PriWatt® Reverse Smart Glass Railings for a Luxury Residence

North Palm Beach, Florida · PriWatt reverse laminated glass

Eighty feet of railing that is clear until the pool is in use

A new waterfront house, a pool terrace, and neighbours close enough to matter. The view was the reason the house faces the water; the privacy was needed for the hours the pool is actually being used. A railing in reverse-mode glass gives each of them its turn.

What was tried first

Frosted glass was the obvious answer and the wrong one: once glass is frosted it is frosted at breakfast, in the evening and on the day the house is sold. Privacy screens read as bulk on a modern waterfront elevation. Planting works, needs cutting, and eventually grows into the view it was meant to edge.

Each of them makes the choice once and keeps it. What the house needed was a railing that could change its mind.

PriWatt reverse smart glass railing along a pool terrace in North Palm Beach

Why reverse mode, on a railing

Ordinary switchable glass is private until you power it. Reverse mode is the other way round: unpowered it is clear, and it only turns to a soft diffusion when current is applied. On an exterior railing that is the correct default: the glass spends most of its life as glass, drawing nothing, and the house keeps the water in front of it.

Off — transparent, the waterfront uninterrupted, no power drawn
On — a private diffusion around the pool, light still passing through
The switch is instant and silent, along the whole run at once

The reverse switchable glass railing switched to its private state

Engineering the run

Eighty feet of railing is a structural element before it is a privacy one. Each panel is PriWatt laminated smart glass: safety glass with the switchable layer inside the interlayer, so the railing meets the requirement it exists for and switches as a by-product.