The Benefit of Battery Powered Blinds & Curtains
Battery-powered blinds and curtains have continued to increase in popularity in recent years as more and more people look to make their homes and workplaces ‘smarter’.
When you don’t consider shading at the early stages of a project, or if you have an existing or older building, it’s likely that you won’t allow for wiring at the windows. If there’s no power near the window, it limits your options for electric shading.
However, this demand for motorised blinds and curtains means that a lot of shading companies are now offering battery-powered solutions over a manual option. Battery technology for blind and curtain motors has improved a lot in recent years, and now there isn’t much you can’t do with a battery motor that you can with a mains-powered one.
Easy to retrofit
The biggest benefit of using any wireless battery product is obviously that it can be placed anywhere.
Battery-powered roller blinds don’t require any wiring so they can be installed in most windows easily. It’s also simpler to install a battery-powered blind as there’s no need to fiddle with wiring that may be difficult to access.
Whilst you will need to charge your motor occasionally, this is usually no more than once or twice a year, so for the most part you can install your battery blinds and leave them alone.
Some battery motors are also available with a solar panel which allows you to harness free energy from the sun to trickle charge your battery motor, saving money and helping the environment.
Child-safe
Particularly important for homes or public sector buildings, battery-powered roller blinds are inherently child-safe. Whereas chain-operated blinds (another solution when there’s no power) pose a strangulation risk to small children, wireless blinds don’t.
An inherently child-safe blind is one that does not have looped cords or chains. Since 2001, at least 35 young children have died because of looped cords on blinds.
The BBSA’s ‘Make it safe’ campaign promotes window blind safety in all homes, public buildings and other environments where babies and young children may be present. The regulations state that “if you have an environment where children under the age of 42 months are present or likely to have access you must install blinds which are compliant with the child safety requirements of BS EN 13120:2009+A1:2014”.
Simple control & Integration
Battery blinds and curtains tend to be controlled simply, via a remote or hub. The most common battery motor we use at Umbra on our free-hanging roller blinds, the Somfy Sonesse WF motor, uses their RTS signal which means it can be controlled by an RTS remote, or wirelessly connected to their TaHoma control hub.
TaHoma can control blinds, curtains, lighting, security and more using just an internet connection. It can also connect to other devices such as Amazon Echo and Google Home., and has a user-friendly smartphone app that you can use to control your blinds and curtains.
Most major motor manufacturers offer a battery motor that can connect to their own radio frequency and can be used with a handheld remote, such as Nice and Vestamatic.
Being able to control your blinds wirelessly means you can operate them from anywhere in the room, they’re easy to operate, and you don’t need to add any wiring for a switch.
Capable of large sizes
Battery motors are capable of lifting blinds as big as, or bigger than you can achieve with chain operation. With large blinds, chains can be not only heavy but sometimes uncomfortable to operate. When there’s a lot of weight on a chain, it can put a lot of pressure on the user’s hands which can be painful.
Crank or gear-operated blinds are very slow to operate at large sizes. The gear on a rooflight blind is usually on a 6:1 ratio or similar. This means that for every 6 turns of the crank handle, your blind tube is only turning once. To put this into real terms, on a 3m long rooflight blind you would need to turn the crank handle at least 88 times to open or close the blind once!
Rooflight blinds are highly tensioned to keep the fabric taut and sitting flat. This means that there is a lot of resistance pulling against the fabric. On our KuroLok RL system, we use two 4kg tension units per blind. That’s 8kg of tension being applied to the fabric.
Now imagine you have to not only turn the crank handle 88 times to open your blind but there’s also 8kg of tension working against you. The major downside of crank-operated rooflight blinds is how heavy and cumbersome they are to operate, to the point that many people might even find them inoperable. But on the plus side, you can probably cancel your gym membership!
With battery motors, it just requires an effortless press of a button. How much easier is that?
Cheaper than mains powered
Also, the cost of installing motorised shading can be daunting. The costs of installing correct wiring, the cost of the blinds themselves, plus any additional remotes or controls, can put a lot of homeowners off, despite the cost-saving they may see in the future from creating a more energy-efficient home.
This cost is often why people lean towards a battery-powered solution. Battery-powered blinds tend to be less expensive than a mains-powered blind overall when you consider the costs associated with wiring, re-plastering and installation time that come with a mains-powered blind in a building that’s already constructed.
Conclusion
Battery-powered blinds and curtains are a great solution for retrofitted shading where there’s no power. As the demand for smart technology in homes and workspaces continues, there’s no doubt that technology will continue to advance, and there will be more and more battery-powered options available.
We have tons more helpful articles on the pros and cons of battery-powered solutions. Check them out:
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