The Lutron Serena smart wood blinds are seriously impressive. Not only can they open and close on
their own at specified times but they can also integrate with many of the major smart home
platforms out there. In this video i'm going to take you through some of the best things about
the Serena smart wood blinds, how they've held up over the past six months of use, any downsides
we've run into with them and then ultimately my recommendation on whether or not you should get
the Serena smart wood blinds. Now before we begin, full disclosure, Lutron did send us these blinds
at a discount so we didn't end up paying the full price for them but ended up paying around a couple
hundred dollars. Alright, first up, let's talk about the design of these blinds. The Serena smart
wood blinds look like a pretty modern set of wood blinds. The blinds themselves are good quality and
one interesting design choice is that there's no cord hanging down for you to raise the blinds up
or rotate them, which is a plus for me personally because i've always hated those designs. Sometimes
those manual blinds can be really finicky and the Serena smart wood blinds have a much easier
solution when you need to raise or lower them, you simply push up or pull down the panel at the
bottom of the blinds. At the top of the blinds you'll see the modern valance that i chose,
though you can go with a more traditional look with the Easton valance. The valance is there to
provide an aesthetic purpose but also it serves as a cover for the battery compartment of the blind.
The batteries you will need will depend on if you do a single or double blind but my blinds
have eight D cell batteries that should last for a few years. You can also get versions of the blinds
that are powered or manual. You have several customizable options when you design your blinds
including stain and painted finishes to match your home decor and you can request free wood
samples from Serena on their website. Alright, so that's the design, next let's talk about the
installation. Lutron does a good job of giving you adequate installation instructions as well
as measuring instructions. Before you order the blinds to make sure they're going to be the right
fit. Unfortunately for my set when i measured them i knew they'd be a bit short of my window,
but i wanted to test them out and i got them anyway. Now the installation took me way longer
than i anticipated and that's primarily because i don't typically do installations where i'm
drilling holes into drywall, so if you're more experienced with that, it's likely not going to
take you the two hours it took me to install them. Part of this was due to me being really careful
i triple checked my measurements and drew out where the holes would be on the wall with a
pencil before drilling anything i also made sure the valance would fit over the brackets before
continuing the installation and mine just barely fit over. Also i mistakenly thought that i could
just get away with using a Phillips head screw bit in my drill and that turns out not to be the
case you do need the hex bit that the instructions call for. Overall though, even though it took me a
little bit longer than i anticipated, i didn't screw anything up in the end and i was able to
successfully install these blinds. Lutron does have an in-home installation service as well for
those who would rather go that route. Once the blinds are installed you can pop the batteries
in and connect it to the Lutron bridge which you'll need to plug into your router in order
to utilize the smart home functionality of the blinds as well as be able to use the pico remote,
which is optional but something i recommend getting for those who want something besides
their voice or a smartphone app to control the tilt of their blinds. The Lutron app is what you
use for this part of the setup process and the app does a pretty good job of guiding you through the
setup process it's available on both the Google Play Store as well as the Apple App Store. To pair
the blinds to the bridge you'll need to hit the button at the top of the blinds which is designed
more like a tab than a button and you'll need to push it up which might be a bit confusing at
first. It doesn't work like most typical buttons. Alright so once you've got everything set up now
let's take a look at some of the main features of the smart blinds in the Lutron app. You have the
ability to set a closed limit and view positions what direction the blinds are facing you can also
set scenes as well as schedules scenes are really great if you have more than one device in your
Lutron app but since I only have my blinds, I found that using this part of the app wasn't
all that useful. You can set a natural light optimization schedule which will adjust the blinds
to have more of a tilt to block out the sun's rays when the sun is facing the window. Now it doesn't
make as many adjustments as you might think throughout the day, especially in my case with
a south facing window which pretty much gets sun all day long and when you set this up you can also
set up what time you want your blinds to open and when you'd like them to close. You even have the
option to have them open and close at sunrise and sunset and you can choose different schedules for
different days as well. Now you can of course link your blinds to your smart assistant platform which
is probably one of the easiest ways to control them. I've linked mine to the Google Assistant
but you can also link it to other smart assistants like Amazon's assistant as well as HomeKit. Not
only can you ask an assistant to open and close the blinds but you can also ask an assistant to
set the blinds to a specific percentage tilt. Josh: "Hey Google, set blinds to 80 percent."
Pretty cool, now let's say you don't have an assistant or don't want to use one to rotate your
blinds, that's where the pico remote comes in. This remote not only allows you to open and close
your blinds with a single tap of a button but also have precise control over your blind's tilt
as well. Over the past six months i haven't had a single issue with my Serena smart wood blinds
they've just performed flawlessly and i have no indication that their batteries are draining
quicker than expected either. Now that doesn't mean that there aren't any downsides i found with
the inherent design of the smart wood blinds. The first downside is the length of the blinds.
Unfortunately they're not going to fit over all windows and even for my window which to be fair is
quite large the blinds come up a bit short however Lutron does offer other styles of shades like the
honeycomb shade that can be used on much larger windows. Another downside with the design of these
blinds is that the hole that allows the cords to go through the blinds those holes can actually
leak a little bit of sunlight throughout the day, so some people may find that annoying but this is
a design issue with all blinds designed this way not just the Serena smart wood blinds. The last
downside i have with my blinds is direct sunlight leaking through the sides of the blinds themselves
and that is on me that is my fault because i ordered the version of the Serena smart wood
blinds that mount over the window frame versus the version that you can mount inside of the window
frame that wouldn't have that issue. If i had to do it over again i'd get the version that mounts
inside of the frame. Overall the Serena smart wood blinds by Lutron have been a really great addition
to my room. I love being able to see them open and close on a schedule and have the ability to
precisely control their angle when open which is great if you have plants like my bamboo palm which
doesn't like direct sunlight but bright in direct sunlight and these blinds can definitely help me
get that. They also have caused me to look out my window at the forest outside way more thanks to
their automation which has been really refreshing during the work day especially during the pandemic
when i'm working from home quite a bit. Before with my film equipment typically stored in front
of my window, it would just be a pain to get up throughout the day and have to maneuver through
my equipment to get to that little rod that can adjust the tilt of my manual blinds where
with the smart wood blinds it's just much easier. Plus the smart wood lines they just look great,
they look like premium wood blinds and it's also really nice that Serena offers so many different
finishes to be able to match your room's look and feel. The Serena smart wood blinds can cost
anywhere from around four hundred dollars per window to close to nine hundred dollars
depending on the size of your window. My version is the largest version that Serena makes of the
wood blinds and normally would have cost around $850 US dollars. For more information i'll link
Serena's website in the video description below. I hope you found this video helpful and informative
and if you did and liked it make sure you hit that thumbs up button below and subscribe to
the channel to see more six months later reviews on smart home and tech products like this one.
Well that's gonna do it for me, for 6 Months Later, I'm Josh Teder, thanks for watching.