Add Motors to Hunter Douglass Duette Shades

dw886

Member
I have a fairly large home automation install, and I'm regretting not motorizing all of my shades (we did 10 with Lutron motors, but we skipped about the same amount). 
 
We have 8 Hunter Douglas Duette Honeycomb shades.  They are cordless (you grab them and move them up/down).  Some are Bottom Up (only), and others are Top-Down/Bottom-Up.  
 
I'm open to any type of motor/ecosystem.  I'm at the limit of my RadioRA2 system (100 devices), so I'd rather not go RadioRA2...
 
Anyone have any experience motorizing these?  Is it reasonably doable, or do I need to buy new shades?
 
I rather doubt HD has an obvious, simple, or cheap way to change them.  Find your local HD shade installer (and not just some random mass-market franchise) and ask.  It may well be possible to have them 're-made' if it's really fancy material, but if it's not then new ones will probably be similarly prices to any sort of upgrade.  
 
I've got HD shades (power view, the recent series).  I only got them because we needed top-down motion (not just the normal bottom-up you think of for regular shades).  The top-down are great for bathrooms; just high enough for privacy while still allowing full natural light through the top. There are a few rooms where we stuck with manual operation.  A guest bedroom, the powder room, bathrooms, the kid's rec room and child rooms.  The thinking is those either don't need regular automated motion or would be likely to get broken by guests/kids that didn't understand how to operate them.  If it's a window that's not going to see regular changes, leave it manual. 4 years now and that's remained a wise plan.  
 
The round 'Pebble' remote is a genius design, as it easily allows controlling individual and multiple shades with a minimum of button presses.  Takes a little getting used to, but it's much better when you've got a room with more than just one or two shades (living room has five... imagine that on Pico remotes...)
 
I'm 'ok' with the shades but their automation app is tedious. Fortunately we don't make any sort of regular use for making manual changes.  They're all scheduled, and that's been working ok.  Battery life for them is about 18-24 months of daily motion (four motion events for morning, day, evening and night). 
  
I'm at 130+ Ra2 devices.  The training class is well worth paying to attend.  Makes it easy to add a 2nd repeater and ALL of the supported Ra2 devices.
 
There are a few companies out there that make add-os. Don't know how good they are. We got all ours motorized from the start, but its definitely not cheap. My guess is it doubled the price.
https://www.helloaxis.com/
 
+1 on the Hub and app being tedious.  I've complained to Hunter since it came out.  It's like 90's set up technology, not the Plug and Play we've come to enjoy with most other Hubs.  PowerView itself is hitting the target very well and is a very good system for the cost level.  The new Soft Touch non-remote motorized system is working out very well also.
 
On the issue of conversion, Hunter elected not to do that when they introduced PowerView.   There are no options with Hunter for adding PowerView to existing shades.
 
Try blinds.ca / blinds.com for big name blinds at less than 50% of the stores. I have had very good success with them on two orders over the years. I have no power blinds though but they do have all the options there.
 
I am not affiliated with this company in any way.
 
Back
Top