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QMotion Shades Cool Down an Alaskan Home While Maintaining Stunning Views


Project Details:
Project Name: Sims Family Home
Location: Eagle River Alaska
Date: June 2020
Dealer: The Stereo Guy – Sean Glover, Owner

Profile
Most Alaskan homes aren’t equipped with air conditioning, and the Sims family residence in Eagle River is no exception. With 15 southern-facing living room windows — in addition to three in the adjoining dining room — the Alaskan sun can make the space unbearably hot on summer days. To beat the heat and allow the family to enjoy their living room year-round, the Sims called on Sean Glover and his company, The Stereo Guy, to install window shades that would cool the space down while maintaining its stunning mountain views.
The Challenge
While manual shades were suitable in the dining room, the living room posed two challenges that called for an automated shading solution. The first was the sheer number of windows. With 15 shades, controlling them all manually would be time-consuming and inconvenient. The second was the window layout, which consisted of eight windows in an upper level and seven in a lower level. With 30-foot ceilings, manually operating shades on the upper level wasn’t feasible. To meet the needs of both rooms, Glover turned to QMotion shades from Legrand.

The Solution
“What first drew me to QMotion was the manual override feature on their automated shades. That’s an important capability, because whether it’s house guests or the kids, at some point someone is going to try to pull them down by hand. With other brands, that’s enough to strip the motor,” said Glover. “Then I discovered how quiet the shades were and how quickly they rolled up and down. I was sold.” Glover installed three Qbasic+ roller shades in the home’s dining area, which can easily be upgraded to motorized in the future without the need to change the fabric or reinstall brackets. In the living room, with the help of a 10-foot ladder on top of 20 feet of scaffolding, he installed Qadvanced ZigBee HA1.2 battery-operated shades. All shades in the home feature charcoal E-Screen fabric with KOOLBLACK™ Technology (3%), which blocks out the sun to considerably cool the room, while still allowing for outside viewing. The family has control over their shades using QMotion QdR2 remotes, in conjunction with the QzHub3 and three Range Extenders; their mobile devices via the QzHub app; and by hand with QMotion’s manual override feature. In addition, the shades are integrated with the home’s URC Total Control system, which automatically raises them every morning at 7am and lowers them at 10pm every evening to accommodate Alaska’s long summer days. For convenience, the shades can be controlled by group with a single button press — whether it’s the upper shades, lower shades, or all 15 shades at once.

“Then I discovered how quiet the shades were and how quickly they rolled up and down. I was sold.”

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Results
​​​​​​​“The living room of the Sims’ home is an amazing space with an incredible view, and they are thrilled that they can now enjoy it on even the hottest of days,” added Glover. “In addition to reducing heat and eliminating glare, they also love how quiet the motorized shades are and how simple they are to control. I have no doubt that we will be upgrading the dining rooms shades with motors soon to provide the same experience.”