Motorized Blinds

[Tom Bender]

We are considering motorized blinds for a window 88" wide x 60" high. Lowe's and others cary Bali brand and I think they use Somfy motors. We have a few questions;

Are the battery powered ones ok or should we bite the bullet and hardwire them?

How loud are they?

Are they reliable?

Would you buy them again?

[John Goodin]

I have never used battery operated but they would seem to be a pain to recharge. For the price you pay for motorized blinds the cost for hardwiring is a marginal. Also look online. I bought many blinds at star decorating for about 2/3 the price of the big boxes.

[Ole Anderson]

I bought some 72" wide x48" high "cellular shades" from HD, Lutron brand I believe. They operate on "D" cells in the upper cross piece. I installed them five years ago, use them once a day and still on the original batteries. Very quiet, you almost cannot hear them. They come with a wireless remote fob, same batteries there too. Love them, never a hiccup. Hard wiring seems like it would be a pain and somewhat unsightly if there is a transformer involved. Unnecessary.

[Eduard Nemirovsky]

We installed motorized blinds on 72" wide kitchen window. Battery operated (AA size), very quiet, still on first set of batteries after one year. We not using it every day, probably 4-5 times wind/unwind per week. It is not from big store, like HD - some small local company.
Ed.

[Mike Henderson]

Wire them. Changing the batteries is a pain and eventually you'll have batteries leak in the unit (which sometimes destroys the unit).

Mike

[Edwin Santos]

Hi, A friend of mine has been in the motorized window covering business for about 20 years, back when it was a niche reserved for the rich and famous.
According to him, the clear answer to your question would have been to hardwire, that is until 2-3 years ago when the motors running on battery became considerably more powerful and efficient.
Now his recommendation to customers is to go with battery units unless it is a new construction situation where hard wiring is easy. Expect the batteries to last 3-5 years. Maybe quite a bit longer if you get the super long life batteries, the type they make for smoke detectors.

[Ole Anderson]

Three people with first hand experience say use batteries, two with no first hand experience say hard wire. How often do we see this when someone asks for advise?

[Peter Kelly]

Check blindsgalore.com (https://www.blindsgalore.com). Delivery from them is sorta slow but they've got the lowest prices I've found on the web.