Serena Smart Wood Blinds by Lutron Review - 6 Months Later

The Lutron Serena smart wood blinds are seriously  impressive. Not only can they open and close on   their own at specified times but they can also  integrate with many of the major smart home   platforms out there. In this video i'm going to  take you through some of the best things about   the Serena smart wood blinds, how they've held  up over the past six months of use, any downsides   we've run into with them and then ultimately my  recommendation on whether or not you should get   the Serena smart wood blinds. Now before we begin,  full disclosure, Lutron did send us these blinds   at a discount so we didn't end up paying the full  price for them but ended up paying around a couple   hundred dollars. Alright, first up, let's talk  about the design of these blinds. The Serena smart   wood blinds look like a pretty modern set of wood  blinds. The blinds themselves are good quality and   one interesting design choice is that there's no  cord hanging down for you to raise the blinds up   or rotate them, which is a plus for me personally  because i've always hated those designs. Sometimes   those manual blinds can be really finicky and  the Serena smart wood blinds have a much easier   solution when you need to raise or lower them,  you simply push up or pull down the panel at the   bottom of the blinds. At the top of the blinds  you'll see the modern valance that i chose,   though you can go with a more traditional look  with the Easton valance. The valance is there to   provide an aesthetic purpose but also it serves as  a cover for the battery compartment of the blind.   The batteries you will need will depend on if  you do a single or double blind but my blinds   have eight D cell batteries that should last for a  few years. You can also get versions of the blinds   that are powered or manual. You have several  customizable options when you design your blinds   including stain and painted finishes to match  your home decor and you can request free wood   samples from Serena on their website. Alright,  so that's the design, next let's talk about the   installation. Lutron does a good job of giving  you adequate installation instructions as well   as measuring instructions. Before you order the  blinds to make sure they're going to be the right   fit. Unfortunately for my set when i measured  them i knew they'd be a bit short of my window,   but i wanted to test them out and i got them  anyway. Now the installation took me way longer   than i anticipated and that's primarily because  i don't typically do installations where i'm   drilling holes into drywall, so if you're more  experienced with that, it's likely not going to   take you the two hours it took me to install them.  Part of this was due to me being really careful   i triple checked my measurements and drew out  where the holes would be on the wall with a   pencil before drilling anything i also made sure  the valance would fit over the brackets before   continuing the installation and mine just barely  fit over. Also i mistakenly thought that i could   just get away with using a Phillips head screw  bit in my drill and that turns out not to be the   case you do need the hex bit that the instructions  call for. Overall though, even though it took me a   little bit longer than i anticipated, i didn't  screw anything up in the end and i was able to   successfully install these blinds. Lutron does  have an in-home installation service as well for   those who would rather go that route. Once the  blinds are installed you can pop the batteries   in and connect it to the Lutron bridge which  you'll need to plug into your router in order   to utilize the smart home functionality of the  blinds as well as be able to use the pico remote,   which is optional but something i recommend  getting for those who want something besides   their voice or a smartphone app to control the  tilt of their blinds. The Lutron app is what you   use for this part of the setup process and the app  does a pretty good job of guiding you through the   setup process it's available on both the Google  Play Store as well as the Apple App Store. To pair   the blinds to the bridge you'll need to hit the  button at the top of the blinds which is designed   more like a tab than a button and you'll need  to push it up which might be a bit confusing at   first. It doesn't work like most typical buttons.  Alright so once you've got everything set up now   let's take a look at some of the main features of  the smart blinds in the Lutron app. You have the   ability to set a closed limit and view positions  what direction the blinds are facing you can also   set scenes as well as schedules scenes are really  great if you have more than one device in your   Lutron app but since I only have my blinds, I  found that using this part of the app wasn't   all that useful. You can set a natural light  optimization schedule which will adjust the blinds   to have more of a tilt to block out the sun's rays  when the sun is facing the window. Now it doesn't   make as many adjustments as you might think  throughout the day, especially in my case with   a south facing window which pretty much gets sun  all day long and when you set this up you can also   set up what time you want your blinds to open and  when you'd like them to close. You even have the   option to have them open and close at sunrise and  sunset and you can choose different schedules for   different days as well. Now you can of course link  your blinds to your smart assistant platform which   is probably one of the easiest ways to control  them. I've linked mine to the Google Assistant   but you can also link it to other smart assistants  like Amazon's assistant as well as HomeKit. Not   only can you ask an assistant to open and close  the blinds but you can also ask an assistant to   set the blinds to a specific percentage tilt.  Josh: "Hey Google, set blinds to 80 percent."   Pretty cool, now let's say you don't have an  assistant or don't want to use one to rotate your   blinds, that's where the pico remote comes in.  This remote not only allows you to open and close   your blinds with a single tap of a button but  also have precise control over your blind's tilt   as well. Over the past six months i haven't had  a single issue with my Serena smart wood blinds   they've just performed flawlessly and i have  no indication that their batteries are draining   quicker than expected either. Now that doesn't  mean that there aren't any downsides i found with   the inherent design of the smart wood blinds.  The first downside is the length of the blinds.   Unfortunately they're not going to fit over all  windows and even for my window which to be fair is   quite large the blinds come up a bit short however  Lutron does offer other styles of shades like the   honeycomb shade that can be used on much larger  windows. Another downside with the design of these   blinds is that the hole that allows the cords to  go through the blinds those holes can actually   leak a little bit of sunlight throughout the day,  so some people may find that annoying but this is   a design issue with all blinds designed this way  not just the Serena smart wood blinds. The last   downside i have with my blinds is direct sunlight  leaking through the sides of the blinds themselves   and that is on me that is my fault because i  ordered the version of the Serena smart wood   blinds that mount over the window frame versus the  version that you can mount inside of the window   frame that wouldn't have that issue. If i had to  do it over again i'd get the version that mounts   inside of the frame. Overall the Serena smart wood  blinds by Lutron have been a really great addition   to my room. I love being able to see them open  and close on a schedule and have the ability to   precisely control their angle when open which is  great if you have plants like my bamboo palm which   doesn't like direct sunlight but bright in direct  sunlight and these blinds can definitely help me   get that. They also have caused me to look out my  window at the forest outside way more thanks to   their automation which has been really refreshing  during the work day especially during the pandemic   when i'm working from home quite a bit. Before  with my film equipment typically stored in front   of my window, it would just be a pain to get up  throughout the day and have to maneuver through   my equipment to get to that little rod that  can adjust the tilt of my manual blinds where   with the smart wood blinds it's just much easier.  Plus the smart wood lines they just look great,   they look like premium wood blinds and it's also  really nice that Serena offers so many different   finishes to be able to match your room's look  and feel. The Serena smart wood blinds can cost   anywhere from around four hundred dollars  per window to close to nine hundred dollars   depending on the size of your window. My version  is the largest version that Serena makes of the   wood blinds and normally would have cost around  $850 US dollars. For more information i'll link   Serena's website in the video description below. I  hope you found this video helpful and informative   and if you did and liked it make sure you hit  that thumbs up button below and subscribe to   the channel to see more six months later reviews  on smart home and tech products like this one.   Well that's gonna do it for me, for 6 Months  Later, I'm Josh Teder, thanks for watching.

Channel: 6 Months Later

Views: 23,222

Keywords: Smart Home, Blinds, Automated, Lutron, Serena, Wood Blinds, Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, Apple, HomeKit, Schedule, Review, Performance, Features, Remote, Lutron Bridge, Pico, Battery operated, Powered, Automatic tilt, Natural Light Optimization, 6 Months Later Reviews, Josh Teder

Id: cou-wVNxYmY

Length: 8min 18sec (498 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 29 2021