Smart home manufacturer Savant is now shipping its first motorized shading products under the new Savant Shades line. Developed in partnership with JGeiger, the first products are roller shades designed to be installed sans fascia or enclosure, with rollers fully exposed.
The motor for the hardwired shades are included inside the shade tube itself.
“The aim is for integrators to have the ability to order and install the shades fast and super easy,” says Tim McInerney, director of product marketing at Savant.
The exposed roller-shades have no exposed screws. The Cape Cod-based home-control company has also developed a simplified installation and measurement process for CE pros aimed at reducing potential for errors.
“We heard a lot of complaints from integrators about the shading options available to them on the market,” says McInerney. “Dealers had to measure and order full shades that were shipped to them in a box and hoped they got it right. It was an error-prone system because there are so many changes that take place during construction that can slightly alter the measurements of the shades. As much as 5 percent to 10 percent of all shades dealers order are wrong due to minor errors.”
With the Savant Shades, dealers can run the wire and mount the brackets early in the construction cycle. (The shades are currently hardwired only, but Savant says a battery-powered version is in development.)
Then, when it comes time to trim out the windows, dealers can bring the tubes with them on site and simply use a chopsaw to cut the tubes to fit. Ideally, dealers would maintain their own supply of tubes in bulk.
The fabric is ordered separately using Savant’s online portal, and then shipped to the dealer, who attaches it the tube on the jobsite. The fabric is attached using double-sided tape with a special adhesive that is included with the shade fabric. The fabric is also shipped with extra length to ensure that there is always a few wraps of fabric around the tube to minimize any pull on the adhesive when the shades roll down.
Savant maintains 21 common fabrics in stock with more than 500 fabrics in three categories (standard, deluxe and premier) available with three-week delivery time from manufacturers like Mermet & Vertilux.
McInerney points out Savant’s shipping process is also unique. Instead of the integrator receiving a large shipment of bulky individual boxes, each containing a finished window shade, Savant ships just the fabrics in a single box.
With as many as 10 window fabrics in each box, it greatly reduces shipping time and saves space for the integrator in his truck.
Savant Shades come in four price points: small, medium, large and X-large. Brackets are available in black and white, with Satin Nickel available in October. Also, the brackets are available for outside and inside mount shades.
