I Bit the Bullet and Invested in Electric Blinds — Here’s the Good, the Bad, and the Mildly Annoying of Living With Them, and Whether I'd Ever Choose Them Again
No messy cords, no jamming winders, no drama. Manual blinds are dead to me
When I first started planning our kitchen extension, blinds didn’t even register. I was eyeballs-deep in the minutiae of damp courses, roof gradients, and plumbing routes – all the boring mind-bending stuff.
By comparison, window treatments felt like something you eventually get to when your brain has recovered slightly, and your bank balance has stopped sobbing into its beer. Predictably, this was naive.
By the time the space was finished, we were left staring at 4.5 meters of glazing that framed incredible views but posed a fairly basic question: how, exactly, were we meant to control light and privacy without climbing onto the worktop twice a day? The windows were too wide, too high, and too fishbowl-like to ignore, and manual blinds felt like they’d be a total pain.
Article continues belowAdd in my distrust of cords (temperamental winders, ugly) and an ingrained horror of child-strangling headlines, and electric blinds started to feel less like a luxury and more like the only sensible answer. The fact they’d also impress my friends was purely incidental… Here’s what I’ve learned from living with them — the good, the bad, and the mildly annoying.
1. Plan Early or Retrofit
Going electric is a lifesaver for hard-to-reach windows, especially the ones that require Olympic-level stretching over the sink.
If you’re renovating, the biggest lesson here is timing. Blinds sit much closer to electrics than you think, and if you leave them too late, your options narrow quickly. In an ideal world, I’d have planned for a wired system from the outset. "Mains-powered blinds rely on a low-voltage motor connected via a transformer to a plug or fused spur, and the success of that setup depends entirely on where and how you can run cabling," explains Simon Browne, training manager at Luxaflex UK. Done early, it disappears neatly into the fabric of the room. Done late, it’s total carnage.
We, of course, left it too late during our kitchen extension. There was no appetite for reopening our freshly plastered and painted new walls, so we pivoted to rechargeable electric blinds instead. Each blind has a small charging port and needs to be plugged into a mains charger and topped up once or twice a year. Not completely hands-off, but a very workable compromise.
It’s also worth knowing there’s a third option: solar-powered blinds. "Solar-assisted blinds are growing in popularity but are typically more expensive, as each blind requires its own solar panel. They’re an excellent choice for windows with strong, consistent sunlight, but less suitable for shaded or north‑facing spaces," says Simon. We had a solar-powered blind in our last home, on an unreachable skylight, and it was brilliant, but a bit too expensive when we’d just sold both kids’ kidneys to complete our extension. Sad times.
Whichever route you take, this is also the point at which it pays to consider the broader types of blinds available, because the motor is only half the story. Fabric, opacity, and how the blind interacts with light will shape the end result just as much as how it’s powered. We went for rollers in a fairly neutral fabric due to our poor, broken bank balance, but you can get much fancier electric blinds if you’re feeling flush.
With more than 27 years in the UK window blinds market, Simon Browne is an award-winning training expert and a leading voice in smart shading. At Luxaflex UK, he has helped drive product innovation and customer-focused strategies and played a key role in bringing the brand’s PowerView automation to market.
2. Installation Is Refreshingly Simple
Admittedly I just passed the tools, but installing our electric roller blinds was a breeze.
Given that the word “electric” is involved, I was fully expecting installation to be fiddly or specialist. In reality, it was surprisingly straightforward, some might even say ‘idiot proof’ given we went DIY. Fitting them was no more complicated than how to mount blinds in the traditional sense — brackets, drill, careful measuring — just with a motor integrated into the roller.
"Measuring for electric blinds is generally the same as you would for any blinds, but check with your specific provider to be sure," adds Chloe Dacosta, design manager at Blinds2Go. "We always suggest that when measuring, you get a second opinion to ensure your numbers are correct and ensure you understand the difference between recess and exact fitting."
Because our window span was so wide, we installed two blinds side by side rather than one oversized unit (there are limits to how much blindage a small battery can power, it turns out), both controlled by a single remote. The only (entirely optional) extra step was adding a pelmet to hide the rollers, which we made ourselves from fabric-covered MDF. A small detail, but an easy way to make plain roller blinds look more luxe. I did have grand plans to switch up the fabric with the seasons. That has not yet happened.
Chloe has been part of Blinds2go for over six years and is now Design Manager. A Surface Pattern Design graduate, she brings a strong foundation in digital art and print design, with a keen eye for colour, pattern and commercial appeal.
3. Why I’m Never Dealing With Cords Again
Cordless operation is the upgrade you didn’t know you needed.
What surprised me most, once they were in, wasn’t the novelty of pressing a button (although that does retain a certain appeal) but how much neater the windows looked. Removing cords and chains strips away a surprising amount of visual noise, leaving clean lines that feel much more in keeping with our modern kitchen ideas. For someone who is fairly psychotic about clutter, this has been one of the biggest wins.
They also make the space easier to use in small but genuinely useful ways. "Electric blinds work brilliantly in most window types, but they really outperform manual blinds in hard-to-reach spots or for anyone with mobility challenges, behind a sofa, over a kitchen sink, or on landing windows," explains Lisa Cooper, product director at Hillarys.
Avoiding awkward stretching on tip-toe manoeuvres over the sink is never a bad thing. And yes, it does impress guests when the blinds come gliding down effortlessly. Every time. I wish I were above that, but I’m not.
As Product Director at Hillarys, Lisa manages product strategy and innovation. An expert in energy-efficient design, she led research with the University of Salford Energy House on sustainable window dressings. Passionate about motorisation and smart home solutions, she combines technical expertise with a strong customer focus and contributes to industry standards via the BBSA.
4. The Bits No One Really Tells You
Getting the two blinds to align can become a full-time hobby.
For all their polish, electric blinds are not entirely seamless. Ours are slightly noisy — not intrusive, but enough to remind you there’s a motor involved — and because we have two blinds running side by side, getting them perfectly aligned can take a bit of patience. They’re supposed to move in sync, but in reality, they always need tweaking to match up at the bottom (wonky blinds are not acceptable), particularly if one battery is slightly lower than the other.
The bigger issue, however, is user error. Lose the remote, and you are effectively locked out. This happened once, and it took weeks to resolve, during which time the blinds remained stubbornly fixed up, and we felt like goldfish by night. We now keep it in a designated drawer directly below the window, and woe betide anyone who dares move it. The chargers also disappeared for nearly a year, which felt like an impressive own goal. They eventually resurfaced in a tub neatly labelled “blind chargers”, tucked in a cupboard reserved for festive tableware and promptly forgotten. Finding them felt like a bonus Christmas present to myself, but if you’re similarly scatterbrained, it’s worth factoring in.
5. How Smart Do You Really Want to Go?
Opt for automated electric blinds and they’ll handle privacy while you’re not even home.
This is where electric blinds can tip from practical into genuinely clever. You can connect them to apps, voice assistants and full smart-home systems, programming them to open and close on schedules or respond to light and temperature.
"We’re seeing more customers use automation not just for convenience, but as part of a wider whole-home environmental control approach. Smart integration makes blinds easy to manage, whether that’s scheduling them to suit your routine or using voice control — ideal when your hands are full mid-cook," explains Lisa from Hillarys. "Automated movement can also create the impression someone’s home when you’re away or help regulate temperature by lowering blinds to reduce heat loss when the heating is on."
Personally, I’ve kept things deliberately simple. We have a remote, it has buttons, and it works reliably regardless of Wi-Fi or power blips. For us, that simplicity is part of the appeal. But if you enjoy smart tech, or just like the idea of telling Alexa to close the blinds while your hands are covered in flour, it’s a genuinely useful extension.
So, were they worth it?
No cords to see here, nothing to jam, snap or wrestle with at 7am.
Going for electric blinds definitely wasn’t cheap, especially compared to how affordable simple manual rollers can be. But they solved an annoying problem (comfortably reaching the cord) and improved how the space works day to day. They make the kitchen look neater, too, which is always a priority when clutter brings me out in hives. Would I plan them earlier next time? I’d like to think so. Would I go without them now? Not without a bare-knuckle fight.
Tempted? Before you commit to your electric blind era, take a look at our full guide to kitchen window treatments — because the right choice isn’t just about tech, it’s about getting the whole window moment spot on.
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