I've also have never heard a complaint about Lutron integration or reliability. I heard many complaints about QMotions control/RF integration. I'm sure they will correct it and come out with a more reliable control option but I'm not going to test that out.


Have you priced out their horizontal sheer? It's pretty pricey!

To me it's no contest.  First off that alignment is HUGE!

Lutron

[Link: vid592.photobucket.com]


Qmotion

[Link: vid592.photobucket.com]

The big shade was set as fast as it could go and the small shades were set as slow as it could go.

Out of 20 or so Qmotion shades, 5 motors needed replacement (the same one twice), motors are much louder than Lutron, wireless was extremely intermittent (3 repeaters and a guessing game to locate them, tech support actually told me they don't work well close to the floor, you know, where outlets usually are so I should plug them into the usb ports on TV's), shades started at different times (sometimes 4-6 seconds between shades right next to each other), couldn't use channel 5 on the controller because of "known" serial control issues, and hours spent on troubleshooting.  This was 2 years ago so I know there were other issues I'm forgetting right now.

No, I haven't quoted or installed the Horizontal Sheer shades yet, but did just install 5 large Lutron Roman shades that were almost $5k each.

I didn't realize the QMotion shades moved at different speeds based on size... that really does look bad.

I just handed my phone to my fiance with the qmotion shades and said what do you think. She said, "oh nice. Why does the side one move faster?"

I then showed her the Lutron video and as it was playing asked her which she liked more and why.

"This one", referring to Lutron.

I asked why

"Cause they move at the same speed and are lined up"

Hembar alignment does matter.

They claim the jumpers on the motor will balance them out enough but clearly they're not even close.

Those windows are double stacked so there's a total of 6 shades in that room.  I know I have a video of all 6 as well as other rooms in the house buried somewhere in my NAS drive.  I'll post them if I can find them.

Does Qmotion gear the drives in their larger shades differently to handle the extra load (I'm assuming the roller diameter for all their shades are the same)?  Is that why the larger center shade moves more slowly?  I didn't know the Qmotion shades moved at different speeds... I knew the didn't do hem bar alignment, but thought they at least moved at similar speeds.

The larger center shade in your video took an additional 16 seconds to close (22 seconds vs. 38 seconds)... that's not even close.

I guess it's ok if you set the expectation with the client, but I don't think anyone I work for would be satisfied with what you showed in the video.  

They use 433mhz. The same as garage door openers and home weather stations.

To achieve the longest battery life possible they put the shade into a "sleep" current mode. It "wakes up" when RF energy is detected and it evaluates the signal to see if it is a valid Qmotion command.

If the command is valid it executes the command. Otherwise the shade goes back into "sleep mode".

The problems start when you have a lot of RF waking the shade up too often. This can greatly shorten the battery life.

Live on the beach? Neighbors all have home weather stations? Could be a problem.

Parking garage nearby? All those key fobs transmitting could be a problem.

The remotes store in a recessed wall plate and are held there magnetically.

Dime sized metal disk is thought to have some effect on range as is having the remote recessed into a wall which may have electrical wiring behind it and or metal wall studs (comercial buildings).

Ask them if their range estimates are based upon open air tests or actual case studies.

Pretty sure they are still using quadrature positioning. The back of the motor has a segmented doughnut magnet on it and nearby halleffect transistors sense the moving magnetic fields to determine how many revolutions the motor makes which equates to how far the shade has moved.

There is some error in this process and it can start to pile up over time.

The left shades travel gets "shorted" while the right shade "lengthens". This can lead to a very noticeable difference between bottom bar heights.

Battery voltage will affect speed of movement. One shade reaches position before the other.

Also the shades are not synchronized when coming out of sleep mode so one shade can start to move before the other shade has received th command.

Periodically moving the shades to their home position "all the way up" will help to minimize "creep" caused by the magnetic encoding.

You are incorrect. They employ quadrature magnetic pasition sensing and errors do build up.

The hem bars have no way to correct for errors in position other that traveling all the way to the top "home" position and "evaporating" themselves.

Errors will build up over time causing the shades to creep up or down in relationship to one another.

Good point. Even Roller Troll DIY shades have this hembar tracking feature.

Check out some of the open-source development taking place.

I have seen demonstration videos on YouTube where the person tugged the shade and accidentally put the shade into learn mode. In one video they reset the bottom limit and instead of stopping at the window sill just kept going and piled up on the floor.

Its a neat feature but it can be a problem.

The spiral rod?

Very complex mechanism. It will be interesting to see how well it performs after several years.

Ok. But be prepaired to deal with the possibility of reduced performance and battery life as a result of interference from other 433mhz signal sources.