One of my favorite things to do during the fall is watch football. Living on the East Coast of the United States, games typically start around noon or 1 PM on Saturdays and Sundays. I like to watch pregame shows before that, or at least have them on the TV while we’re eating breakfast, playing with the kids, and so on.
With the two skylights in my family room, there is inevitably glare that comes in during the morning and during midday. If you’re sitting on the couch, one of the two skylights can shine light right in your face. But the other one aims right at the TV. Despite my TV’s anti-glare screen, you can still get a bit of a reflection at certain times of day. Once a situation arose with our skylights, my wife and I decided to handle the glare issue once and for all.
A leak led us to consider upgrading our family room
It was the push we needed
Our family room has skylights and a wooden ceiling with a pointed peak, similar to how a ski lodge looks. When we moved in, the previous owners had redone the roof a few years before that, so we didn’t think much of having to deal with any roof problems.
The previous skylights were a bubble-like design that would get incredibly dirty at times throughout the year, but they still allowed light through well enough that it wasn’t an issue. One day, we noticed a small puddle on the floor under one of them. Unfortunately, heavy rains came later that day and a steady drip began coming down.
After meeting with a roofer, we decided to not only replace one of them with a new window (he said they don’t even sell the bubble design anymore) but to redo both so they match. He also suggested installing VELUX Room Darkening Shades to go along with the VELUX skylights that we’d chosen.
We hadn’t considered adding shades to the skylights. But once we found out about it, it made total sense.
The shades make a big difference
They are simple to use and install
We had professionals install the new skylights and the shades. However, I did ask them how difficult it was to put in the shades and they claimed it was very simple. I don’t condone doing work on your roof unless you feel comfortable doing it. Please be careful if you are installing these yourself.
These VELUX room-darkening shades, the M06 blinds, are custom-fitted for VELUX VS, VSE, and VSS M06 models. They will not work with other skylights. The skylights themselves are also sold separately.
The solar-powered shades have panels on the outside of them and they need to be installed on the inside of the frame of the windows. We were told we won’t have to worry about charging the shades because they get direct sunlight for much of the day, especially in the morning.
The design is simple, as the panels power them and they work with remote controllers that come with the shades. The biggest change that I had to make was label which controller goes to which shade.
With our mounted Samsung Frame TV above our fireplace, the sun hits it in just the right way in the morning, which makes it difficult to watch. Pressing the right controller causes the shade to automatically go down and produces a dark environment for the TV to thrive. If I pull the curtains we have across our sliding doors and lower the other shade as well, it produces a cool and dark environment that’s ideal for watching just about anything.
When it isn’t football season, we’ve started doing Saturday morning movie mornings where the entire family sits on the couch and enjoys a movie theater-like experience while relaxing.
You can turn these shades into smart home devices
This is the next step for me
The option that was given to us when we purchased these through the roofer was the solar-powered shades. But VELUX also offers smart home products that can be incorporated into your smart home platform. These work with Apple HomeKit organically and can be brought into an open-source platform that’s run with Home Assistant.
VELUX ACTIVE with NETATMO is a sensor and monitoring system that connects to your smartphone. This lets you set controls for preferred temperatures and conditions in your home. When the sensors, which are placed in the room where the skylight is, detect that the temperature is getting too warm or is not warm enough, they will adjust the shade accordingly.
With Apple HomeKit, you can ask Siri to either raise or lower your shades. ACTIVE also keeps track of air quality and can open specific solar-powered VELUX skylights if the air quality is good. The idea is to use less energy from your air conditioner or heater by syncing up these sensors to open or close the windows or block out the sun more efficiently.
With the fact that I currently don’t have the solar-powered skylights that can open, I might opt for the ACTIVE just to be able to control the shades with voice commands or my phone, just in case I lose a controller. The remotes do come with the option to mount them on the wall, which is another way not to misplace them.
VELUX solar shades help me see my TV better during the day
Adding new skylights wasn’t something I was thinking about any time soon. But I’m glad that I did add ones from VELUX because they offer me the ability to open and close blinds to affect the brightness in the room. Being able to watch TV more easily during the day has changed how my family enjoys our downtime.