In this exclusive Q&A with CE Pro, Zohar Shinar, CEO of Olibra—the company behind the Bond smart control platform—discusses how Bond is streamlining control for RF-based devices like motorized shades, ceiling fans, and pergolas.
Shinar shares insights into Bond’s growing role in outdoor smart home solutions, upcoming product innovations, and the company’s deep commitment to supporting integrators through training, partnerships, and hands-on dealer engagement.
CE Pro: Can you briefly explain how the company serves the smart home industry?
Shinar: When it comes to smart control, manufacturers of motorized shades, ceiling fans and other RF motor-controlled devices leave much to be desired. Bond solves this problem.
For the homeowner, Bond’s focus is on making these devices simpler and more enjoyable to use. For the installer, Bond’s focus is on ease of installation and support.
The RF-to-WiFi Bond Bridge Pro and Bond Home app bring home automation and control to shades, fans, pergolas and more. The app is easy to navigate and brings new functionalities such as scheduling and group control, and voice activation through virtual assistant applications like Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Josh.ai.
Bond’s survey of 100K+ Bond device users shows that most homes with motorized shades have multiple brands of shades as well as ceiling fans and other remotely controlled non-smart products. An added benefit of the Bond Home platform is that it consolidates and unifies control of these different brands and products within one app.
The Bond Bridge Pro is very flexible; it can be installed anywhere and can connect wirelessly or with Cat 5/6 through an Ethernet connection. It learns the RF remote control commands in the 300-450 MHz band and connects to the home WiFi network at 2.4GHz. It is powered by either a PoE connection or the included power supply. The Bridge integrates with most home automation platforms.
CE Pro: Recently Bond announced an agreement with Sol-Lux, a manufacturer of outdoor solutions such as smart-home awnings. How does Bond see the outdoor smart home developing over the next several years, and how will Bond support dealers serving that category?
Shinar: Sol-Lux is one example of the trend toward the expansion of outdoor living. These spaces include significant investments, such as motorized pergolas, screens, heaters, lights and awnings. These customers have the highest expectations. Bond is the only company offering a solution that enables installers to meet those expectations with a unified, elegant control system that integrates seamlessly into whole-home automation and is easy to use.
Last year Bond introduced Breeze Pro, a smart, ultrasonic wind/rain/sunlight sensor (an industry first) that brings automated programming to awnings and shutters based on user-defined thresholds. Bond has also prioritized integration/sales partnerships with brands of outdoor pergolas like Equinox and multiple Hunter Douglas Outdoor companies including Azenco.
This summer will see the Mate Pro™ from Bond, a 15-channel, wet-rated, weather-resistant, universal RF remote control ($289 MSRP) for motorized shades, screens, and pergolas – and with integrated Bluetooth for easy set up.
Mate Pro delivers what the market wants. We surveyed thousands of customers, and they are fed-up with having to use multiple remotes outdoors and hide them in a drawer or indoors. On top of this, for outdoor control, RF is still relied upon for its long-range capabilities.
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CE Pro: What are some of the ways dealers can use the Bond product line beyond using them with shades and awnings?
Shinar: It has been rewarding to see the range of devices that Bond has been able to control and provide the user with enhanced value. After a successful start with ceiling fans — becoming the leader in smart control for these — Bond control quickly moved into motorized shades, gas fireplaces, pergola louvers, low voltage LED outdoor lighting, and now outdoor heaters.
The Bond engineering team works closely with manufacturers to integrate their smart control technology and is now collaborating to bring this to Infratech’s outdoor heating systems and others. This will be available from Infratech this summer.
CE Pro: For some dealers keeping up with the smart home industry can be difficult. What is Bond doing to support dealers to help ensure they are successful with the product line?
Shinar: Our commitment to our manufacturer partners and dealers goes beyond that of most automation companies. We collaborate, take the time to listen, and offer solutions to their problems. Our Bond Bridge Pro, Sidekick for Shades, as well as Breeze Pro and Mate Pro, are prime examples of this.
Dealer support is of the utmost importance to us. We go on-site for training, conduct countless webinars to catch dealers/installers on the go, and provide 7-days/week, 12-hours/day customer and technical support to help them when they are on the job.
Bond training sessions are well attended. Bond CTO Chris Merck is a gifted presenter, and the audience of integrators love hearing about all the ways in which Bond can make their installations easier and more efficient. Past webinars have included expert guests like Alan Chow of Chowmain Software.
Recent manufacturer training sessions have included MagnaTrack, Universal Screens, Azenco, Texton, Omnimax, Savant, Vantage, and others.
CE Pro: What is next for Bond as it looks to continue its market growth?
Zohar Shinar: We will continue to talk directly with our 2,500 dealers and learn about their pain points. Then we will continue developing solutions that address those. The industry can expect to see Bond providing more ways to add convenience and flexibility to the control of all these home devices.
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