I went with Lutron shades after doing some thorough research and happy that I did

Many clients went with Hunter Douglas and regret it

We had Hunter Douglas roller shades installed in our entire apartment four years ago. They have been working well, except for one, where an end pin broke and the entire roller came down (and badly scratched a cabinet underneath). The reason I'm writing is the unsatisfactory customer support. After describing the part in detail twice and submitting photos, it took the HD several days to tell me in the end that (i) HD couldn't help me; (ii) they didn't have the part anymore; (iii) I should contact a repair service. I also went to an authorized dealer in NYC who wasn't able to help me either. Finally, I found www.fixmyblinds.com who sent me the part ($4) within 3 days (thank you fixmyblinds!). As grateful as I am for fixmyblinds, there wouldn't be a need for such third-party services if a high-end brand like HD would be taking better care of their customers once the sale is done. And good customer service is NOT adding me to the distribution list of HD promo emails without asking, as happened here as a result of contacting them. Not impressed.

I bought twelve sunshades from Hunter Douglas four years ago.

The staff at Hunter Douglas HQ is very nice and helpful. The fabric of the blinds is UV resistant, I saw no hardening or cracking after 4 years under the New Mexico Sun. These are the only positive comments I can make.

Despite the high price of the blinds, the construction and materials of the mechanical parts is not what I would expect at this price. The cheap plastic parts break (connector, tensioner, plastic beads to adjust length etc.). The string which moves the blinds up and down is too thin, so it breaks. One can mend the string with the little plastic beads which seem to be designed just for this, but they get stuck in the roller which has a clutch which is very hard to operate, especially when standing on a ladder. The blinds are attached to the rollers with glue, which softens under the heat of the Sun. The glue melts, and the sunshade rolls down because it slips from the roller. The user then needs to climb on a ladder, remove the roller, roll back the shade and hang it again (as simply rolling back the roller after pushing in the clutch does not work, because of the plastic stopper on the string). The fix is temporary, because the shade drops again after a few days unless it's winter. I will therefore have to buy a heat-resistant glue and fix the twelve shades.

I complained about the design and received a courteous boilerplate answer referring me to the Warranty. I was appalled to read that under the Hunter Douglas LifeTime Limited Warranty, sun damage to sunshades is not covered. This is quite a Draconian exception for sunshades, which, by definition, are exposed to the sun.

So, if you have blinds, do not roll down them too much, as then there are not enough layers to hold a blind around the cylinder and it drops off. Hunter Douglas staff (again, they are super helpful but they have no control on quality) offer to mail spare parts, I think for free, but this does not alleviate much the frustration!!!

Keep smiling, there are bigger challenges in life! But shop wisely.

Hunter Douglass. Never again! We did all the widows and doors in HD lite rise shades. The pulls crumble in your hand. They charge for repairs on defective products and repairs take a while. The lift mechanisms fail. They weren’t cheap (thousands) and I really, really regret buying these. Save yourself some agony and DO NOT BUY!

These comments are so helpful. I still can't understand their price then, and it doesn't sound like lifetime warranty is of value. I may just do shutters.

I went with Lutron shades with no issues so far and they look great! I also added the power shades which are controlled by voice commands. My kids caught on pretty quick ;)

I had Hunter Dougas Duette shades installed 23 years ago in many rooms, shutters in other rooms. One shutter had a few issues early on but dealer fixed promptly no charge. 2 years ago the upstairs Duettes started to separate a bit ( the place where the cell walls meet). Had to call HD directly (dealer passed away and new owner very unreliable) but they cheerfully replaced all the shades in each affected room, even shades that were fine ( so they would all match). I didn’t even have any original paperwork but they had me in the system. Thrilled with the outcome, new shades look amazing.

Laura, this is impressive! You have been lucky. Not my experience in Santa Fe, NM and with Hunter Douglass HQ. Once a month or so, I have to climb on a ladder, unhook some of the blinds, and roll them back-up by hand, then re-install them. This is faulty design, the blinds hold by friction (not glue as I thought earlier), and with the heat of New Mexico sun, they slip. Bad design, no service (the staff is courteous but this does not solve my problem). As others have written, the fittings are low quality plastic and break. I spent thousands $ with this company, and expensive lesson.

I was a 'first adopter" of this version of Hunter Douglas Powerview shades. When I first went to order motorized shades for my all-glass, 23rd Floor Chicago lakefront condo, they were just ending the previous ill fated version and the sales team advised me to wait. However the Powerview shades have proven to be troubleprone, unreliable, and not consumer-friendly. at all. I was given battery packs that burn thru 12 AA cells in fairly short order, despite generally being operated only four cycles per day. The packs have big pieces of velcro on them, and they are difficult to remove and reinstall and mostly designed as an "afterthought". Connecting a series of shades is mostly an impossibility. The shades routinely forget their programming and fail to operate. The (required) controller generation one was a complete failure of design, and it needed to be replaced after about a year, along with the defectively designed repeaters. The "Pebble" remotes had buttons that fell off after a year of minimal use, and the programming couldn't be cloned because the reset button was missing on Gen1 devices! And despite "lifetime warranties" claimed by Hunter Douglas, getting anything fixed requires a service call from the local vendors, who are loathe to continue to service these POS products.

I have a hard time believing the place you bought your H.D. shades from can not get help from H.d. Some of your problems sounds like an installer issue. H.D. does not put velcro on battery wands or satalite battery packs. I sell a lot of PowerView and have never experiences buttons falling off on the pebble remote. There was bad battery wands that H.D. was happy to replace when requested by dealer. H.D. also announces any problems they are aware of in their dealer news letter. Also, I suggest reading the full warranty and not just two words. If you did your research, you would find out many window treatment mfg use the same language in their warranty. The LiteRise (cordless) is the lifetime part to original owner. Shipping and installation NOT under warranty and why should it be.

Brazen, unconscionable greed with their full retail pricing and shipping and installation junk fees. Be prepared to overpay…simply put!!!

And not only over-pay, but their service is non-existent. We have been waiting for 2 years for them to fix problems done on the install.

Do not buy HD. I have 6 motorized Designer Roller Shades for about 3 years. I have to call for repair 3 to 4 times every year. The repair cost is too high. So much headed to deal with repeated problems. I am going to replace them soon. Save your time and energy, do not buy HD.

I’m getting a little nervous reading these comments. I just gave a deposit for HD woven shades (lined with literise) for my house’s 23 windows. I hope I won’t have any issues.

Avoid Hunter Douglas Architella Duet honeycomb blinds. Fabric fault. Had problems with a puckered effect on all my blinds. This is not noticeable in the day but at night, under lamp light, all the blinds look like they have been in a hailstorm. They were in transit over the holiday and I wondered if they froze and this had damaged the fabric. HD replaced them but the new ones were fitted today and the fault is still there. A fabric fault according to HD and the fitter tells me I am not the first to have this problem. Watch this space...

I am surprised by the negative comments but I guess it is consistent with the fact that statistically those with negative experience comment more than those with positive experiences; probably due to what brings one onto the internet to comment in the first place :-)

My experience with HD is positive. I purchased 4 motorized banded shades for my living room almost 4 years ago. I use these daily and have had no issues whatsoever. They look beautiful, the motorization works like a charm. My only problem that I experienced was opening the back of the pebble remote to replace the battery. Not a huge fan of replacing the AA batteries (4 shades 4 battery packs) but in 4 years I've only had to replace them once to date).

I'm currently shopping for shades for my bedroom windows. I had BlindsToGo out and selected their banded shades for about $2200. However, after sleeping on it I knew I had to look at HD. Often in life when I've tried to save money on a more affordable option, I've ended up paying more in the long run as eventually I have to accept my mistakes and opt for the quality option I tried to avoid paying for in the first place. So I've chosen the Nantucket DuoLite with motorization. What brings me here is I'm having a difficult time choosing fabric and colour. My bedroom is navy with white trim and my sensible side says white shades so any future paint change will fit with the blinds, but not sure if it will look stupid. Stumbled across this question and answer looking for photos of bedrooms with dark and white shades :-)

Admittedly, the negative comments give me food for thought. I never would assume perfection in anything manufactured; there is always some risk of something going wrong. HD is supposed to be quality and hence the higher price but with strings and/or motors, something can go off; but then there's a lifetime warranty?

I know when I was looking at the samples there are different price points in fabrics available. The cheaper fabrics in the line looked thin and flimsy so I'm disregarding those; not worth the savings if the fabric starts to fray or tear. Anyways, while I do believe the many comments of faulty items and poor customer experience I am willing to gamble on a better product with HD than my original choice based upon my great shades for the 4 years and my mother's home that had nothing but HD for decades. I will look into another brand mentioned here in the comments before final committment though.

Wow, what a depressing thread! We are 2.5 years post remodel and still without window coverings. Besides Lutron, does anyone have any brands they wholeheartedly recommend? Privacy isn't really an issue—we mainly need them on our southwest facing sliders to block the SoCal summer sun. Looking for a modern, minimalist look. Thanks.

plan on emptying your pockets, checkbooks , and bank accounts for the brazenly arrogant and greedy Hunter Douglas estimators/sales staff (order takers), and very overpriced window treat product line. Overprice and underdeliver…the American way!!! Good luck!!!

@Mittens Cat I have motorized shades and on the advice of my designer I went with QMotion. She said they were better than Hunter Douglas and were less expensive. She also does commercial design and said she uses them for her commercial installations as well.

I didn't need anything fancy as they aren't for privacy but I needed something to block the glare of the sun in the early morning as I have an eastern exposure. I also didn't want something that was completely opaque because I wanted to have a bit of my view - I am in a high rise with a city view and no close neighbors.

ETA - By "not fancy" I meant that mine are your standard cream fabric looking shades although I would imagine there are other choices. I wanted something that didn't quite hide the view and I didn't need black out type of shades although I am sure they have those kinds of more complex shades. I only have them down for a relatively short period of time in the morning for about two hours when the sun is at a certain portion of the sky :-).

Mine have been installed with no problems. Initially they were controlled by something that used the same kind of frequency as portable phones and baby monitors and evidently there might have been interference from other stuff in my building so QMotion upgraded me to something that works on my Wifi system and since then there have been no issues. I have remotes but generally I just use my iphone to open and shut them. I haven't programmed Siri to do it on voice command since using the App twice a day (to close and then open) is fine using the iphone.

@Helen, thanks as always for your helpful input! I'll look into QMotion. :)

This is my third house with Hunter Douglas shades and my parents also had them in several of their homes over the years. This past year I built a house and I went with all motorized HD shades and hard wired for power, so no battery packs.

Having bought HD in 3 different states and dealt with several dealers. Just like with many products, not all dealers are the same. Pricing can also vary considerably between dealers, so shop around and get a few quotes. There was quite a bit of difference between the quotes I got for the new house. One dealer had the word "budget" in their name, but their price was the highest, by a large percentage!

I've been overall very happy with my HD shades over the years. Have I had some service issues? Sure, I've had a string break here and there, but usually a local dealer will ship to the factory and get it repaired in 2-3 weeks.

As far as the Lutron recommendation, yes they are a good brand too, but I had a very specific requirement that all my shades have the bottom-up/ top-down feature and that cuts down your brand choices considerably. I am doing some home automation on the new house, so my vendor spoke with Lutron directly this past year and asked that they look into offering that feature, because I wasn't the only customer they worked with who wanted that option.

I have found Hiunter Douglas support worthless. They refer me back to my dealer. I am not impressed. The HD shades that were installed were not as advertised by my hired designer. It's been impossible to locate a designer to work with elderly in need of accessibility features. I've worked with three now. The first failed to understand flooring needs, the second with cabinet needs and now this one with shades. Despite stressing that I needed shades I could raise and lower with "no grip strength" and shades that did not act as "dust catchers" for my asthma, I am now stuck with Hunter Douglas roman shades that require too hands to raise and lower and the roman shades are dust catchers. Designer said HD didn't tell her about not having a light touch feature on the Romans. HD insists the romans has light touch, but it's different because it operates the same as any spring tension shade. The shades whip out of one hand and wrap high into the header. I need two hands for control up and down. If I let got they wind up, far out of my reach. They are stuck there until help arrives and can get a step ladder to pull them down. I'm stuck with these worthless $8K HD shades. One again, looking for a designer who actually knows about products that can meet accessibility needs. Why is this so hard to get across? Designers and companies seem to think they understand "accessibility needs" but so far haven't demonstrated it.

My HD roman shades through DirectBuy and the service has been excellent. There were hiccups with the initial shades, but they replaced every shade that had issues. I have had no issues with their construction since they were installed around 2010. I don't have experience with their versions with cords. I didn't want the experience since I have dealt with cords on other shades and blinds in my rental properties and it never has been positive. I just dispose of them when they start having issues.

The Good and the Bad: Our Pirouette shades are really nice, but were quite expensive, and every couple of years some of the vanes collapse and/or don’t lift properly. They almost look like crumpled up paper when that happens, which is disconcerting because once they fail, they stop working. Odd, because I’ve never read about this phenomenon on-line, and all we’re doing is engaging the Easyrise continuous cord loop system by hand. Still, as annoying as this is, they came with a lifetime warranty, and I’ve taken them back to the dealer a couple of times to obtain free replacements. Not sure why folks are saying HD doesn’t stand behind its products.

Sounds like the brand had degraded over the years. We had motorized and non-motorized Applause Duette and Silhouette installed new in our last house and no issues for the 18 years we were there.

Since installation other things brought to light. We paid for 4 motorized shades and got one charger. Each shade takes 2 hours to charge so it's an all day process. Also it requires a ladder and grip strength to disconnect the connector from each motorized blind. Another drawback for an "accesible friendly" request. It's not, so I need help. The remotes are problematic in that they were initially set up one per room. But somehow they have changed a couple of channel numbers and blinds in other room is being activated by mistake. I do love the manual, easy to use blinds. The straight, plain manual ones (not the ruffled "Roman style" ones).

In 2017, we purchased HD Designer Screen Roller shades with a LiteRise spring type rolling mechanism so we can manually open/close them. Our entire home has these shade because we liked the appearance and the lifetime warranty. Our experience with them as been very frustrating because they stop rolling back in place and cannot be adjusted. They need to be returned to the company for repair. We have calculated that every 6 months another one needs repair. The repairs take approximately 4 weeks to be returned. So we seem to always have one window without a shade and can expect to have only 5 months use for each shade before needing to return it for repairs. We feel "stuck" with these ill-performing shades and HD keeps doing the repairs instead of re-making the shades to solve the problem. The shades look great but perform terribly and even worse is the repairs that the HD company does and the length of time it takes. Beware of the "lifetime warranty" and the true cost of dealing with faulty shades sold by HD.

We too have been ”suckered” by the so-called warranty at this company. we have the second generation of the motorized shades and they now claim the parts and motors are End of Life after only six years! They are a horribly dishonest company. They are priced like a ”premium” product. They are NOT!

Hunter douglas's warranty is Lifetime Limited Warranty. A sales person should have explained to you what is covered and what is not covered under warranty. Hunter Douglas has not changed their warranty. Some products like the motorization are a 5 year warranty and operational cords are a 7 year warranty. Shipping charges and installation are not covered, although H.D. has been covering a big part of the shipping, something they do not have to do. No where on their warranty does it say "End of Life". Unfortunately many sales people do not understand the warranty. H.D. support does a great job at helping you find a dealer to help you if you can not go back to where you purchased the products from. Go to www.hunterdouglas.com to find the warranty.

Since this thread popped back up and I had responded on it 9 months ago, thought I should add an update.

We have been in the house just under 14 months and have had no issues with our Hunter Douglas Powerview Duette shades. All of mine have the bottom up - top down feature. A few months ago I finally got the dealer/installer to come back and install the Powerview Gateway automation hub. I now have my shades on an automatic schedule which I can easily adjust from the HD app on my phone. Love not having to run around the house opening and closing blinds based on the sun, specially my west facing ones. I live in FL so sun/heat control is important!

The weak point, for me, is my dealer who is very busy and short staffed. I had asked for a couple of battery packs to have for emergencies when the power goes out. I am willing to pay for the battery packs, but they just say they will get me a couple for free and never get around to giving them to me. I have stopped in and asked 3 times! I do need 2 more blinds now that we decided to add them to the garage windows, so I will use that as leverage to get the darned battery packs!

I was selling Hunter Douglas for years and it was always nothing but problems with clients. I'd definitely try another brand.

My Hunter Douglas Duette Architella blinds in the Alexa fabric were installed last year and I love them. They look nice and have worked well with no problems. I particularly enjoy the TDBU (top down bottom up) feature for which the dealer I chose did not charge extra. A dealer in a nearby town would have charged extra for this feature as well as higher prices in general. It pays to get a bid from more than one dealer.

I am interested in having Hunter Douglas Silhouette shades installed in my living room. There seems to be very little price transparency for these shades, which is frustrating as a buyer.

I have been quoted approx $740 per window. Each window is about 34x70”. This is for the ultraglide retractable lift system.

Is this a reasonable price? All taxes and installation included.

Shades are extremely expensive these days. In my experience, the price is not out of line.

Your quote is in line with what we paid for last year. We did 6 bedroom windows and the cost was in the neighborhood of $8,000 and a 4 month delivery wait. Plus the cost of shipping plus the installation cost. Not to mention the cost of removing the current blinds that came with our house. In hindsight, I would opt for a Home Depot, Lowes or other local blinds "discount place" if given a second chance. I can't see any quality difference in the products and there's no direct customer service with Hunter Douglas. The problems we've had with them needed to go through the Designer who ordered them for us. We asked for samples before ordering and we're told there were none. The advantage of buying local is you can see and try out the product you are ordering. I was quite disappointed in the color, material, the design and the operation (raising and lowering them). I can only suggest you be sure of what the product looks like and how it operates so you justify the cost is a good value for you. Your quote seems to be in the ballpark for Hunter Douglas. Only you can decide if it's reasonable given other less expensive brands on the market.

As I posted several years ago, I had Q-Motion motorized shades installed when I remodeled on the advice of my designer who does both residential and commercial design.

They might be branded LeGrand now as that is what my iphone App calls them.

https://www.legrand.us/residential-shading-systems/motorized-shades

They are less expensive than Hunter Douglas because they are not advertised to consumers and are more sold to the "trade". They have local distributors (at least here in Los Angeles) and they came with various samples.

As I posted I wanted very innocuous shades as they are down only in the morning because I have an eastern exposure which is strong in the morning but I have no need for shades down for privacy at any other time.

They have been installed for almost five years and still work flawlessly. There was an initial problem with the shades communicating as the first system had interference from baby monitors and portable phones in my building. They upgraded me to the Wifi system which works perfectly.

@Helen, thank you for this information. I'll be following up with them. It doesn't look like they have a product comparable to HD Silhouettes.

Hunter Douglas Powerview are utter junk. One of the worst consumer products I have ever encountered. Programming them requires climbing a ladder and following a complex sequence. You cannot do it from the remote. If you do not have power at the window location, forget getting the battery one. They require 12 AA batteries, which gets sucked dry in a matter of a few months, even you don't use the shades much. Then you have to climb a ladder to change them. The Pebble remote is just as bad. Their batteries only last months as well. The back covers are almost impossible to open.

My Roman style HD shades are now making a high pitched squeal when being raised and lowered. Installed 15 mo ago. Hunter Douglas referred my Interior Designer to nearest HD dealer about 70 minutes drive from me. They charge $110 to come down and remove them. Then charge a prcossing fee to ship to HD repair center which will take weeks/months. And another $110 to return and reinstall them. Not worth it to me. Am going to replace them as soon as budget permits. Feeling quite deceived by warranty. There's was no mention I would be paying about $300 and be without any bedroom window covering for such a long time.

@Sandi, the warranty states shipping and handling not included in the warranty. It is standard across the industry and just like anything you buy these days. I am not sure why the interior designer could not have found someone closer to remove your shade and box it up herself, then reinstall after the repair. H.D. would have e-mailed her the shipping label, unless she does not have an account with H.D., maybe that was the problem. My advice is not buy through an individual designer as many of them do not understand the repair process.

@Jeff, I am not sure when you bought your H.D. PowerView Motorization, but H.D has come out with the new Gen 3 in May of 2022. The best motorization yet by H.D. You do not go up on the ladder to program, it is all done through an App. Anyway, You should be able to retrofit your shades to the rechargeable battery wands that have been out for sometime and get rid of the batteries, much nicer. Yes, it will be a cost upgrade, but worth it. The wand does take up a little more room behind your shade then the AA battery pack, so not sure you have the room, but they can be mounted anyway with long enough cable. You will also need to purhase a charging station. If the pebble batteries are draining, it could be because the remote is always on. If the remote lights up when you pick it up, that means it is on. You need to deactivate the remote -To deactivate, press and hold the. GROUP 6 button on the remote for. 5 seconds, or until LEDs start flashing. To activate the LED again, follow the same steps. The installer should have showed you unless you installed yourself, then I guess you would not know. Unfortunately the back cover on the older P.V. Motorization was not a good design. The new remotes for the P.V. Gen3 are much better and even though they look the same as the older remotes, they can not be programmed to use with the older P.V. I suggest if your shades are less then 5 years old, as the is the warranty for motoization, I would see if the dealer you bought them from can get you a new remote at a no charge.

Hunter Douglas shades are OK, but their warranty is a scam, in my book. They cover the parts, which are not that expensive and then charge you for an arm and a leg to replace them. I purchased motorized shades 18 months ago and 12 months in I had a problem with the motor on one of the shades. I called the dealer who scheduled a service appointment. The technician came and replaced the faulty motor. A month later they send me a bill for $450!!! Apparently, the warranty doesn't cover the labor for replacing components that are under warranty. It's like taking your car to the dealer to fix an issue that is covered under warranty and getting the part for free, but charged for the labor to replace it!

If anyone is looking to purchase Hunter Douglas products, make absolutely sure that the dealer agrees to free-of-charge service calls for anything that is under warranty. Else you may end up paying and paying for things that are covered by the warranty.

We had 23 of the roller shades installed in our new house in 2019. Since then, we have had to replace 5 of the motors- a 22% failure rate in 5 years. Hunter-Douglas covers the motor cost under warranty, but not the cost of the installer to replace it, at ~$200 per visit.

Initially, we programmed the blinds to close and open using the app, although randomly not all the blinds will activate. Now however, none of the programming works. Hunter-Douglas claims that its because we have updated our wifi, and they don't work with Gen 5 wifi.

This week we had another blind stop working; now the failure rate is over 26%. And the app still doesn't work.
I would NOT recommend this product.

I am a Hunter Douglas dealer , the products have a lifetime warranty .Also the consumers do not end up paying for things that are covered by the warranty , the consumer pays for parts that are not covered and labor .

@CCI-Cindy's Custom Interiors, you mention retrofitting older shades. I have 4 zebra shades all with the battery packs and the Gen 2 remote. Last year I bought some Silhouettes with the rechargeables. I have two hubs now Gen 2 and 3. You mentio retroffitting. I'm going to guess it would be an expensive endeavor to update the older blinds to work off the newer motorization. It probably would require taking them down and shipping them off to have the changes done? A simple and nice upgrade would be a rechargeable wand though. Can a rechargeable easily replace the old battery pack on the Gen 2 blinds?

@Jacquie Lynch- Yes, you can purchase rechargeable retrofit kits for the Gen2 to replace your current battery packs. Make sure you have enough depth room as the rechargeable wands take up an additional inch, so you may have to move your shades forward. As far as replacing your older Gen2 shade motors with new Gen3, Hunter Douglas will not convert (especially anything more than a year old), and it is not considered a warranty issue. Unfortunately, yes you may have a hub for the Gen2 and a Gateway for the Gen3. I am not aware that the two can be bridged together successfully.

I had HD Silhouettes in my bay windows, where there is also a window seat, for over 25 years and never had any problems at all. Up and down at least twice daily, busy family room with a water view-kids were always hanging around that seat. Recently put in new windows/trim and will go with HD again!

Dealers are not going to like this answer but I’m going to say it anyway….When you buy your Hunter Douglas product, do it through a retail location, Home Depot, Penneys, some Costco….Not only will you get Great service but a 100% satisfaction guantee from the vendor…..and…… Really much better pricing! It is hard to beat a 10+ year warranty and they have the MOST advanced products on the market. I’ve been both a provider/specifier and customer of Hunter Douglas products for more than 25 years and most of the comments stated here can’t be real….HD stands behind their products.

Do not do business with Hunter Douglas. Their prices are three times those of other manufacturers, and they do not honor their "lifetime" warranty. I have a house full of their blinds that I was duped into buying from a local dealer that promised a lifetime warranty. I'm not dead yet, but one of the blinds isn't working and they say it's not repairable. They will not replace it.