Motorised Blinds and should you have them
Motorised Blinds are becoming popular, and for good reason, making it easier to control areas of your life that shouldn’t need as much effort to operate makes motorised blind make sense.
In this blog we will go over a few scenarios of why you should consider if motorised blinds are for you.
Motorised Blinds for a digital world
with the rise of automation in homes, its right that blinds get connected to this, with a mechanical process of cogs and turning pieces, it is easy to adapt to becoming motorised.
With motors becoming smaller, they are now fitting in the tubes and hidden behind your blind, out of the way, so all you see is the blinds you have selected, not a bulky control box
With a simple remote, or if you would like Siri or Alexa doing this automation for you, with a simple voice command, or pre-set programmed conditions and timing, you can have the blinds opened for you in the morning, or closed at night without you ever touching them again (well in till you have to clean them, we haven’t automated this yet, sorry)
What blinds suit Motorising
Roller Blinds
We have installed a few motorised Roller Blinds, the good thing about motorised Roller blinds is the motor is in the tube of the roller blind, hidden away and low power to use, can be run via battery that is external, the last set of motorised roller blinds we installed we plugged in
These were connected to Alexa and operated smoothly covering about 12m in total, the back was south facing and incredibly warm in the summer, the roller blinds helped take the edge of with out having to manually operated each blind as you walk around.
this is a video of the roller blinds we have fitted for a customer in operation
Venetians Blinds
The same as roller blinds, Venetian Blinds can hide the Motor in the blinds housing, these leaves you with a normal looking blind with all control operated via voice command or timing sequence.
Like with roller, venetians in a bay window setting, requires a lot of effort to open close, pull up or lower, with motorising the blinds, are a click on a remote, or via voice control, this changes, from your chair, you can get the blinds how you like them.
Sun coming in and the glare spoiling the tv screen, you can now grab the remote and turn the slats face to turning towards the sun and stopping the glare hitting the tv screen.
Vertical Blinds
Vertical blinds have a very similar operation pattern to Venetians, the only difference is Verticals are hanging on a hook system, where as the Venetians (apart from the obvious of horizontal covering the window with horizontal slats and verticals blinds, vertically covering of the window) are controlled by a ladder system
The motor cant be housed in the rail, the rail are very slim to keep a nice looking profile to the blinds, but the motor is still slim and still hidden behind the rail, making the end result look beautiful.
The great benefit of vertical blinds is, from your seat, you can turn the slats to follow the sun, never getting the sun beams in your eyes and effecting your comfort, this is a great reason to motorise your vertical blinds.
Pleated and Roman Blinds
Roman and Pleated Blinds work the same way, its a mix of Roller and Venetian blinds when it comes to the how the Motor controls the blinds.
With Pleated and Romans offering the best protection against the cold and sun, for warmer and cooler rooms, having Roman and pleated wins, with motorising these blinds you can have the whole how night time ready with a click of a button.
If the sun is high and bright, you can set the blinds to half closed, keeping half the window open, so you can see your view while not being blinded by the light.
The FAQ’s
The main questions we get asked are from customer that are interested in motorised blind are.
Will the motor break, The great thing is you get a 5 year minimum guarantee with the motor, the motor is low maintenance, which means less moving parts and less chance of breaking down.
Is the motor noisy, The motor is silent, you shouldn’t be able to hear if over most house hold items, the motor is designed for silent operations.
How often do I need to charge the battery, The operating time is 4 hrs on all blinds, this is a lot of time when it comes to blinds, most blinds operate with in minutes, from the top of the recess to the sill of the window, which give you a great amount of uses before you need to charge.
How do I charge, The battery is and can be disconnected and placed in a supplied charging unit, each motorised unit is design to make disconnecting the battery, quick and easy.
todays technology, you can now have a solar cell option attached to each blind extending how many times you can use the blind before charging, if you ever need to charge, you can also go for a plugged in option which will eliminate the need for charging.
Can the blinds be used with Siri and Google, Yes, the hub connects to all virtual assistants, with a simple comment, you can open and close your blinds or even set routines to take over the control of the blinds for you.
If you would like to automate your home and add your blinds to this, give us a call, we could even automate your current blinds if they are not to old