Why Are Battery Powered Blinds and Curtains so Expensive?
The demand for motorised roller blinds in the UK is increasing year on year, as more and more homeowners are upgrading their homes with smart devices to offer more flexible control of their property. According to a survey conducted by Smart Home Week, 57% of homes in Britain now contain a smart device.
Controlling your blinds and curtains with a smart hub or remote control is a way of improving security, allowing more flexibility over light levels and saving on energy costs. To find out more about the benefit of motorised blinds, click here.
Some homeowners might be put off by the cost of installing motorised blinds. If there isn’t already power at the windows, the cost of the work needed to run cables and re-decorate can quickly add up. Battery powered roller blinds seem like the obvious solution to this problem. Battery blinds are:
- Easy to retrofit
- Don’t need any wiring
- Can connect to smart home systems
- Are available from many suppliers
But are battery blinds actually cheaper than a mains powered solution? Let’s find out.
Free-Hanging Roller Blinds
If you’re just comparing the cost of a battery powered motor to a mains powered motor, chances are that the battery motor will be slightly cheaper. Especially when it comes to motors for free-hanging roller blinds, like our Sirios system.
For example, a 2m x 2m Sirios blind will cost you approximately £40* more on a 230v motor than the same blind on a battery motor.
However, costs can rise on battery blinds when it comes to large blinds or wide expanses of glazing. Let me explain using an example.
A Somfy Sonesse 30 WF (battery) motor has 2Nm of torque, compared to a Sonesse 40 (mains powered) motor which has up to 3 times more torque. As you can imagine, a 6Nm motor is capable of operating much larger and heavier blinds than a 2Nm one. So, if you have a large window or run of windows that you want to shade, you are going to be able to achieve this with fewer blinds using a mains powered motor than you could using a battery motor, because you can make each blind much bigger.
The saving on the cost of battery motors could be more than off-set by the extra cost of having to install more blinds. So the deciding factors are most likely to be:
1. What size blinds do you need? Are they within the size range for battery powered blinds?
2. Is it feasible, and what will it cost, to have wiring for connecting mains powered blinds?
Rooflight Blinds
When it comes to motors for rooflight blinds, that’s a different story. Rooflight blinds are large and highly tensioned systems, which means the motor needs to be powerful enough to operate the blind against the tension.
Most rooflight blinds have mains powered motors, because regular battery motors for roller blinds are not strong enough. However there are powerful battery motors available that are suitable for rooflight blinds. These have an external battery and a solar panel for keeping them charged up.
As you might imagine, the super strong batteries used in these motors make a battery powered rooflight blind more expensive than a mains powered one. But this extra cost is small compared to the cost of an electrician and a decorator if you need to run in wiring. This makes battery powered rooflight blinds a practical and popular choice where mains power is not readily available.
Let’s look at another pricing example. A KuroLok 100 RL, based on a size of 2m x 3m, will cost you around £2250** RRP using a Somfy 230v RTS motor. However, if you wanted to use an RTS battery motor from Somfy on the same blind, the RRP would be approx £3100**.
Obviously, the cost of the battery motor is much higher. As we said earlier, this is because batteries that have enough torque to operate a rooflight come with a higher price tag than a standard battery.
So the question to be asked here is: will a battery motor still be cheaper than getting a 230v motor + installing wiring?
Well, it depends. The cost of electrical work will always differ from house to house, depending on location, amount of work needed, which contractor you use etc. Our advice would be, decide which motor best suits your needs based on what we’ve discussed above. Then, get a quote for the electrical work if you think you’ll need it. Finally, get in touch with Umbra to discuss the specifics of your blinds and get a quote from us.
*Comparison made using same blind size, specification and fabric. Comparison of Somfy Sonesse 40 6/20 RTS to a Somfy Sonesse 30 WF motor. Not including cost of controls. All pricing is RRP.
**Comparison made using same blind size, specification and fabric. Comparison of a Somfy Altus 9/16 RTS Motor to a Somfy Oximo 40 WF motor. Not including cost of controls. All pricing is RRP. Somfy Oximo 40 WF cost includes mains charger and solar panel.