Motorized Shades & Blinds for Sliding Glass Doors

A sliding glass door is the one opening in the house you cover and uncover all day. It is wide, it is often tall, and a long chain or a heavy bottom rail across that much glass gets old fast. A motor fixes that. Press a button, ask a voice assistant, or set a schedule, and the shade on your patio door lifts in the morning and comes down at sunset without anyone reaching for it. Every shade on this page is made to measure for your door, built with a motor, and shipped direct to you.

Motorized shades and blinds that suit a slider

Roller shades are the most common motorized pick for a patio door. A single flat panel rolls up tight at the top, so nothing stacks in front of the glass when the door is in use. Choose light filtering for a living room or kitchen slider and blackout for a bedroom or media room door.

Solar shades cut glare and heat while keeping the view to the yard, which suits a door that faces the afternoon sun.

Zebra shades alternate sheer and solid bands, so the motor can shift them between view and privacy without raising the shade at all.

Cellular shades, in light filtering or blackout, put an insulating honeycomb layer across a large pane of glass. Check the height limit below before you choose them for a door.

Size limits for a motorized door shade

Doors push the size limits harder than windows, so check these numbers before you order.

A motorized roller shade needs more minimum width than a manual one, because the motor sits inside the tube. On our standard cassette that minimum is 20⅛ inches, which any sliding door clears. Width is the number to watch. Blackout and solar fabric reach 94½ inches wide on the standard cassette, and light filtering reaches 98⅜ inches. A few fabrics are milled on narrower rolls of about 90 inches, and they cannot cover the widest openings on any system.

Height matters too. Any roller shade over 100 inches tall moves to a 43 mm tube and our large cassette, which reaches 118 inches wide and 120 inches tall with a motor.

Motorized cellular shades are limited by height, not width. They stop at 79 inches tall, so measure your door first and choose a roller, solar or zebra shade if the opening is taller than that.

Motors, controls and DIY install

Each motor carries a built-in rechargeable lithium battery, so there is no wiring to run to the door. A full charge takes about four hours, and an optional solar panel keeps the battery topped up. For smart control, the Zigbee motor pairs directly with five specific Echo devices, the Matter motor connects to Apple Home and also reaches Alexa, Google Home, SmartThings and Home Assistant, and the standard motor reaches any of them through a hub. Every motor stores two end limits and four intermediate stops, so you can save a half open position for afternoon glare.

To measure, first decide whether the shade mounts inside the door frame or on the wall above it. Mounting above the frame is a common choice on a slider because it keeps the shade clear of the handle and the moving panel. If the handle still sits close to the glass, order a reverse roll, which hangs the fabric off the front of the tube. Our cassette brackets have four pre-drilled holes. Two screws on opposite sides hold a bracket on a standard wall, and the extra holes are there for a wide shade mounted over a door. Hook the valance onto the bracket latch, press it back until it clicks, and check that the top and rear are both locked before you let go.

Start with how the door is used. A bedroom slider wants blackout, a family room door usually wants light filtering or solar, and a door you open all day benefits most from a motor that can run on a schedule.