I'm subbing out shades on a new build, and the shade vendor has proposed Sivoia QS Wireless rather than Sivoia QS. I asked why they suggested wireless over wired for a new build, and their answer was too vague and rambling for me to recount. (Price - which I thought would be the answer - turned out not to be a big difference.)

Before I push them further on this, I wanted to get a bit educated on the two options (I'm not a Lutron dealer.) Can anyone shed some light on what the vendor might be thinking with their recommendation? My starting point is that all things being equal I would take wired over wireless control any day.

I have experience with both.. Wireless works but.. You should always do wired before wireless.. period. Wireless is for situations where you are coming in after the fact and you do not have the ability to run the correct control wire.

The shade vendor is a shade company, not a low voltage wiring company, that's why they recommend it.

You should be doing these yourself, it's easy and there is no reason to bring someone else in to do them.

What CMA said. Wireless is for when the house is already built. Honestly i would start looking for someone else after they suggested wireless.

Have to agree with cma, if you have the project while its in sticks... the only real option "IMO" is wired.... wireless has its place, but not in a new ground up.
Lutron. Throw in some QSPS-10PNL units, hardwire those bad boys up...solid!

Thanks for the input.

Regarding hardwired options, am I correct that Lutron Sivoia QS shades can be controlled from either a Homeworks QS processor or a QSE-CI-NWK-E interface? If so, how should I think of the difference between these processors?

On this particular project, I will be controlling the shades through Control4, and from what I gather drivers exist that allow control of Sivoia QS shades through either processor.

As of a few months ago there was still no new NWK driver. Check the C4 forums.

With wireless shades, you can just acquire them to a Caseta bridge (or RR2 select or full Main Repeater) and use that with C4, which will work perfectly. Wired shades require HWQS in the absence of an NWK driver.

It turns out I have another project where the shade vendor installed a QSE-CI-NWK-E interface device, which we are talking to using the Lutron HomeWorks QS Processor driver (processor_ip_lutron_hwqs.c4i.)

In some regards, this makes sense given that the protocol documentation for the various Lutron processors have quite a bit of overlap. It makes me wonder why there would be separate drivers for the HWQS and NWK, though.

What is the lighting system, if any? If it's Ra2, wouldn't you recommend QS wireless over the wired version? It would seem that is the first question that needs to be answered. Wireless has been fairly bulletproof minus some interference that is common in high density environments like condo's.

Also, I would not recommend taking on shades unless you are truly ready! This isn't something like a security system that you add as another revenue stream. You can F up the order quickly and it can cost you THOUSANDS. How about spec'ing a 28 shade job as QS when it should have been QS wireless. Those wireless dongles are $300 each....Of course Lutron worked with me but damn that hurt. Not to mention understanding fabrics, pocket options, solar impact, samples required to be effective at selling, and so much more. I love doing shades but it's not as easy as hanging a TV!

The lighting system will be Control4.

You can F up the order quickly and it can cost you THOUSANDS. How about spec'ing a 28 shade job as QS when it should have been QS wireless. Those wireless dongles are $300 each....Of course Lutron worked with me but damn that hurt.

I remember that and all I could think is "I bet that hurt!"
 

Lighting and shading is the best part of my business. Shades especially, as they don't come out of the AV budget.

+1 "You should always do wired before wireless.. period."

The wired shades are much better quality and the drives operate with less noise.  Wired shades offer more options for roller size and things like coupled shades which you can't do with wireless.

You also can pocket battery operated shades unless you somehow account for access to replace batteries (or use the hardwired option which kind of eliminates the reason to use wireless).

The project has 11 shades. The main control platform on the project is Control4.

For a wired solution, I understand we have 2 options for the control interface. We can either use a HWQS processor or we can us the NWK interface.

A HWQS processor seems like overkill. Is there a reason not to use the NWK interface?

I have limited experience with the NWK, but either should work.  Lutron now also has a single link HWQS processor that would work and is about the same price as the NWK (about $40 more retail).

The single link processor would probably be the best option...