Smart Shades 2.0

I have the new hub, that started shipping in September. It only had Alexa functionality. I traded messages with Smith&Noble and they told me that Google assistant support would be available in late October. However it is still not available. I was then thrilled to see that they started supporting Siri shortcuts for scenes. However the app seems to allow only one shortcut. So if I create a shortcut for a scene to open a blind and then I try to create another shortcut for a scene to close the blind, The second shortcut will not be added. Instead the app brings up the first shortcut and thinks it’s what I want and only allows me to edit it rather than add a new one. This system has potential but needs a lot more development work.

We purchased Shades from Smith & Nobel for our Master Bedroom (5 Windows), Kitchen (2 Windows) and Family Room (3 High windows with Solar charging). We have extensive lighting automation in our home. When we remodeled our first floor, automated shades seemed like a good addition to our home automation plan. This was especially the case in our Family Room with windows 14 feet high. Some blinds have different features that can be enabled in the iPhone app, like ability to open fully or a specific percentage. Take the time to explore features blind types as your order. We had some issues initially getting the shades to work properly. Once the hub was upgraded to newest version issues using the hand held remotes, (separate remotes for each room) were resolved by an onsite tech. However, issues persisted with the iPhone app that needed additional work by the development team, who made several software upgrades over a short period of time. The iPhone app is very flexible but there’s a bit of a learning curve to be able leverage all the features to get to the desired result. It’s been a journey to get the blinds working to our desired end state but we are pleased with the result. Many thanks to Della and her team for working on fixes and patience with me as a new user of the app.

If you have the opportunity to work with Robyn Heine (designer), Mario Saldana (installer), Della McCay (motorization expert support) and/or Andre Comitre (tech support), consider yourself blessed. Robyn was a phenomenal designer and got me exactly what I needed. Mario fit everything beautifully in my home. I had issues with the app connecting with my eero system and Della and Andre were relentless in their pursuit for a resolution. A company can be made on its tech, user experience, or affordability, but few things are a proxy for how a customer feels than the way the company treats its customers. On that point, my experience has been second to none. Cannot say enough about these folks and how they treated me. Five star people all the way.

We use this app for our Smith and Noble shades. The app is inconsistent and often non responsive to updates and changes made to the scenes. Our house is fully automated and smart using other apps and Wi-Fi enabled hubs however this app is the poorest performing one. Sometimes the shades don’t open as scheduled in the app. Often changes I make to a scene don’t take and I have to enter the change multiple times over a few days before the change sticks. We’re happy with our S&N window treatments but not the hub they use. Best to keep your remote handy if you want to reliably open and close your window treatments.

I chose Smith & Noble bc they have great fabric options. I bought the smart shades. I think they’re tricky to program, but, Della in customer service was very knowledgeable and patient. Her follow up is great too. Also, a few of my blinds were too short. Jeannine was prompt and friendly in the re-order and making the return process easy. I was relieved they took care of it with no issues. I was appreciative that S & N has superior customer service and bc of it I will remain a loyal customer!

The hub disconnected from the app and the app crashes every time I try to add it back. It always fails at or before the “adding hub to database” screen. Before that, the shades disconnected from the app but I couldn’t add them back. Because the shades disconnected, the scenes didn’t work. Also, you can’t delete a scene without deleting all schedules but there’s no way to delete a schedule - turning the schedule off doesn’t work. You can’t delete shades either. And, when you delete the app itself and try to start all over, it crashes during the WiFi pairing. Every. Single. Time. I’ve never had a worse experience with an iPhone app.

Very patient in helping me set up Alexa commands. Took 2 sessions to get everything right, mostly due to issues on my side. One of the better customer support personnel that I’ve dealt with in last 30 years.

I am a software engineer and network technician. The hub will not connect. I am able to detect the hub, have it join the network, then when it asks to upgrade firmware, the app does nothing and I’m left stuck in the pairing process without any option other than to back out of the screen. I try tapping “pair to network” again and nothing happens. There’s no feedback as to what went wrong and nothing to do but start over.. which I’ve done 10 times now. This is almost certainly a software issue since the hub MUST work under some circumstances.. this should never have been released in the state it’s in. Bad bad bad.

Although I had trouble pairing my motorized shades to the smart hub at first and also setting the schedules, the tech support was fantastic. She took the time to walk me through all of my issues and get everything set up just the way I wanted. She was very thorough in making sure we didn’t end the call until we confirmed every shade was set to my liking!

I have rarely used an app that is less intuitive than this one. Setting up profiles is overly complicated. The need to push the tiny buttons on the remote is the worst since it rarely works to push them simultaneously. A few months ago, the app stopped working. As soon as it launches it gets stuck in ‘wait while we load your data’. I deleted and reinstalled it several times and waited hoping it was a bug that’ll get fixed. Now I have $3000 worth of shades that I can’t program. Sad and not worth it! Can’t recommend.

We’ve had Smith & Noble shades for a year. They are great. The shades are great. Well made, stylish, perfectly designed for our home. This app? Not so much. We upgraded our hub and got to move from the previous app, which was a certifiable one-star disaster. The current iteration is better, in particular the UI, which is much more intuitive. Scheduling is much easier. But this app is still plagued by connection/ responsiveness issues. The issues are intermittent - so some mornings as the shades are rising on schedule, just one of them won’t go up. Sometimes manually using the app fixes it, sometimes we have to use the remote. It’s all very frustrating but small potatoes compared to the last app so I’m giving this version three stars.

I bought the hub to go with the a top/down cellular shade. I love the shade, but the app and hub needs a ton of work. The following issues. 1. The app is called smart shades 2.0. Unfortunately this adds an autocorrect to iOS so now whenever I type 20 I get a 2.0, so frustrating. 2. When linked with Alexa if I say open the shade, it works fine, However close the shade doesn't actually close the shade, the bottom rail goes all the way down, and so does the top rail. Thus all of the material is at the bottom of the shade. 3. Favorites, Maybe a potential solution to #2, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to activate a favorite via alexa. 4. Would love to see an API to add my own integrations, or better yet a Home Assistant Plugin so I don't have to use your app.

I’m requesting the ability to set an offset to sunrise and sunset ie: sunset +/- (x) hours (x) minutes That way I can request my shades to close 2 hours after sunset and open 20 minutes before sunrise. ————- Sometimes a shade will not open or close on schedule. The signal from the hub must have been missed by the receiver. Perhaps a second signal should be automatically sent 1 minute later to help ensure that the schedule is enacted.

So the app has worked great with my roller shades. I’ve only lost connection once and I think that was due to power outage and just required restarting the hub. Could you add the ability to automate these shades through Apple? Right now this app cannot be controlled through the shortcuts / automation feature from apple. It would be good to add the shades to scenes since I use iOS. Thanks!!

Can anybody from Smith and Noble help their customers and actually put effort into maintaining their app so that we can all connect our shades to it and get the service and benefits we paid for… I’m stuck on that blue screen like many other people, when I call customer support for help they say they can only help the original buyer of the product… that policy is wrong on many levels, your company won’t survive long without modern practices and actual care.

I’ve had my shades for about 2 weeks, and despite checking back daily, deleting the app, re-downloading it and signing in every time, it will not advance past “gathering your data’ rendering the app unusable. I’ve called several times about this and every time I hear, “they are aware of it and will be pushing an update to fix it.” I would love to make this a five star review, but I need to be able to use the app first.

This upgraded app 2.0 is super user friendly, works seamlessly with my Google home and is a far superior app to the first version they used to have. New hub, new app, and Della who helped me set this up is a rockstar!

This is probably the worst software I have ever used. The previous version was very weak. But at least with effort it could function. This version is broken: invite users doesn’t work, adding blinds to a scene works maybe one in twenty attempt. On one phone the text is rendered so big it doesn’t fit on the screen. This is so bad it wipes out half the value from the $20k in blinds in our house.

I’m not one to write a review, but I just have to highlight how terrible this whole system is. It’s been garbage from day 1. Had all of my shades replaced once already, now will likely need to do it again. Solar panels are junk, batteries couldn’t worse, but the absolute most terrible thing is the app and it’s total lack of functionality. RUN AWAY AND BUY ANYTHING ELSE.

When we first bought the shades they advertised that it will work with Google home automation. Only until a year later they released that feature. The app itself is buggy and doesn’t work half the time. I will never buy from this company again.

The SmartShades app functions for our Smith and Noble blinds. But it’s hard to use and setup. The UI isn’t intuitive. What I would like is to be able to program my own Siri actions using the Shortcuts app. Is this support going to be added? Please?

2.0 is a major improvement. Seemless intergration and terrific support from Della from Smith and Noble. Highly recommend.

The app has always been horrible. It needs an interface refresh and is in desperate need of HomeKit support so that users don’t need to use this app to manage their shades. Please keep you app updated and don’t let it languish like it has been…

Do you have any plans to help your customers who are stuck in this endless blue screen and cannot use the product they paid for!???

I just installed the new hub and app and Della walked me through it. Very easy and everything works great.

What is the point of having “scenes” and “schedules” when they do not function ?!?! The up and down buttons work and the tilt bar works but that’s it! Why have features that don’t work?!?!? Horrible Horrible ☹️

Della was amazing in assisting with the tech issues we initially had. Great customer service.

Although all their adds show that works with Alexa AND Google, they are lying. This app does not support Google Home. So I bought the motorized and hub to have a “manual” shade. On top of that, the app is very unstable and constantly removes pre-set scenes at will.

Doesn’t work with Google home. I feel absolutely ripped off, would have bought shades from a different company if I knew it didn’t work with Google.

If you create a second scene and try to add a Siri shortcut for it, it will show you the name for the first scene’s Siri shortcut and. It create a new one. You can apparently only have one shortcut.

only allows one person to connect to the hun so i have no control over my window shades but someone else i live with does. dont get this it's really dumb everyone's right it's just broken. the account verification code it emailed to me was labeled a forgotten password code so.... yeah really broken on all fronts