The Shade Store V1

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There are some super simple tweaks that would make this app and system very desirable. I’m dumbfounded some CEO hasn’t realized how inferior the IT side of their product is in relation to other “smart home” technologies. A sundown and sunrise feature is rudimentary, but would save so much monthly reprogramming of daily timers. Their Alexa integration needs some simple changes to make it more intuitive, saying “turn on blinds” to use them as a “light” makes no sense. Verbal integration is the new standard, a owner should be able to easily program and then say exactly what they want, such as “lower living room blinds to 50 percent “. This is no where close to what is currently available with this app or hardware.

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Update - Wrote this review over a year ago and nothing noted below has been fixed. Not even the password reset which is a huge security issue. Crazy. Made a huge investment in shade store motorized shades. Remotes and app are barely usable. For almost 18 months shade store has said they have a new remote coming. Since their remote is basically useless we are forced to use the app. - you can’t create a timer with a single device and a scene. - you can’t create a timer with multiple scenes - when you program a timer you set it with 12 hour clock but when you view your list of timers it shows 24 hour clock - app constantly freezes - more often than not all the shades are not triggered when I timers goes off. - I doubt the developer of anyone at the shade store has tried to reset their password... you get an email from some 3rd party that has no reference to shade store, the message is half a sentence with no instructions that this is from the shade store, you are redirected to a 3rd party site that just has a simple form with also no instructions and nothing about shade store, and the form has the most confusing field titles. SLOPPY SLOPPY SLOPPY FOR A DEVELOPER TO CREDTE A PASSWORD RESET LIKE THIS. Overall the attention to detail is pretty bad.

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HomeKit is really needed. Or at least one important feature added. We went with Shade Store for our vacation property (we use HunterDouglas PowerView at our other house). The number one most useful automation feature is synchronizing opening and closing to sunrise and sunset. This is a common feature in every home automation app I’ve used. I want my blinds to close at sunset — which changes by many hours throughout the year. Adding HomeKit would alleviate this, since this is directly supported by HomeKit automation. Update: Six months after promised HomeKit integration there’s still nothing.

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On the app, it would be nice if we could move the position of the devices or change the of the listed devices. For example I have large window served by two shades split in the middle. The left shade is on channel 1 and right is on channel 2. Counter intuitively left and right shades on the device list are the opposite of what I would like it to be. Left icon is on right and right icon is on left. It’s a minor thing, but it would be nice to reposition the order of device listings so that Left is left and right is to right of the left icon. Hopefully that’s not confusing.

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I work in the app space, and understand how apps are developed. It seems this app is underdeveloped for the hardware that it supports/controls. No integration with Google Home, any Google products (i.e. doesn't “Work with Nest”), or HomeKit (Apple). However, it recently was updated to work with Alexa. User convenience features for the iOS app are below standard (i.e. no widget for the Today Screen) when compared to other apps.