Over the last several of years, my family has slowly made the switch from corded window shades to Bali Blinds window treatments that are cordless and operate with a remote. Last year, we took it one step further, and we added all of those shades to our home automation system, creating a smart home with the help of Bali AutoView™ Motorized Shades!

Embracing Motorized Shades
As soon as we began integrating motorized shades into our daily routine, we were hooked. Every morning, I reached for the Bali AutoView Premium Remote on my bedside table, and with the touch of one button, I was able to open the shades in both my bedroom and the adjoining laundry room. As I made my way downstairs to brew much-needed coffee, I’d then use the Bali remote in our living room to allow the morning light into our home. Even though all of these windows have multiple shades, I’m able to control all the shades in each room at once because my remote has multiple channels.
Controlling Our Window Treatments with a Remote
Let’s dive deeper into the anatomy of a Bali Blinds remote. When you’re using a multi-channel remote, each channel can operate independently. The new Bali AutoView Premium Remote control has 12 individual channels, and each of those channels can control up to 8 window treatments. Using this new remote, I now have the ability to open the motorized shades in my bedroom and laundry room on one channel, and on another channel, I could open the shades in our living room–all without getting out of bed! By placing all of my bedroom shades on one channel and all of the living room shades on another, I’m able to control them independently and raise them to the height I’ve programmed. For example, I can set my 3 bedroom shades to open halfway on one channel, and on a separate channel, my living room shades can open all the way.

Reaping the Benefits of Safety and Convenience
We’ve also added automatic solar shades into our home office. Operating them is no problem at all because I have the ability to put these on a third channel, and all of our preferences can be controlled from one Bali remote! While all of this has the potential to make you feel like a magician (is that such a bad thing?), I personally love that our motorized shades eliminate the needs for cords, especially in our home full of pets and an infant.

Making the Leap to a Smart Home
The Bali AutoView Premium Remote comes with a wall mount, keeping it out of reach from little fingers (that is, if you’re not already hiding it away in a drawer), but what if you didn’t need a remote at all? I mentioned earlier that we ultimately made the leap to a smart home, and we can now control all the motorized shades in our home through an app on our phone. We’ve found that Wink worked the best for our family, but Bali AutoView Motorized Shades have the capability to integrate with most popular home automation systems on the market.

Thinking Long-Term
When we began our adventure in motorized shades, we thought about our home as a whole, rather than the one room that needed blinds. We were especially excited to control our bedroom shades with a Bali remote, but we knew we eventually wanted to replace our corded living room and office shades with motorized, too. This allowed us to think about the long-term picture–while we were happy using our remotes (and were able to select the right remote for our current and future needs), we knew we’d eventually want to make the switch to a whole home automation system. Recently, we even swapped out the battery packs as our power source and opted for plug-in power adapters. No more replacing batteries!

If you’re ready to start on your own motorized shade adventure, Bali AutoView Motorized Shades make it simple to transition from a remote to a whole home automation system. My favorite part? Bali remotes are pre-programmed straight from the box and paired with your new window treatments, making them ready to use!