Inexpensive Motorized Shades

If you got existing tracks, then you could use THIS ...

If you don't have existing tracks, then maybe you can get one of THESE instead.

What kind of shades are you talking about? We have the Hunter Douglas honeycomb shades that have the mylar film in the middle to black the whole thing out. It works fairly well, but there is light leakage on the edges unless you make a frame for the blinds to sit inside of. I think we paid $500 for two windows that were about 3 feet wide, 4 feet tall, remote control (battery operated though).

The lowest cost motorized remote control shades would be the HunterDouglas opaque shades with PowerRise.

4 shades, 35"wide by 70" long, with one remote hand sender should run a total of about $1100 from a local dealer in your area.

An interesting side note: SVonhof (posted above) took his shades a part and painted the headrail black to match the shade. A major task. I got a link to the thread in which Scott described the procedure to the President of the Duette Division of HunterDouglas. He was dismayed that Scott had to do this and ordered black head rails be added to the line.

That my seem simple, but it is a major, major undertaking. 17 fabrication centers in the US alone, let alone the world wide production facilities, computer programs, color swatch books, price lists, etc. all have to be changed.

Chock one of for the home theater folks.

Yes. Unfortunately, I had three of these and two failed within 6 months. I sent them in for repair and they again failed within 3 months. At that point I gave up!

Fortunately my new theater under construction has no windows!

CCDAstro, those should have been under warranty within that time period. Did you ask your local dealer to take care of the issue?

So, when do I get my free replacements? I still have my painted black headers and IR receivers hanging from the wire (I should have ordered it built into the header, I know). Actually, one of the two doesn't seem to work properly. I replaced the batteries and it didn't want to go up more than an inch or so. Did the reset and I think it fixed it and then the next time I tried to open them, it didn't work. The good news is, I have no reason to open them, cause if I am going into the theater, I want to watch something and the shades have to be down!

BTW, Deane, I forgot all about you being on here! Long time no talk! Glad we were able to convince headquarters that if you order a black shade, with blackout material that the header should also be black! Seems like a simple concept!

Yes, they were and that paid for them but crap is crap even if it is free crap. Life is too short to put up with stuff that does not work, IMHO.

This may have been what you saw: http://www.smarthome.com/3142.html

I have use one and it worked OK. I used an X10 control to remotely control the motor unit.

Ron Jones

There was a long thread on this topic a year or so ago in the Theater Items & Accessories forum. Try a search.