Crestron Light-Filtering Fabrics
56 colourways in 8 designs at 1% openness or under: daylight in, the view turned to silhouettes, privacy by day on every one.
Daylight without the view, and what that means after dark
A light-filtering fabric transmits diffused light; the view outside shows as silhouettes and shadows, at 0% to 1% openness in Crestron's terms. Crestron's roller fabrics are listed as sheer or basketweave, light-filtering or blackout, so this page is the whole privacy category short of a blackout. Five of the designs are Coulisse polyester at under 1%: Bella, 98 inches wide and the one Crestron allows to be railroaded; Mika, 116 inches; Nava, 98; Ella, 110 to 111 inches, listed fire retardant, with all four hembars; and Desiré, 110 inches. Merinda is the Coulisse 1% weave, 118 inches, on all four hembars. Phifer's SheerWeave 7450 is 100% polyester with an acrylic coating at 1%, 116 inches, all four hembars; Mermet's Vizela is 100% fiberglass with an EVA coating at 1%, 92 inches, fire retardant and the only design here with solar figures published for every colourway.
What the page is really for is the pairing. Bella, Mika, Nava and Merinda are each made in a blackout under the same colour names, SheerWeave 7450 shares its names with the SheerWeave 7400 blackout, and Vizela shares its names with Flocke, so a bedroom can carry one colour in a daytime layer and a night layer on a dual roller and nobody sees the join. Every design here is PVC free. Bella, Mika, Nava, Ella and Desiré sit in Tier 1, the least of Crestron's four; Merinda and SheerWeave 7450 in Tier 2; Vizela in Tier 3. The choice between them comes down to width, whether the building wants a fire listing, which hembar the shade will carry, and the honest question of what the room looks like from outside at night.
8 Crestron light-filtering and room-darkening designs, 56 colourways
Bella
Light Filtering, woven by Coulisse
Mika
Light Filtering, woven by Coulisse
Nava
Light Filtering, woven by Coulisse
Merinda
Light Filtering, woven by Coulisse
Ella
Light Filtering, woven by Coulisse
SheerWeave 7450
Light Filtering, woven by Phifer
Vizela
Light Filtering, woven by Mermet
Desiré
Light Filtering, woven by Coulisse
What a light-filtering weave does, and what it does not
Privacy by day
In daylight the light comes from outside, the weave diffuses it, and from the street the shade reads as a pale surface with nothing visible behind it. That is the reason to choose one for a bathroom, a bedroom on a street, a home office facing a neighbour, or a unit whose windows look straight into the tower across the way. Colour changes how bright the room feels, not whether it is private.
Silhouettes at night
After dark the light is on your side of the glass, and a light-filtering weave shows the shapes behind it: a figure crossing the room, a lamp, a headboard. Crestron's own category note says the view shows as silhouettes and shadows, and at night that works from the outside in. Where it matters, the blackout twin goes behind it on a dual roller, or the room takes the blackout alone.
Glare and heat
Vizela is the one design here with figures: Blanc transmits 36% of the solar energy and reflects 59%, Loutre transmits 12% and reflects 21%, and Crestron's Tv for the card runs from 10% to 37%, so the same weave can be a bright shade or a quiet one depending on the colour. Crestron publishes no solar figures for the Coulisse weaves or SheerWeave 7450, which is why we hold the sample to the glass at the consultation.
No view
That is the trade, and it is a real one on an ocean or Intracoastal window. Where the view is the reason the room exists, a solar screen takes the day and a light-filtering or blackout layer takes the night; a light-filtering weave on its own belongs on the windows nobody looks out of, which in a South Florida condo is usually the bathrooms, the secondary bedrooms and the side elevation.
Which light-filtering fabric for which room
Width first, as always. A wall of sliders in a secondary bedroom wants Merinda at 118 inches or Mika and SheerWeave 7450 at 116; Ella and Desiré cover 110; Bella and Nava roll 98, and Bella is the only fabric here Crestron allows to be railroaded, so a Bella shade can be made wider than 98 inches with a seam if it is also taller than the roll width. Vizela stops at 92 inches and can be neither railroaded nor seamed, so a wide opening in Vizela is two shades on one line. Then the tier: Bella, Mika, Nava, Ella and Desiré are Tier 1, which puts a whole floor of secondary bedrooms and bathrooms in the least column of the budget grid; Merinda and SheerWeave 7450 are Tier 2 and Vizela Tier 3.
Then the paperwork and the finish. Ella and Vizela are the two designs Crestron lists as fire retardant, which is the answer when a condo association, a clinic or a hotel corridor asks for one; Bella, Mika, Nava, Merinda, Desiré and SheerWeave 7450 carry no fire listing in the guide. Merinda, Ella and SheerWeave 7450 are listed for all four Crestron hembars, so they can take the Designer Half-Wrap, the rail wrapped in the fabric with no weld line; Bella, Mika, Nava, Desiré and Vizela take the Open, Sealed or Exposed hembar. And for any room that also has to sleep, start from the twin: pick the light-filtering colour, and the blackout in the same name is already decided.
Compare the light-filtering and room-darkening designs
| Design | Colourways | Opacity | Openness | Tier | Max width | Mill | Dual sided |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bella | 11 | Light Filtering | <1% | 1 | 98 in | Coulisse | No |
| Mika | 8 | Light Filtering | <1% | 1 | 116 in | Coulisse | No |
| Nava | 7 | Light Filtering | <1% | 1 | 98 in | Coulisse | No |
| Merinda | 5 | Light Filtering | 1% | 2 | 118 in | Coulisse | No |
| Ella | 8 | Light Filtering | <1% | 1 | 111 in | Coulisse | No |
| SheerWeave 7450 | 8 | Light Filtering | 1% | 2 | 116 in | Phifer | No |
| Vizela | 5 | Light Filtering | 1% | 3 | 92 in | Mermet | No |
| Desiré | 4 | Light Filtering | <1% | 1 | 110 in | Coulisse | No |
Crestron's budgetary guide for these fabrics
The light-filtering on this page sit in Crestron price Tier 1 and Tier 2 and Tier 3. This is Crestron's own guide for one motorized shade, by tier and size.
| Shade size | Tier 1 | Tier 2 | Tier 3 | Tier 4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 ft wide x 5 ft high | $900 | $1,000 | $1,200 | $1,400 |
| 5 ft wide x 10 ft high | $1,100 | $1,300 | $1,600 | $2,200 |
| 10 ft wide x 10 ft high | $1,400 | $1,600 | $2,000 | $3,200 |
Options in the same guide: fascia $20 per ft; top and back cover $20 per ft; pocket $50 per ft; dual shade (two fabrics, one bracket) double the single-shade figure. The guide names example fabrics per tier: Tier 1: Bella, Mika, Merinda, Nava; Tier 2: E Screen, SheerWeave 2500, 2700 and 7500, Perla, Dilanna; Tier 3: SheerWeave 7000, Rachel, Nohea, Cosima; Tier 4: Flocke, Vizela, Harika; a few have changed tier since, and every fabric page gives the tier the Crestron fabric shop lists today. The guide excludes control processors, keypads, interfaces, wiring, power supplies, programming and installation. Source (PDF).
Figures are Crestron's own budgetary MSRP guide of June 2022 for one motorized 5 Series roller shade, motor included, before options. They exclude the control system, wiring, power, programming and installation, and Crestron may have changed them since. We quote every project at the measure.
Light-filtering on our installations
In a Crestron home on the coast the light-filtering layer is rarely on the view wall. It goes in the bathrooms, on the bedroom windows that face a neighbour or the building next door, on a side elevation in a house in Fort Lauderdale or Boca Raton, and behind a solar screen on a dual bracket where the primary bedroom wants daylight in the morning and cover at night. We cut Coulisse, Phifer and Mermet light-filtering weaves in our own workroom for Lutron and Somfy shades, so most of these cloths are ones we know against South Florida glass; on a Crestron home the same weave arrives inside the finished Crestron shade with Crestron's hembar, on a QMT3 or QMT5 motor, commissioned into the home's scenes with the integrator.
Light-filtering: frequently asked
Is a light-filtering shade private at night?
Not fully. By day it hides the room completely; after dark, with the lights on inside, it shows silhouettes and shadows through the weave, which is exactly how Crestron describes the category. For a bedroom or a bathroom that must be private at night, the blackout twin goes behind the light-filtering shade on a dual roller, or the room takes a blackout outright and the light-filtering layer goes where night privacy does not matter.
What is the difference between the light-filtering and blackout versions of Bella, Mika, Nava and Merinda?
The colour names and the widths are the same; the cloth is not. The light-filtering version is woven at under 1% openness, 1% on Merinda, passes diffused daylight and shows silhouettes at night; the blackout version passes nothing. The tiers differ on three of the four: Bella and Nava are Tier 1 light-filtering and Tier 2 blackout, Merinda Tier 2 and Tier 3, while Mika is Tier 1 in both. The blackout versions of Mika, Nava and Merinda are also dual sided, which the light-filtering versions are not.
Which light-filtering fabric is fire rated?
Ella and Vizela. Ella is Coulisse polyester at under 1%, 110 to 111 inches wide, Tier 1, with all four hembars; Vizela is Mermet fiberglass with an EVA coating at 1%, 92 inches, Tier 3, with published solar figures on every colourway and a blackout partner in Flocke under the same names. The other designs here, Bella, Mika, Nava, Merinda, Desiré and SheerWeave 7450, carry no fire retardant listing in Crestron's guide, which rules them out where a specification asks for one.
Is there a room-darkening Crestron fabric?
Not as a category: Crestron lists its roller fabrics as sheer or basketweave, light-filtering or blackout, and nothing on this page is called room-darkening. The step past a light-filtering weave is a blackout, and the step short of full dark is a blackout without side channels, which leaves a line of light at the edges, or a light-dimming horizontal sheer, which Crestron says blocks more light than translucent but is not a blackout. Tell us how dark the room has to be and we will pick the layer.
How much light does a light-filtering shade let through?
Crestron publishes the figure for Vizela only: Tv from 10% to 37% across the card, with Blanc transmitting 36% of the solar energy and Loutre 12%. For Bella, Mika, Nava, Merinda, Ella, Desiré and SheerWeave 7450 there are no published solar figures, so the answer comes from the sample against your own glass, which is why we bring the books to the consultation rather than describing them. The one thing every colour shares is the openness: 1% or under, so no view in either direction.
Crestron light-filtering in Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Boca Raton & Palm Beach
Every fabric on this page is built into a Crestron shade to order from our measurements, installed by our own team and commissioned with your integrator from Miami to Palm Beach. Our showrooms in Fort Lauderdale (4539 Powerline Rd, by appointment) and Miami Beach (500 South Pointe Dr #150) have motorized shades running so you can judge the fabrics in motion.
Choose the fabric in your own light
Book a complimentary in-home consultation. Shortlist the designs you like and we bring samples, demo motors, and honest answers about openness, colour and exposure.