Harnessing natural light is equal parts inspiration and know-how. The average American spends about 90 percent of their time inside built spaces—homes, offices, classrooms—so whatever daylight reaches those interiors is working hard at keeping us alert, comfortable, and healthy. Today’s architects, interior designers, and builders chase that perfect glow—whether it’s flooding a breakfast nook or grazing a feature wall. Yet even the most thoughtfully placed window needs a finishing touch: window treatments can soften glare, trim energy use, and set the mood at any hour.
You may already be familiar with the signature designs of Hunter Douglas: a Duette® honeycomb shade pulling winter chill off the glass, Pirouette® vanes floating like a soft sculpture, a roller gliding out of its fascia so cleanly it seems drawn by light itself. Teams have long trusted these window treatments to resolve a room’s look; what sometimes becomes an afterthought is the discreet intelligence that can be woven into every shade—technology that choreographs daylight, comfort, and ambiance so smoothly it feels like the home is looking after you.
In the world of design, some elements speak softly but carry immense influence. One such element? The automated shade. It’s a feature that can quietly revolutionize how we experience our spaces—shaping light, mood, and even energy use with effortless grace.
Interior stylist Hilton Carter captures it perfectly:
"With my studio having very high ceilings and windows to match, the shades I had up before were hard to manage and only served two basic functions, light or no light. Hunter Douglas Silhouette® Shadings with PowerView® Automation not only allow me to create varying levels of natural light, but also allow me to manage the windows up high with just the push of a button on the Pebble® remote."
An elegantly programmed shade can lift mood, trim utility bills, and let design speak without technological interruption—let’s discuss how to achieve each of these outcomes.
Daylighting as a Wellness Strategy
Daylight is one of the most reliable ways to nurture well-being. When managed thoughtfully, it supports alertness, stabilizes sleep cycles, and eases fatigue. Hunter Douglas smart shades give designers fine-tuned control over that natural resource: sheer or semi-sheer fabrics soften early-morning light, dual-roller or room-darkening options temper midday glare without sacrificing brightness, and automation ensures each shift happens when it is most beneficial. The result is a lighting environment that adapts quietly to the body’s needs throughout the day.
Now picture the room the sun never quite reaches—an interior bath wrapped in marble, a below-grade gym, or a west-facing library that comes alive only at dusk. Aura™ Illuminated Shades were created for precisely these moments when design calls for daylight but nature withholds it. Behind a familiar Hunter Douglas textile, Aura tucks an optional room-darkening liner and a ribbon of tunable-white LEDs. At first glance you see a beautifully tailored shade; at the touch of a scene command, the fabric begins to glow evenly from hem to headrail, shifting smoothly anywhere between a candle-warm 2,200 K and a crisp 6,500 K.
Aura shades can be scripted to lift a bedroom with a 15-minute “sunrise,” sustain a warm, sociable tone over dinner, or lend balanced illumination to a windowless powder room—all while continuing to do the everyday work of privacy and glare control. In this way, the shade stops being a passive covering and becomes an active source of wellness, extending the benefits of daylight to spaces and hours when the sun itself is out of reach.
Energy Efficiency
Energy performance rarely makes the mood board, yet it shows up on every utility bill. Without help, windows can leak up to 30 percent of a home’s heating and cooling energy. Hunter Douglas shades address that loss in two complementary ways: fabric insulation that works all day and automation that remembers to use it.
Windows become allies—not liabilities—when fabric and automation move in lockstep. Hunter Douglas begins with textiles engineered to insulate: air-trapping honeycombs in Duette® and Applause®, the discreet cellular core of Sonnette® rollers, folded Vignette® Romans that add a thermal buffer, or high-performance Designer Screen weaves that stop solar heat gain before it crosses the glass.
The best-engineered fabric can’t save energy if it stays static. A Department of Energy study found that three-quarters of residential shades never move after installation; they insulate only on paper. PowerView® Gen 3 Automation rewrites that statistic, raising shades on a sun-washed winter morning to harvest free heat, then lowering them before dusk to lock it in—or reversing the routine on a sweltering August day. Schedules can follow the astronomical clock out of the box, or pull real-time cues from thermostats and light sensors in the wider smart-home ecosystem, ensuring the energy model you promised the client survives first occupancy. This is not just imaginary savings, studies ran by the Department of Energy found that automated shades yielded a 13% saving in energy costs.
Tying it All Together
"We see ourselves as the translator between the design and technology worlds—offering automated shade solutions that speak both languages fluently, whether that's cutting-edge automation or sophisticated design aesthetics. The biggest challenge when it comes to automated shades is the misconception that you have to choose between stunning design and advanced functionality. We've built our entire portfolio to prove that's simply not true—our solutions deliver both exceptional aesthetics and seamless smart technology, without compromise," said Maren Gehling, Director of Sales, Custom Home & Integration at Hunter Douglas.
Most automated-shade platforms start with a motor and then look for fabrics to hang on it Hunter Douglas approaches the problem in reverse with a portfolio of 20 distinct shade styles, more than 2,000 curated textiles, and a full line of accessories to support every shade.
Into that design-first foundation sits PowerView® Gen 3 Automation, a platform built around Bluetooth Low Energy for rock-solid, reliable performance. Shades can be controlled straight from a phone, synchronized to Control4, Crestron Home, Savant, Josh.ai and other whole-house systems or voice assistants when hands are full.
Power options flex with the project needs: an Internal Rechargeable Battery can tuck inside a roller tube for low-profile windows or French doors, while PowerView+ low-voltage wiring delivers whisper-quiet operation and steady power in new construction.
When wellness, efficiency, and aesthetics converge inside this unified fabric-to-platform ecosystem, daylight stops being an environmental variable and becomes a design material you can sculpt, store, and replay on command. That is the Hunter Douglas difference: light that serves the rhythm of the people in the room, the performance targets on the energy model, and the vision pinned to the mood board—no trade-offs required.
You Might Also Like:
