Imagine my surprise when I opened the app yesterday to discover that it just...worked. No flipping back and forth between screens, no ritualized quit, reopen, quit, reopen cycle...the app just performed the one, singular function it was designed to do, without angst or drama. Obviously I went to check the version history, and lo and behold - the first update in 2 years. Kudos to whoever fought to get this piece of garbage app actually updated - it’s obviously not a priority of Hunter Douglas’, so to whoever finally fixed it, and whoever made that happen? Your work is vastly appreciated, and you deserve 5 stars. Thank you, mysterious dev team.THAT SAID, “working” is a low, low bar to clear, and Hunter Douglas has completely abandoned a big segment of their user base. A big company should be able to do much better than one update in two years, which means that you saw the one-star ratings and complaints, and just chose to let this one ride for two years. Can’t wait to eventually escape your ecosystem, but in the meantime, I’ll just keep making sure nobody else I know buys in.

There are three artificial constraints within this app – hence the negative review. Two of them are simply an annoyance, and a workaround for each can be [somewhat] easily developed. The third, scheduling, defeats the intent of the app – the only workaround is integration into a home automation system, such as Control4; or manually making adjustments every few weeks, thus reverting an app back into a manual system.The scheduling component of the app allows for specific time of day, or one hour before/after sunrise and sunset. That is unacceptable in the Denver, Colorado metro area (ironically where HD automation is headquartered) where, if you have high windows facing the mountains, the sun needs to be blocked at least three hours before sunset (especially in the summer). Their recommendation of using a specific time of day and then adjusting that every couple of weeks is nonsense – change the app!The constraint of only allowing eight shades can be easily worked around. In our case we have “great room upper” as one room, and “great room lower” as another. It’s a pain, but it’s workable (does require some advance planning, however). The other constraint is really a programming issue – it seems the DB commit is only performed when you hit the back button on the bottom of the screen. Since setting up rooms and scenes is not something that is done all the time (and making a mistake is hopefully even less often), it really is only a pain when initially setting up the system (or re-programming).My only other complaint is the lack of documentation on the platinum bridge – which is not part of this app – but it’s what the app relies upon. In our case we couldn’t get the app to work at all until we figured out how to wipe out everything and start over.

We have 26 powered duet shades in our home, with five rooms and six scenes. We have them programmed to simultaneously close all west facing windows in three rooms for sun protection, and then open again 25 minutes prior to sunset. Out of the 9 west facing windows across three rooms, occasionally one will not operate - it seems to just miss seeing the close command, But I would say that 98% of the time it operates perfectly. When I recently added another scene for the four south facing windows to do something similar, I encountered a problem in that when one south facing window was commanded closed by the app, an unrelated window would close also. Calling Customer support got me right through, and they suggested a “hard reset” on both of these window shades. First delete the shades from the app. Hold the shade manual button down for 10-15 seconds until two jogs of the shade took place. Note on the first jog the shade will stop moving, but keep holding the button down until the second jog takes place. That will wipe out programming for that shade from the hand-held or wall switch. Then add the shade back into remote / wall-switch, and add the shade back into your room within the app. That solved the problem.I have to recalculate sunset every 2-3 weeks within the app, but other than that I am very satisfied with the product. Note our bridge is centrally located to the house, and have found I need two repeaters to reliably reach the most remote shade locations.I did note they have a new product to replace the platinum app that is not compatible with my current shades. Phone support says they will continue to support the older version of shades, but they could not speak to anymore software updates in the future.

This app is such a shame given the high-end market Hunter Douglas is trying to maintain. What it appears is that those customers with the Platinum system blinds have been dumped for any future significant development of this app and Hunter Douglas's R&D is going solely into its new PowerView blinds (and PowerView app). The app for that system is polished and what one would expect from this company. There is no reason Hunter Douglas can't make these improvements for the Platinum line and improve this app. Since the Platinum blinds aren't compatible with the PowerView app I guess I'm expected to buy all new blinds if I want the sleek new app. Absurd. No loyalty to current customers and this app with no future reflects that. Can't you give us at least the ability to modify the bridge IP so we can access the app remotely!?