Tech Blog
Fire, smoke and toxicity
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Smart glass technologies compared
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Smart glass or smart film?
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Smart Film Without UL? What You’re Really Buying
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PriWatt® Patented Busbar Anchoring System
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PDLC Smart Glass IGU: Smarter Exterior Glass Systems
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Why Smart Film Is Replacing Blinds in Modern Spaces
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No SGCC Certification? You’re Taking a Risk
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PDLC vs PNLC Smart Glass: What Architects Should Know
Read articleWritten for the person specifying it
Switchable glass is bought once and lived with for years, usually by someone specifying it for the first time. These are the questions that decide whether that goes well: which technology, whether the supplier is certified, and what the installation actually involves. All answered with the numbers instead of around them. PriWatt manufactures the product, so these are written from the plant floor.
Choosing between the technologies
The decision most projects make by accident: the supplier proposes what they stock, and the drawing says “switchable glass”. PDLC against PNLC sets the two side by side with the figures (haze, privacy, switching speed, voltage, power draw, price) and explains the one thing that actually decides it: which state the glass should hold when nothing is switched on.
For exterior work the question changes shape. Switchable glass inside an insulated unit covers what the switchable layer does to solar gain and HVAC load, what it removes from the facade, and what it costs per square foot. And why film is replacing blinds is the argument in its simplest form: blinds block the light the glazing was specified for, and they are fixed either way.
Checking that a supplier is what it says
A large share of the switchable film sold today is cut and assembled outside controlled manufacturing conditions. It looks identical on a sample board. Smart film without UL sets out what the certification actually covers, why the busbar decides the lifespan, and how to check a file number yourself in two minutes.
Safety glazing is the other half: what SGCC certification tests, which standards sit behind it (ANSI Z97.1, CPSC 16 CFR 1201, CAN/CGSB 12.1), and who carries the liability when the glass in a door is not certified.
Why installations fail, and where
Switchable glass rarely fails in the film. It fails at the conductive edge that distributes power across it. The patented busbar anchoring system is about that edge: how the connection is secured inside the film, how contact is held as the assembly ages, and why this is the part of the specification worth asking a supplier about before the price.
Patents and certifications
UL file E514182, SGCC certificate 9894, and patents US 11,686,966 B2 and CA 3,212,838, and what each one covers.
The products themselves
PDLC, PNLC and DLC, as glass and as self-adhesive film, with the transformers that drive them.
Sixty-six projects in service
Offices, clinics, museums, studios and facades: the constraint each one had, and what was specified.
A question an article does not answer
Send the drawings or describe the room. PriWatt manufactures switchable glass and film in Pompano Beach, Florida, and the first conversation is with the people who make it. (833) 333-8556.