Carefree's New ONE Touch Awning
It's Revolutionary, Not Evolutionary

By Don Magary, editor

When it comes to bringing new awning products to the RV market, Carefree of Colorado is unarguably the hands-down leader -- period. So the fact that Carefree is about to introduce a new product won't surprise a lot of people. Like most companies, Carefree normally holds its product introductions at the WDA Annual Executive Conference or the Louisville show; however, Tom Faludy, president of Carefree, is so excited about this new automatic awning the company has broken with tradition and is unveiling it now.

Photo 1 - Before A visual demonstration of the effort it takes to set up Carefree's patented ONE Touch awning. Note the lack of people unlocking the lock mechanism with an awning wand, extending the awning, setting the side supports or tugging or pulling on anything -- it's all done with the push of the "Out" switch illustrated in Photo 4. To stow it for traveling is just as simple. Push the "In" switch and then the power switch to turn the power off to the awning.
Photo 2 - During	Photo 3 - After	Photo 4

So why all this excitement? Obviously, automatic powered awnings have been around for a few years. "That's true," Faludy admitted, "but these are all boxed awnings. This is the very first RV awning that actually uses traditional RV awning components. It's revolutionary, not evolutionary."

A rendering of the expanded control panel which includes window awnings that can be controlled individually - or all awnings including the patio awnings by pushing one switch.

RV News traveled to Broomfield, CO, in June to see the new ONE Touch awning, and we were impressed with what we saw. Carefree had installed the awning on a new Vacationer motorhome for the demonstration, and Faludy explained to RV News what he saw as it's main benefits. He said, "Nobody has to get used to anything different other than its ease of operation -- this is the same look the market has known forever.

"It just like when automakers started installing electric windows. They didn't change anything on the window; its still the same window. But now you can just push a switch to make it go up and down. And it's the same with this awning. Rather than a lot of setup including manually rolling the awning out and back, all the owner has to do is push a switch on the inside of the coach and the awning extends or retracts.

"When you buy a new car, do you read the instruction manual that comes with it? No, nobody does. That's because everything just works, you push it, turn it, dial it, and it works. When you get an RV on the other hand, you've got all these components and have to remember how each one works or read the manual. We hear a lot of people ask, 'How do I work my awning?' Well, now they can throw their instruction book and awning wand away. Simply turn on the power and push the switch on the inside wall of the coach. The awning rolls out and raises by itself in 13 seconds. To stow it, push the switch and in about 19 seconds, it retracts, stows and locks itself and you are ready to travel. That's it -- you didn't even have to unlock any arms."

RV News has learned from personal experience that an awning is not an accessory people use as often as they might want to simply because it's a chore to get the awning set up, and if you are not going to be in one place for any length of time, it is normally not worth the trouble.

Tom Faludy, Carefree's president, shows RV News the companion ONE Touch window awning which is an option. Window awnings like the patio awning are all controlled from the same control panel.

Carefree's automatic awning makes that kind of thinking obsolete. Stopping at a roadside park for lunch and the sun shines in on your table? No problem. Push the switch and the awning extends a few feet and the sun is replaced with shade.

It's the middle of the night and you awake to hear a strong wind flapping the awning fabric. Do you get dressed and go outside to roll up your awning. No, push the switch and the problem is solved. And if the user has the optional remote control unit, he doesn't even have to get out of bed. Other options will include a wind sensor that will automatically stow the awning even if the owner is not there.

But what about the window awnings? You still have to go outside to raise or stow the window awnings, right? No. Carefree's new line even includes powered awnings for windows. And these awnings are controlled from the same control panel. You can extend them individually and independently or push "All" on the control panel and every ONE Touch awning on the coach automatically sets itself up.

It's pretty impressive and should find a large market among RV owners.

RV News was interested in how the product was developed and engineered. Faludy explained, "That's pretty interesting. The inspiration of the product did not come from within Care-free, but from a seed farmer in Canada, a gentleman named Elden Kaun, He wanted his wife to be able to operate the awning on their RV, but she couldn't. She told him she wasn't going to operate it, and suggested he build one that she could work.

"Well, as you can imagine, on a 4,000-acre seed farm Mr. Kaun has a huge machine shop. And as industrious as a farmer might be, he actually designed and built an automatic awning that his wife could operate. After that he started showing the system to fellow campers.

At a Jayco rally someone saw the product and was so impressed that they contacted Jayco president Bernie Lambright. Bernie didn't want to get into the awning business, but he knew we are always looking at new ideas so he forwarded the information to me.

"I contacted Mr. Kaun, and he sent me a video of the product. The product was in a much more rudimentary form, but it was very well conceived. We looked at the video and thought, boy, this could be something very much revolutionary.

"I asked Russ West to go to Canada to take a look at the product to verify that the promise we saw in the video would hold true in the product. Russ came back encouraged about the potential. Then we invited Mr. Kaun and his wife to drive their unit to Colorado so we could take a look at it, and we formed a pretty nice bond.

"That was last fall. For the past nine months or so we've had Jeff Rutherford (Carefree's vice president of operations and the OEM business unit) and his team of engineers working on refining the design. Three design engineers putting in 60 to 70 percent of their time working on this product brought it through six different generations to end up where we are today."

"This is a truly revolutionary watershed moment for awnings."

And Faludy is right. While the "look and feel" of the awning might be the same, there are some dramatic differences between the mechanisms in the automatic awning opposed to the traditional roller spring awning -- for example, no roller spring.

And there's no lock and unlock because the way the motor is geared. The gearing of the awning will not allow that awning to unfurl so there's no issue with it coming out while traveling.

Carefree's ONE Touch is in tooling right now, and Faludy expects to start delivering product by mid-August. Initially, the ONE Touch awning will be available in lengths from 8-feet to 21-feet.

According to Faludy, the ONE Touch is being positioned in the market as midrange product rather than high-line. It is expected to retail for $1,200, about $500 more than a standard awning, but significantly less than the $3,000 to $4,000 that consumers pay for high-end automatic boxed awnings.

He said, "That's why we feel like its not a high-end product. It's going to be something, regardless of a brand or a model of an awning that any manufacturer puts on as standard equipment, that they will want to list as an option. Even a customer looking at a $15,000 trailer may find standard awnings too difficult to operate and would want the convenience of this product."

The awning is being introduced first to OEM customers, but Carefree plans to have it available for the aftermarket by the first of the year. Faludy said, "Yes, we definitely want to get the ONE Touch into the aftermarket in a big way. We think there is a huge potential, in fact, one of our projects for 2001 is to develop a kit so you just buy the hardware and retro it to any brand roller assembly."

It's called the Carefree ONE Touch, and it looks as if Carefree of Colorado has hit another homerun in the RV awning market.

RVN