Planning For Motorized Shades

This article is part of a series which intends to offer a complete answer to the question "What is the difference between Somfy and Lutron in Motorized Shades?"

Today's sophisticated home automation systems are designed and incorporated into architectural plans at the very early stages of a project. Lutron, through its vast network of dealers, has always been involved at this stage planning the wiring for its lighting and lighting control products. In this way, Lutron's dealers are uniquely positioned to initiate the window shade discussion at the outset. This has played a significant role in growing the overall market for motorized shades and has moved the decision point for which shade system is used much earlier on in the construction sequence.

This new reality is due to the fact that while Somfy (and all other shade motor manufacturers) use an open wiring architecture - Lutron's is closed. How a house is wired for shades largely dictates which shades will be used. Lutron shades and controls use a specific wire. Why? Lutron's engineers designed their shade solution to take full advantage of the fact that Lutron's dealers are involved in wiring homes at the very early stages. Very clever! Using a proprietary specialized 7-conductor shading wire, Lutron and its lighting dealers are effectively able to 'lock out' non Lutron solutions at the time of pre-wire.

Somfy has launched a "Somfy Expert Program" - which is a wide scale effort to educate window treatment dealers and most importantly, integrators on how its motorized shade technologies fit into overall smart home systems. Besides facilitating relationships between Somfy's window treatment dealers and home automation companies, this affords Somfy an opportunity to be presented at the pre-wire and early planning stages of these projects. By facilitating partnerships and educating the players involved in pre-wire, Somfy's solution is no longer boxed out of these critical early planning stages.

It is important to understand that not all homes have dedicated lighting control and home automation systems. For now, these systems are found only at the very high end of the market. Motorized shade systems are sold and wired in homes without sophisticated automation and lighting control systems and in these cases, Lutron has no entrenched wiring advantage since its dealers are not involved in these projects. But that is cold comfort to companies like Somfy, who found themselves boxed out of some preeminent projects by din of the wire chosen and now behind drywall. In a reactive measure, a couple years ago, Somfy even introduced a motor and adapter that can plug into Lutron's special wire in an attempt to loosen Lutron's hold on this niche market. Somfy's recent efforts at educating the market are more enduring and comprehensive.

One must applaud Lutron for using technology to leverage its dealer's position in the project planning phases and begin the discussion of motorized shades early, on its terms. For its part Somfy has also used technology as an advantage to exploit certain weaknesses in the Lutron strategy. The next article in this series will explain how Somfy's introduction of radio frequency (RF) motor control changed the game for motorization of window shades.

The author, Gavin Sword, is an owner of Automated Shading - New York Motorized Shades The company offers Motorized Shades in New York, Florida, (Miami, Naples, Tampa, Orlando), New Jersey and Pennsylvania.