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Simplifying Life Through Technology
SoundVision LLC is a lifestyle technology company located in Mooresville, North Carolina. We interview vendors, clients and staff with the purpose of demystifying the capabilties of new technologies for your home or business and sometimes highlighting local content that is important to our community.
Simplifying Life Through Technology
ShadeVision: Shading Solutions
On this episode of “Simplifying Life Through Technology,” Mark, Michelle, and Andrew from SoundVision sit down to discuss our Shading Solutions offered at SoundVision.
Window Shades offer many benefits to your home or commercial space. Our premium vendors allow us to offer custom products that enhance the comfort, efficiency and aesthetic appeal of your home or workspace. We delve into the diverse options we offer at SoundVision, exploring the varied fabrics, energy-saving benefits and the potential for personalization. With an abundance of fabric selections and functions, we'll guide you on how each plays a role in light control and achieving your desired aesthetic.
We also venture into the realm of automated shades, breaking down their functions, cost, battery life, and maintenance requirements. Suitable for a variety of spaces, Mark and Michelle shed light on the convenience of these shades, the systems that power them and who they are best suited for. From UV protection to temperature control, we cover it all. So buckle up and get ready for a ride that will redefine your perception of shading solutions!
To learn more about SoundVision:
To listen to more “Simplifying Life Through Technology” podcasts:
https://www.svavnc.com/podcast/
Shade Exploration Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saykpPNyb6M
Contact Us Today:
(704) 696-2792
Info@svavnc.com
soundvisionlkn.com
Hey, it's Andrew. Welcome to Simplifying Life Through Technology. Joining me in the podcast room today, we have our Chief Executive Officer, Mark DiPetro, and our Chief Operating Officer, Michelle Furlato. Today we're going to be discussing the shading solutions we offer at Sound Vision, and these shading solutions can be automated or operated manually.
Speaker 2:Let's get shady.
Speaker 1:So, mark, why don't you explain to our listeners about the shading solutions we offer?
Speaker 2:As you talked about, we do offer a variety of different shading solutions, and those are both automated, which is the most common thing and popular thing that we do, but they also extend to manual options as well. We'll get into that a little bit. But that really allows you to kind of keep a consistent look across, maybe the front or rear of a home or place of business, as well, as if you have some secondary rooms that you want to provide shading in, but maybe it's a little bit less money. Or again, to kind of keep that consistent look, Just give some more options. Why?
Speaker 1:would someone want shading solutions in their home? Why don't we get into some of the benefits of our shading solutions, michelle?
Speaker 3:Shades have a lot of different benefits and possibilities to protect and help your home, first and foremost as energy efficiency. Out on the lake, with the sun coming in, it definitely heats up a room and makes it uncomfortable, so it will help with temperature control.
Speaker 2:And actually to tag along with that would be glare. So I know down at the beach a lot of times where the sun's coming in you might have glare off a television. You can't see it or it's right in your eyes. So there's certainly the heat that Michelle just talked about from an energy saving solution, but there's also just that glare coming in that makes it uncomfortable, and so shades allow you to either temper that or almost get rid of that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and with that is kind of the UV aspect of it. The sun is extremely powerful, as we all know.
Speaker 2:That's a good one.
Speaker 3:You definitely want the UV protection of the shades on your windows. It does make a huge difference.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and with that it helps preserve your furniture. Just the constant sun beating on it it causes it to fade, wither things like that.
Speaker 2:All of this is really talking about light control as, like a high level benefit of shades, we're controlling the amount of light. We're controlling the type of light, whether it's a diffuse light or a direct light, whether we're room darkening, blackout which I know we're going to talk about in a minute but being able to control the light in your space is one of the, if not the most primary benefit.
Speaker 1:Why don't we get into some of the different fabrics and the pros and cons and the benefits of some of them? Because each of them kind of have a unique aspect to them.
Speaker 2:So the first is sheer, and sheer is a really cool type of shade option where you can have the shade down but still have that diffuse light coming in. It's very elegant. It allows you to kind of have some privacy so you can move around. Let's just say you're in your home. You can move around and not feel like that you can be seen from the outside, but yet it still lets the light in and some of those sun rays that look really cool. That's the kind of thing that a sheer fabric will allow you to do.
Speaker 1:Right, have that and still have those beautiful views.
Speaker 2:And still have those beautiful views. And just one other thing about sheer there's different levels. So in some of our vendors you'll have like a 1%, 3%, 5%, 10%, which is how much light it's letting in. So if a sheer fabric has got 1%, it's only letting in 1% of the light, so it's clearly darker than a 10% of the exact same fabric. The weave's not as tight and so now that's letting in 10% of the light. So you can actually getting back to light control, you can actually control how much of that diffuse lights gets in. There's a lot of technology to it. It's cool, yeah, it's really cool.
Speaker 2:One of the confusing things that we get and one of the terms or two of the terms that get confused a lot of times are blackout, which get used a lot, and room darkening. And blackout actually has physical, like metal tracks that are installed on the bottom of your windows and the side of your windows and the shade literally is cut so that it's inside those tracks, so no light seeps around the outside or seeps underneath A room darkening shade could be the exact same shade without the tracks, so now when it comes down, the room gets a whole lot darker, but you still have some bleed on the outside perimeter and on the bottom. If it's one in the morning and you're not in Alaska, probably no big deal, it's probably the same thing. But if it's during the day and you want to watch a movie in your theater, it actually could make a difference.
Speaker 2:So that's a distinction that you probably want to at least know about Absolutely.
Speaker 3:And then there are light filtering, which allows some light in but also maintains a certain amount of privacy, like in a bathroom or someplace that is exposed to your neighbors, where you still want the light but you don't necessarily want the attention. Right, you need that privacy.
Speaker 2:One of the questions we get a lot of times from either customers or interior designers is they like the idea of the shade, they like the functionality of it, but they feel like, hey, maybe there's not enough options. Now we have a lot of options. We have so many books. It's incredible there are a lot. However, there is the specific request or the specific customer out there that wants a very specific fabric, and so occasionally we'll get the request hey, can you use this Because it's a certain pattern or a certain picture or sort of whatever they want? The answer is a lot of times we can. It actually does depend on weight and what the picture pattern is or whatnot, but certainly ask us because there are possibilities to use your very specific example if you want. So that's that sort of pattern and print idea on our shades.
Speaker 3:We do work with a lot of interior designers to come up with a solution that suits the room that they're designing, and are totally willing to do that.
Speaker 2:We don't get them that often, but the ones that we do, those are the really cool jobs, like when they're actually finished, they're pretty awesome. It does take planning, it does take oversee and coordination, but anything that's really cool usually does.
Speaker 1:Right, and I think that's what's so great about the shades that we offer is that our designers actually work with you specifically design them for your home. So they're gonna measure your space, they're gonna work with you to show you all the different fabrics that we have. You know, it's really a very personalized and personally curated product for you.
Speaker 2:And we literally have an entire room dedicated in our experience center here in Morseville and, like Norman for shades, we show a ton of different options in there and throughout our entire experience center. We have different styles, different fabrics, different head rails, different valences, different colors, so you can see a lot of options both in style and in fabric as well, and that probably leads into our actual vendors. Michelle, who do we work with for shades?
Speaker 3:We work with a few great vendors. We are very selective of who we work with and we do vet them out ahead of time, because it is not worth us putting a product in your home that is substandard. There are cheap blinds out there, there are cheap shades out there. You will get what you pay for. So we have partnered with Lutron, hunter, douglas, jake Eiger and Inserall.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and actually I had someone ask me the other day why do we have so many options and what we found over the years? Because we've been doing this now for probably five years now that we've been doing this, and originally we partnered with Lutron and they're a tremendous partner. They have a lot of cool unique features and whatnot, but they're pricey Like they're not the cheapest thing in the world. So sometimes we have budgetary constraints that we need to work in. Sometimes we have different looks that we want that, say, a Lutron doesn't necessarily offer. Sometimes we have a different style that somebody wants and that could be something like an open roll shade as opposed to a balanced shade as opposed to one that's put in a pocket, like there's all kinds of different things, and so these different manufacturers that we found over the years kind of specialize in little pockets of no pun intended, kind of of the shading landscape.
Speaker 1:Upgrade your home with SoundVision, your one stop destination for cutting edge home automation. From lighting design, indoor and outdoor audio video systems, security systems, network optimization and shading solutions. Our experienced team ensures seamless installations and top tier service. We're dedicated to enhancing your lifestyle through technology. So the automated shades why don't we get into how we can control them? Because there are several options of how you can control them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and this goes hand in hand with who these are for and who they're not for. So let me touch on what an automated shade is. An automated shade is, if you imagine, a manual shade. You're pulling it down with your hand right when we were kids and you'd get a better and you had the little rope thing and you pulled the thing out. An automated shade is the same thing, but it does it without you touching it, and it can do that in a variety of different ways. The most basic version is we have a little wall mounted piece that looks not unlike a light switch or a keypad, and you press a button and we, as part of our installation, we set up how far the shade goes down and that kind of thing. So it is, in essence, replicating you pulling the shade down manually by just touching a button. That's one way. Another way that you can do that is through some type of control system.
Speaker 2:Once you bring in a control system, you have a lot of options. It could be controlled with a computer or a tablet or your phone. It could be controlled by time of day. It could be controlled by your security system being armed and disarmed, temperature all kinds of ways that automated shades can be controlled once they are implemented into an automation system. You do not need the automation system to make these work. They will work on their own. That is no problem. Most of the companies that we work with do have an individual app that you can also use, most commonly on your phone, but it could be really any control, whether it's a tablet or a computer, and you could use the app itself as a standalone as well. So a lot of different ways.
Speaker 2:That brings up the who is it kind of for and who is it really not for, and we haven't touched on how these are powered, so we haven't talked about that. There's both wired, hardwired to the shade and battery operated shades, and so who these are for are really anybody that wants the convenience of being able to have shading in various rooms but you don't want to walk around the house and pull these things up and down. The wired part is really for folks that are having a home or a business being built, because we do have to run wire specific to those locations. That is very common. However, the wireless one is even more common. So, depending on the manufacturer, they use batteries Question we get all the time is well. If they're batteries like how off-duty, I have to change the battery and how do I get to it?
Speaker 2:and what do I do? Surprisingly, the batteries Last. Now it's based on how many times you use it, of course, but even using it once or twice a day, the batteries last years, not days or months. So depending on the manufacturer you could go two, three years on a battery charge and not have to change them. As far as changing them goes, that's typically fairly simple. If you can reach the shade, it's usually just a little door that opens and you slide the batteries out and put new batteries in.
Speaker 2:If you Cannot reach the shade, then that's one of the things that kind of goes into our service memberships. That can be something that we do for you on a routine basis, so you don't have to do it at all, right? So again, who they're for and then who they're not for want to be clear that automated shades do carry a price tag and, because we have a variety of vendors, that your budget can be pretty wide. You know they can go for a thousand dollars a window. That's not totally uncommon, but they can also go for a couple hundred bucks a window, depending on what you choose and what your budget is. But that does say, hey look, I'm going to be spending at least a couple hundred dollars per window to automate that, and so folks that don't find value in that is Kind of who this is not for right.
Speaker 3:As far as maintenance goes, it's really just the battery Changes and keeping them clean and all of that correct.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I could tell you like, in our home we have some product both by Lutron and Hunter Douglas, had the Lutron for a couple years, I've had the Hunter Douglas for probably a year now, ish, something like that and With Hunter Douglas they have a rechargeable battery and so they lasted about, yeah, about a year. I've done it like one time I've had to swap them. The Lutron have literally D cell batteries in them and I've had to put those in once over probably three years. To your point, michelle, we haven't had to do anything else. There's no cleaning of them, there's no kind of maintenance of the motor, it's just batteries.
Speaker 3:How do you feel, since you've had them, and we're asking you since you're technically a customer in this particular application have you noticed any fading on either of the brands? Because that is something that will come up with cheap window cover.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good question. I have not, but I want full disclosure. We have them in two rooms. One room is our basement and there's really no direct sunlight on either set of shades in the basement, so it would take a long time for us to have any fading issues potentially there when it is. I don't think it happened. The other room that we have them in is our master suite and In that room we did something cool.
Speaker 2:Hunter Douglas has a solution where it's actually veins, inside it's a sheer fabric. So imagine a sheer fabric and then inside the sheer fabric are solid veins that can open and close. So what's cool? And we're actually going to do a video. We're gonna have a YouTube video on this, so if I don't describe it or well, you'll be able to see that and we'll put that in the show notes. You can bring down the shades and just have the fabric and have the diffuse light coming through, or at night you can close the veins and so it's dark. To your question, michelle, that does get a lot of sun. I've had it for a year and I haven't noticed anything. A year might not be enough time to notice, but to this point now, everything's been fine. It's incredible.
Speaker 3:So if somebody wanted to learn more, what is the process at sound vision?
Speaker 1:So if they want to learn more information, they can visit our website. They can also find us on social media. You can reach out and give us a call. And what's that number? Andrew? Call us at 704? 696 2792.
Speaker 2:We'd be happy to set up an appointment, whether that's in our showroom, so you can kind of take a look at the different styles and fabrics that we offer and the books. We have a enormous amount of options here with the books or in your home which will eventually have to get to anyways, or place a business so that we can measure what not. But if you want to show us a space, we're more than happy to come out and take a look as well.
Speaker 3:Is it just residential spaces that we take a look at?
Speaker 2:it is not.
Speaker 3:So we do look at commercial spaces as well.
Speaker 2:Yes, we do. We have done a number of commercial applications as well and in a lot of cases One of the things the energy saving really does come into play in commercial especially if you have like a Building that's all glass on one side and you've got the sun coming in for the preponderance of the day, that really could make a difference in energy costs and Productivity and efficiency of the folks in the space to being comfortable come sit in our conference room.
Speaker 3:You'll know exactly what we're talking. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:Oh my god, it's like sitting on the sun in there and then we change the temperature like two degrees and it's like we're in the Arctic. It's unbelievable. That's a great point. That shade in there makes an enormous difference, enormous.
Speaker 1:I'll have a click of a button.
Speaker 2:Well, this has been fun, Andrew this has been great.
Speaker 1:Thank you, michelle and Mark, for joining me. Until next time. Thank you for joining us. You can learn more about sound vision at soundvisionlakenormancom. You can follow us on Twitter at soundvisionlkn. Find us on Instagram and Facebook at soundvisionlc.
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