What Type of Shade Fabrics Let in the Most Light?

Larry Baltazar • May 3, 2021

What Type of Shade Fabrics Let in the Most Light?

Shades can serve many purposes, including blocking light, enhancing privacy, making a room more attractive, and keeping your home comfortable. If you're interested in adding motorized shades, you may be wondering which fabrics allow the most light through, whether you want to enjoy that light or to block it out. 

Blackout Shades

As you might expect from the name, blackout shades block virtually all outside light from coming in, whether they're interior or exterior installations, offering complete privacy.

Interior Roller Shades

Unless they're made of blackout fabric, roller shades are generally considered to be light filtering, meaning they allow varying degrees of light to shine through depending on the fabric selected. A fabric's opacity usually determines more about how much light comes through than color choice does. Typical shade opacities include:

Sheer Fabrics

The lightest shade fabrics perform similarly to sheer curtains — they merely filter incoming light and add a little privacy by blurring what anyone can see looking in or out. 

Semi-Sheer Fabrics

Slightly heavier fabrics add a little more privacy and allow most of the light through with a more diffuse glow. 

Semi-Opaque Fabrics

Shades with medium-weight fabrics allow the light to come in as you'd like, but prevent viewing through the shades in either direction.

Opaque Fabrics

One step below blackout fabric, opaque fabrics, also called room-darkening, block most of the light and offer superior privacy. 

Exterior Shades

Exterior shades are most frequently installed to provide shade and privacy, with multiple mesh choices available to offer those comforts in varying degrees. Generally measured by their "openness factor", lower values, such as 3%, indicate a tighter weave which will block more light, but also offer greater privacy. Moving up to 5% can maintain your view and moderate privacy while allowing more light through. Both openness factors can still block solar heat and UV rays effectively. Shade color can also make a difference, and darker colors, surprisingly enough, tend to allow you to see through them better than lighter colors.

At Nextgen Multi Media, we have the experience and expertise to help you choose the best shade system for your lifestyle and budget, and to install it for you. Contact us today to learn more about motorized shades or any of our other smart home solutions.

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