Battery Powered Blinds

It would be more than fair to say that electric blinds can come in countless shapes and sizes. There are myriads of options out there, and one of the aspects that encompasses the most variance is motor options. What you want your blinds to do and how you want to tell them to do that is a rabbit hole like no other, worthy of around 5 separate blogs on its own.

If we were to boil down motors to a few key factors, one of those present would almost certainly be the choice between wired and battery powered.

Battery blinds have been skyrocketing in popularity, most notably for fitout and retrofitting projects.

As you can imagine, the option to go battery powered is a lot less of a headache than tearing out chunks of your wall just to wire some blinds up. While in an ideal world every project would work with wired power, the benefits of it are often outweighed by the luxury of keeping your plastering intact.

What Blinds Can Have Battery Power?

With that being said, a good first step on the road to buying battery blinds is to know what options there are out there. Hence, you’ll see that below this very paragraph appears a list of the blinds we provide with battery options.

Roller Blinds

Blackout Blinds

Our most popular line of blackout blinds is a zipped-edge system that goes by the name of KuroLok. We also offer a corrosion resistant spin-off called ExtraLok and a non-zipped edge version, Kuro.

For all of these options, our standard battery motor would be the Somfy Sonesse 30, or for bigger blinds the Sonesse 40.

Roman Blinds

Cascade is our option for roman blinds. More commonly found in residential projects, cascade brings together the performance of blinds, and the dash of style that is synonymous with soft furnishings.

Our standard motor for cascade is he Somfy Sonesse 30.

When Should You Use Battery Blinds? (and when shouldn’t you?)

Retrofit is largely responsible for the popularity of battery powered blinds. It is safe to assume that someone considering battery options has in mind avoiding the hassle of running wiring.

If wiring struggles are your primary concern battery blinds are a brilliant option. There are however some cases in which wireless blinds aren’t such a great idea, and as with anything else it’s useful to know the strengths and weaknesses of every option available.

Vast Projects

Large projects often pose problems when it comes to wirelessly powered shading. While it is still possible to use battery powered blinds on a sizeable project, charging each blind individually becomes a lot less convenient, even though they only have to be charged once every 6-12 months.

While the technology behind wireless blinds is advancing at a dizzying rate, they still aren’t as reliable as their hardwired alternatives. This can be a problem if you want to connect them all into the same BMS or Smart Home system, as they would require multiple hubs which can bring up the cost dramatically.

Another hitch is that over large distances, the wireless signal sent to tell the blinds what do has a lot higher likelihood of delaying or failing than a signal being sent through a physical wire.

Large Blinds

A key difference between battery and mains motors is their power. Most battery motors have less strength than mains options, which means that larger blinds can become a problem. The actual sizes the blind can span up to is case dependent, so it’s always a good idea to get in touch with ourselves or an installer before deciding on a motor for your project.

This isn’t to say that there are no battery powered motors available that can handle large blinds, but the ones that can often come at a higher price tag and make more noise than mains powered motors.

Accessibility

Accessibility isn’t as much a consideration for when something goes wrong, as it is for the charging of the blind. Battery blinds need charging roughly every 12 months. This means that if your blind doesn’t have good access to a wall socket, issues may arise. Not to say that it wouldn’t be workable, an extension lead paired with the 2.5 meter cable that comes with our blinds would often suffice.

A lot of rooflight blinds may fall under this category, but ours come with added solar panels as standard, for the dual benefit of renewable energy and easy charging.

How Do You Charge A Battery Blind?

The most common method used to charge battery blinds is a standard charging cable. Each of our blinds come with a 2.5-meter cable that is required for use about once every six months to a year.

Battery Blinds can also be charged using solar power for a more environmentally friendly option. All of our rooflight blinds come with a solar power module, and they can be added onto any of our other battery blinds as an additional extra.

Solar panels also make for a great environmental option. Once fitted they’ll provide free energy for the rest of time (at least until the sun goes out), which is both great for the environment and your energy bill. The nature of solar panels the way they trickle-charge also means that the burden of worrying about charging your blinds will be at worst alleviated, and at best vanquished altogether.

The only case in which the two above examples aren’t true is that of Flow, our motorised curtain system. The battery of a Flow curtain track is attached to the end of the rail and sits behind the point where the curtain stacks up. To charge a Flow curtain’s battery, you just have to detach the module and charge it with a cable that we supply with each track.

Can You Integrate A Battery Blind With A Smart Home System?

As with their hardwired companions, it is possible to integrate battery blinds into smart home and BMS systems. Blinds with Somfy battery motors can integrate with the Tahoma, which can integrate with systems like Crestron Home and Control4.

Another option that works with both Somfy and Nice blinds is Strata, our own integration system with which battery blinds can be integrated with brands like Control4, Loxone, Lutron, Elan, and more. Strata is also available for wired blinds too.

Battery blinds with Nice motors can also connect to the Yubii, which like Somfy can connect to a wide variety of DIY smart home systems, like Alexa, Echo, and Google Nest.

How Much Do Battery Blinds And Curtains Cost?

While prices can fluctuate massively with every different option, we’ve compiled some standard prices that you can use to get a starting idea of how much a standard battery powered blind and/or curtain would cost:

How Much Do Battery Roller Blinds Cost?

How Much Do Battery Blackout Blinds Cost?

Again, this would vary dramatically, but we have an example system below for your viewing pleasure.

How Much Do Battery Rooflight Blinds Cost?

How Much Do Battery Roman Blinds Cost?

It would be important to note that we only supply the hardware for a roman headrail, this cost wouldn’t include the cost of the fabric itself.

How Much Do Battery Curtain Tracks Cost?

As with the roman blinds, this cost doesn’t include the curtain fabric.

It’s worth mentioning that there are cheaper options out there for battery motors Which we don’t tend to use as they don’t offer the same level of reliability, technical support, battery life, control options and overall quality as Somfy and Nice options.

For a more detailed deep dive into roller blinds pricing, see more here:

Want to find out more? Got any questions that are longing to be answered? Hopefully someone has, otherwise it would have been a bit of a waste of effort to put the contact form below this paragraph here.