The window film industry is progressing forward to release of some truly remarkable products. Window films that have been talked about and hoped for, are finally coming to the market. However, I do have some pointed remarks in regards to the way manufacturers seem to market their new products.
Most notably this blog post from last year on the Vista window film blog. When I first saw this post I thought nothing of it, but after running across it a few times on the interwebs (while mindless searching as I have the habit to do), I couldn’t help but feel it had a distorted spin in order to overshadow 3M’s prestige 70 window film. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate what Vista is doing with it’s blog, but the facts are far too skewed to provide an accurate and fair assessment for each product. Vista obviously published the article with the intent to out sell 3M, but I feel in reality it hurts both brands.
Let me explain. If you are going to compare products, both products need to be designed to accomplish the same goal. For example, a Land Rover and a Mercedes S-Class are both brilliant vehicles. While it’s true that they are both luxury vehicles, the reality is that one is a well designed off road vehicle, built to drive over or through any kind of terrain. (Which, by the way, it does quite well, just ask Top Gear. Watch the British version not the Amercian, its horrible.) The other is a top-of-the-line luxury commuter vehicle, designed to offer the most comfortable and smoothest ride on freeways and city streets.
Yes, both are without a doubt, luxury vehicles, but they are obviously designed for entirely different purposes. To be fair, Vista’s blog post does point that both the 3M prestige 70 and EnerLogic 70 have the same visible light transmission. So what? EnerLogic is designed to be a Low-E film, reflect heat and retain heat. This is not a good thing in all circumstances. In reality I believe, in my humble opinion, Vista picked 3M prestige 70 for a comparison because of the high amount of search traffic generated for 3M prestige 70. It was keyword targeted for search engine optimization.
What I think would have been more accurate and less of a marketing spin, would have been to compare EnerLogic 70 to 3M’s only Low-E film on the market right now, 3M Amber 35 Low-E. The point still would have been clear. Straight to the Point: Vista currently has a better and much more optical clear Low-E window film solution.
Why don’t we do a clear apples to apples comparison of both 3M’s and Vista’s spectrally select window products lines. For those of you who are not in the window film industry “spectrally select” basically means high visible light transmission, hardly any visible reduction in light. Below is a chart for straight across the board comparison. I’m not even going to bother looking at infrared light rejection or on angle performance, don’t want to open that can of worms.
This is simple comparison using ⅛” clear single pane glass.
[table],3M Prestige 70,Vista Spectra Select 70 (VS70),
Visible Light Transmitted (%),70%,70%,
Total Solar Energy Rejected (%),49%,52%,
Solar Heat Gain Coefficient, 0.44*,0.48*,
Ultraviolet Rejected (%),99.9%,99.9%,
Glare Reduction (%),22%,22%,
Visible Light Reflected Interior(%),9%,8%,
Visible Light Reflected Exterior(%),9%,8%,
Winter U-Value,1.054*,1.003*,[/table]
* This information was gathered from the National Fenestration Rating Council (NFRC).
One important topic not discussed in the Vista blog post was the materials and manufacturing process used to produce each of these window film products. When comparing the 3M Prestige 70 versus Vista Spectra Select V70 they both used different core materials to produce the window film. Vista Spectra Select V70 uses a sputtered silver in the manufacturing process whereas the 3M Prestige 70 is made with no metals at all. Having a window film with no metals in the material is beneficial because these metals are susceptible to corrosion in some coastal environments like the San Francisco Bay Area. This difference may even dictate the way window film is installed for your project, which may require edge sealing of the window film which may be undesirable. 3M uses the term “nanotechnology” when describing the manufacturing process to create 3M Prestige 70. They uses hundreds of layers of “nanotechnology” to create a window film that performs just like a standard metalized window film, such as Vista’s V70.
Both theses films are amazing when comparing to just a short time ago when most window films had to be tinted dark and reduce vasts amount of the visible light to be as effectives as these high visible light transmission today.
Well, there you have it a straight across comparison of each manufacturer’s similar products. Isn’t that better? Much more clear apple to apples comparison for consumers.
This is just our opinion on the matter. Whats yours? Let us know in the comments.
