I just installed these new smart shades in my youtube studio and they are SO cool.
These are the Serena Honeycomb Smart Shades by Lutron. Why does that name sound familiar?
I’ve featured Lutron on this channel several times now because they make some really easy to use and
widely integrated smarthome products… And the part that made me really interested in these
smart shades is the ability to program them to work with Google Home, and I can program them to
work with entire rooms of smarthome equipment like lighting and everything works in sync.
Before I get into the review, SHOUTOUT TO RAY and Enrique on Patreon!!! Thanks for
becoming my newest Smores! Both of y’all get access to my upcoming live stream,
so make sure to check your membership page to info! Hashtag tang tribe - that’s an
inside joke - if you join the monthly live stream it will all make sense… I promise.
The Serena Shades come in a variety of styles and sizes and they are
custom made for your window size. So when you decide to purchase some,
you go through a design process on their website of choosing the aesthetically pleasing parts
as well as the measurements. There are plenty of fabric and wood finishes to choose from,
different styles like roller shades or honeycomb shades, you could go with wood blinds,
and they’re all smart. Since I’m working in a basement studio, I had a few requirements.
It gets cold, so insulation is important. I need to blackout any uncrontrollable lighting,
so I need good coverage on my windows when I’m recording. I can’t have anything hanging down from
the windows since I have all my desktop cabling right in front of the windows. And if I’m getting
smart shades, they need to be quiet. I have no power around these windows, so I also wanted
battery controlled shades, and the batteries need to last a long time, because I’m lazy.
So that’s why I chose the honeycomb shades. They are insulating, can be styled to fit the design of
the rest of the room, they are custom fit to your window so they block out tons of light,
they’re incredibly quiet, there’s a battery option so no wiring required
(and they use D cell batteries), the batteries should last me a good 2-5 years before needing
replacement, and they’re cordless, so not only will my dog have nothing to chew on,
but they won’t get tangled in my mess of cables behind my editing desktop.
I decided to DIY it instead of hiring a pro, though that is an option.
My husband helped and showed me how to drill the holes in metal since I’d never done that before
but it was totally painless and really easy to do. The only thing we really had trouble with
was reading the directions, because the directions for all types of shades
are included in the box, you have to decipher which one you purchased.
Since my windows are directly behind my desk, I choose the shades that can go directly inside the
frame, but if you prefer the look or design of shades that go outside the window frame,
that’s an option too. But this way everything is flush against the wall, and nothing is poking out.
Mounting the backplate using the three brackets took maybe a minute or two, and once that
was done, we were able to lift the shades and click them into place using the three brackets.
They do make a nice loud click to help you recognize that they’re mounted correctly.
As you can see, the backplate, the headrail, and the shades fit perfectly within my windows. So
measure like 6 times just to make sure you got it right, and measure all windows, even if they’re
supposed to be the same height and width because there may be minute differences between them.
I was a little worried that the batteries would be a pain to replace but they
aren’t. The three brackets have little levers which you unlock by pushing them to the right,
and this unlocks the headrail from the shades. That way you just tilt the shades back
and you can access the battery compartment.
Light creep was a problem with my older shades, but since these are custom made, that light creep
is really reduced so when these are closed, very little light is introduced to the studio.
Setting these up on my smarthome was also really easy. You put them into pairing
mode with the little button that can be clicked with a plastic tab and an LED starts to blink.
I found it was easier for me and my long nails to push that tab when I tilted the blinds open. And
then you simply follow the directions within your Lutron app to set up the new devices in your home.
Once you have them setup, you can start scheduling them to automatically close or open at certain
times of day, different days, etc. That could be scheduling them to open in the morning when
you’re waking up or walking into your office, or closing them based on when the sun sets, which can
also automatically adjust to the seasons. You can add them to a room and add them to a scene, like I
have one called Movies so if I added them there, I would set them to close when I’m watching a movie.
If you want to sync them up with a Pico remote,
similar to how I set up my lights with a remote, I can do that too. And if there are specific
favorite settings you wanna add, you can program the remote to do those too. That’ll allow you
to move the shades to a specific open or close adjustment, not just fully open or fully closed.
Once set up on my home, since I already have a Lutron Smart Home Bridge (which is basically a hub
connector for all of the devices that are sold by Lutron), I’m able to do the scheduling and
event setting, but also connect this to other smart devices, like my Google Home.
I simply had to add the Serena shades to my google home app just like any other product
that works with google home. Once set up, I added the shades to my studio basement room,
and now I can control them via voice. “Hey Google, Close Basement Shades” or “Hey Google,
Open basement shades”. They work in unison and I never have to touch them. Kinda great,
since I’m a bit short and I can’t even reach the top of my windows to fully open blinds
that don’t have a pull cord so I find these to be very useful.
I was curious how these would work if you’re not home. Since they’re connected via app,
you can control them while you’re away from home.
They also do work with Alexa or apple’s homekit, not just google homes.
If for some reason your internet goes down,
just like with the lights, you can still control them manually.
I’ve been using mine for a couple of weeks and it’s really nice to have a pair of
really quiet smart shades that I don’t even have to think about
because I programmed their schedule and they sync up with the rest of my studio smart equipment.
These will be pretty expensive since they are custom to your window size, so I would
call them a premium product. Yes, there are budget friendly smart shades on the market too, so if you
don’t wanna spend like $400-$600 per window, you can look at non-custom options as well,
there’s also options to retro-fit non-smart blinds or shades that you already have in your house
if you wanna go that route. But given I really wanted to focus on a product that
prevents as much light leak as possible, custom built definitely fit that task.
Huge thanks to Lutron for working with me on this video. I’m
excited to have more smarts in my home since I now have a network that is segmented
to still be secure and give me that convenience of smart technology.
If you have any questions, leave ‘em below. I’m Shannon Morse, see ya later smores!