Smartphone Controlled Wi-Fi Digital Window Shades Save Energy

Although there have been a few innovative window shade concepts presented over the past few years, for the most part, window shades and blinds haven’t changed much in decades. If you want to control the light that comes in or increase privacy, you manually pull the shade or close the curtains or blinds. All that is about to change. The company behind these digital window shades, called Sonte, just raised over $237,000 on Kickstarter. Windows are about to get a major upgrade.

Sonte was first introduced at 2013 CES. It’s basically a film that covers your windows. It’s similar to the screen protector film you can get to cover your smartphone. Once you put the film on your windows (it’s a DIY process), you will transform your window shades into digital window shades. You will be able to control how much light comes in through the window with an app on your smartphone. It’s an ingenious idea that will not only change the ambiance of any room, it will also conserve energy and just generally make our surroundings more comfortable and convenient.

Sonte Film is the world’s first wi-fi enabled digital window shade that instantly switches windows from opaque to clear in less than a second. If you don’t want to use the smartphone app to control your new window shades, they come with a simple on/off switch you can use instead.

The only thing I can see that would make these digital window shades even better would be if you could have more options than just on or off. It would be nice to be able to set it at, for example, 50% so it would let some sunlight in, but not all the sunlight. I’m sure this obvious detail is on their radar. These shades will start hitting homes this fall. I can’t wait to see them firsthand.