down on noise), in our testing the app crashed frequently, which is an issue since there are no manual controls. We evaluated each shade and blind based on the following criteria: Wirecutter takes security and privacy issues seriously, and to help you understand which data the companies you are bringing into your home may be taking out with them, weve compiled this table to answer some of the most common questions people have regarding privacy and security.