Lutron's new smart blinds listen to Siri (pictures)

Lutron's Serena Shades offer plenty of smarts for a hefty price tag, beginning at $350. See if the features are worth the cost of admission.

Using the Lutron app, you can schedule scenes for your shades to follow. Those scenes can even be activated automatically when you enter or leave the house, thanks to the mostly reliable Geofencing technology.

You can always control the shades using a Pico Remote, which sends them messages directly with a proprietary communication protocol.

The Caseta Smart Bridge will set you back $150, but it integrates the Serena Shades with other HomeKit devices.

Serena Shades are available for order now, and their pricing varies based on window sizes and material preferences. For more details, check out the full review.

The Serena Shades also swivel downward to allow for easy access to their batteries. That way, replacing batteries won't require you to remove the whole shade from the window.

The app has the same control functions as the remote, but it will reach the shades from anywhere, thanks to the Caseta Bridge.

Scenes in the Lutron app can make multiple products work in concert. The one problem is, those scenes can't be activated by Siri, since they aren't the same as HomeKit Scenes.

The Lutron Caseta app allows you to control any of the HomeKit or non-HomeKit products that interface with Serena Shades. From the front page, you can manually toggle them all.

The app includes other helpful features, like the Today Widget, which will show up on the Today pull-down menu on your iPhone or iPad. That way, commands are more easily accessed without having to enter and exit the app when you want to control your blinds.