Platinum App 4+

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!?

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.

Pro: Via a kludgey interface you can set presets that will occur at specific times on specific days.

Con: However, even though I have top-down blinds, there's no way to schedule the tops to come down, only the bottoms to go up. For my east-facing bedroom windows, this means that I have wake up with the sun in my eyes instead of on the roof.

Con: Further, if you don't open the app via your phone about once a week—which helps synchronize the time—the timer drifts quickly enough that you can't use the blinds as an accurate alarm clock. Within a couple weeks the blinds will be opening 15+ minutes too late.

Confusing interface includes a "Test Repeater" button that does nothing when pressed, and a "Recalculate Sunrise/Sunset" button that asks for your lat/long...and also appears to do nothing.

It's an application that's justifiable if you were a first-time app developer. It's unacceptably poor quality for a company like Hunter-Douglas.