So, what are our thoughts about this?
I would think ethernet would make it rock-steady, with little potential interference. One less battery to worry about is also a plus. In my selfish case, the shades I need to replace next happen to be in our office, about a meter away from my main network equipment (although this would give me the reason to get a POE router).
This seems like a useful application that might just hit the spot for some people.
Certainly for new home construction
When I do remodels of sections of our house I try to install CAT6A wiring to multiple locations, but I never thought of putting any near the windows. If you had a regular Ethernet jack along the wall you could run the cable and use a PoE power injector... hide the cable under the window trim maybe.
Even places where I put (what I thought) to be a high number of jacks (my hobby/office area has three for example) I have blown past the actual needed number especially as I use more PoE devices.
They are charging a pretty premium for that PoE though, it is an extra $169 (select the PoE voltage type, then check the motor type "option" further down). If you use the standard 12v dc or 110v ac power, you can choose a ZigBee-enabled one for ~$25, Alexa-enabled for ~$25, Z-Wave Plus for ~$50, Homekit for ~$75, and Matter over Thread for ~$95.
All based on this example device:
Ouch. I hadn't looked into the actual pricing yet. That would certainly figure into the selection process.
I know... it sounds interesting but then is such a big price difference as to make it almost useless. Heck, you could go cheaper (if a bit messier) using Cat6a with PoE to a 12v adapter by the shade and use one of their wireless ones. So you can use the much cheaper wireless methods at the cost of the bit of extra wireless gear and a PoE to 12v adapter (which are pretty cheap).
I like the concept I just wish so many companies did not charge an arm and a leg for such.
I got pretty excited when I saw this but like all of you I fell of the chair when I saw the price difference.
This is exactly what I had/have planned for my new house build, placing 12V power at all the windows where a remote shades are going to be (we will have many windows that are just to high for regular shades) was the first plan, then after looking a bit more into it, I decided to go exactly this route and getting a POE only box no switch capability (or an older used 100Mb POE switch) to power the shades since I already had the idea of using POE to also power water leak sensors and other battery operated sensors, I just don't want to change batteries every x months.
Smartwings small solar panels are $50 and just work. Great for hard to reach places and outdoor shades. I get months out of the internal lithium rechargeable batteries and use them where the shades are easy to access and near a receptacle. For now ZigBee has worked perfectly for me. I'm currently in the school of Matter doesn't matter for now. I have a couple of z-wave as well but there is no advantage for me over ZigBee that costs less.
For a retrofit, I would go this route but for a new build, I'll just run wires and won't have to deal with WAF with ugly solar panels at every window.
I assume "change" is a typo. Smartwings is "charge."
Probably simply a method to provide a replacement for existing wired blinds using newer control methods. So wires already present or to compete with things like KNX.
Change (or charge) batteries in leak detectors or other battery sensors in that context 
But in some cases I do have to change them like in the Samsung water leak sensor that uses coin cells.
I leave my chargeable blinds plugged in all the time, running the wire down the edge of the window trim so it is not very noticable.
You only need to actually charge them if you do not want wires.
Ya well, current home that would fly no problem, but the new build will have trimless doors, trimless windows, bottom wall trim that are flush with shadow lines that have LED in them, flush mounted switches and receptacles, etc. So that is not an option at all, everything needs to be hidden/recessed for the clean modern look, all doors and windows will have wired recessed magnetic sensors like old alarm systems and interfaced to Hubitat via a couple of Konnected boards, so adding Cat6E to all windows that have electric shades is just another wire to bring to the party, will have a small panel in the side of the window reveal that will house the RJ45 connector and POE splitter for the shade power supply, most likely they will Zigbee protocol unless the POE version gets a lot cheaper.
I thought you were going to power them with POE? Just get a POE to usb 5v adapter to power a regular Zigbee shade from POE.
That is exactly what I just said I will do unless prices go down, but having a wire go down the side of the casing is a no go for sure.
Gotcha. It wasn't so much of a suggestion for what to do, I was just pointing out what I do, and that any charging shade can be used as a wired shade.
You just jogged my memory and you are right, I actually mailed them about it and they responded that all shades can be just plugged in all the time like you do and there would be no damage to the batteries, one thing I liked about that idea is that even if you have a power outage (as long as that the HE hub is also battery powered), the blinds could stay on schedule all the time. Worst case you can at least keep operating them with the remote also.
So Zigbee it will be for sure, will take note why in our house plans just in case I forget again Thanks!!!
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