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Shades for Skylights – An Architect’s Guide

November 11, 2024

Skylights are a stunning architectural feature. They elevate architectural design, bringing in natural light in a way that standard windows cannot. In prestigious projects like villas, high-end residences, and boutique hotels, skylights are a coveted feature, adding a touch of luxury and sophistication. Imagine falling asleep under a canopy of stars, thanks to the breathtaking night sky views offered by skylights.

However, without proper planning and execution, skylights can also lead to challenges such as excessive heat gain during India’s scorching summers and heat loss during the colder months. Additionally, glare and direct sunlight can disrupt daily activities (think afternoon napping) and compromise visual comfort (movie bingeing).

At Hunter Douglas, we offer a range of innovative shades for skylights designed to optimise the performance of your skylights, while maintaining their aesthetic appeal. From minimising heat gain and glare to enhancing energy efficiency, our skylight shades are tailored to address the specific challenges associated with skylights. Want to make the most of your skylights? Keep the following three points in mind.

1. The Role of Fabric Opacity in Skylight Shade Selection

The choice of fabric opacity is crucial in maximising the benefits of skylights. For bedrooms and media rooms, where complete darkness is essential, blackout fabrics can effectively block out sunlight, ensuring undisturbed sleep or immersive viewing experiences. In spaces like kitchens, where soft, filtered light is desired, light-filtering fabrics can create a warm and inviting atmosphere.
Additionally, consider the overall aesthetic of your space and choose fabrics that complement your interior design. For instance, a sleek, minimalist design might benefit from clean-lined, neutral-coloured shades, while a more traditional setting could be enhanced by warmer tones. By carefully selecting the right fabrics, you can elevate the visual appeal of your space and create a harmonious blend of form and function.
Shades for skylight windows with blackout fabric
Duette® Honeycomb skylight shades, equipped with blackout fabrics, can effectively block out sunlight, ensuring undisturbed sleep or immersive viewing experiences
Shades for skylight windows with sheer fabric
Duette® Honeycomb skylight shades, featuring light-filtering fabrics, can create a warm and inviting atmosphere in spaces like kitchens.

2. Energy Efficiency for Skylights Shades is Key

Windows, including skylights, are major sources of energy loss in homes. Up to 30% of a home’s heating and cooling energy can be lost through windows. Skylights, in particular, can contribute significantly to this energy loss due to their larger surface area and direct exposure to sunlight. To address this issue, it’s crucial to select energy-efficient shades for your skylights.
Kitchen with energy-efficient shades for skylights reduces heat and glare
Skylights, in particular, can contribute significantly to a home’s heating and cooling energy due to their larger surface area and direct exposure to sunlight.


To optimise energy efficiency, consider cellular shades for your skylights. These innovative shades feature a unique honeycomb design that traps air, creating an effective barrier against heat transfer. By reducing heat gain in the summer and heat loss in the winter, cellular shades can significantly lower your energy consumption.

For maximum energy efficiency, explore the Duette® Architella® Honeycomb Shades. With their advanced honeycomb-within-honeycomb design, these shades offer superior insulation and can help you save even more on energy costs.

Close-up of beige cellular shades for skylights with a single honeycomb structure.
Simple yet effective: A single layer of honeycomb cells for basic insulation.
Close-up of double honeycomb shades for skylights, featuring a unique honeycomb-within-honeycomb structure.

The honeycomb-within-honeycomb design of Duette® Architella® Honeycomb Shades is the most energy efficient style available.

3. Easily Operating Your Skylight Shades

Skylights are often located in hard-to-reach areas. Operating skylight shades is thus challenging and this can hinder your efforts to achieve optimal energy efficiency. For instance, during the peak afternoon hours, when the sun is directly overhead, it can be inconvenient to manually close your skylight shades. This can lead to excessive heat gain, discomfort and energy inefficiency.

But, we have you covered. With PowerView® Automation, you can effortlessly control your skylight shades with the touch of a button, a tap on your smartphone, or a voice command. This eliminates the need for manual operation, making it easy to adjust your shades to optimise light and temperature control.

You can even schedule your skylight shades to open and close automatically at specific times. For instance, you can set your shades to close automatically during the peak afternoon hours to reduce heat gain, open slightly in the evening to enjoy the soft, natural light, and fully open at night to create a serene sleeping environment under the stars.

Prefer manual control? Consider the Simplicity™ skylight system, available on Duette® Honeycomb skylight shades. This system offers a user-friendly solution for operating skylight shades, even in hard-to-reach areas. With a simple handle, you can easily adjust the position of your shades to control light and privacy. The unique design allows the fabric to stack at the top, bottom, left, or right side, providing maximum flexibility and versatility.

Sky’s the limit for what our Duette® Honeycomb skylight shades can do – especially when operated with our PowerView® Automation.
Push up or pull down with Simplicity™ skylight system, available on Duette® Honeycomb skylight shades.

Would you like to learn more about skylight shades? Meet with a Hunter Douglas expert today! Our knowledgeable team can help you assess your needs and create a custom solution for skylights.

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