Smart blind batteries require replacement or recharging every 6-12 months on average. Some manufacturers offer options that last for years between maintenance.
Most smart blinds on the market aren’t hard-wired but use an internal battery, which begs the question: how often do you have to swap or recharge the batteries in your smart blinds?
Battery Maintenance Is Highly User Dependent
Just like you have to recharge your phone sooner if you use it a lot, you’ll have to recharge your blinds more frequently if they see heavy use.
Most manufacturers base their time-to-recharge estimates on the premise that your smart blind motors will see four uses per day (wherein use is a single activation to fully or partially raise or lower the blinds).
Given that most people don’t open and close their blinds multiple times a day but typically raise them in the morning and lower them in the late evening, it’s safe to say the battery in your blinds will last about as long as the manufacturer estimates.
After all, even the manufacturers pad their estimates a little bit if you are using the blinds 50% less than what their estimates are based on, then you’ll get as much (or more!) time than they suggest out of each battery cycle.
In our experience, manufacturer estimates are pretty accurate, and the only significant deviation we’ve seen is in households of staff members with young kids who love messing with smart blinds. In those instances, the blinds in the area of the home where the children were most frequently required recharging well ahead of schedule—but, in fairness, the manufacturer doesn’t assume you’ll use raising and lowering the blinds as a form of entertainment.
How Often Do You Need to Recharge Smart Blinds?
You will typically need to recharge or replace smart blind batteries once every 6 to 12 months. However, the length of time between recharging or replacing the batteries in your smart blinds varies between manufacturers.
Although you’ll need to read the fine print for whatever smart blind system you’re considering, here are estimates from some of the more popular smart blind providers.
Lutron: The motors in Lutron’s Serena line of smart shades use alkaline D-cell batteries and have long use cycles.
You can reasonably expect to get 5-7 years out of each set of batteries. Even with heavy daily use, 2-3 years isn’t out of the question. Batteries are swapped like you are putting fresh batteries in a flashlight.
Eve: The popular MotionBlinds line from Eve includes a rechargeable internal battery. Eve suggests that the internal batteries last up to 12 months. While that’s possible, and some users report only charging once a year, it’s reasonable to expect to recharge your blinds somewhere between the 6 and 12-month mark.
Batteries are not swapped, and the units are recharged via USB-C cables plugged into the mounting hardware of the blinds.
IKEA: The Swedish furniture and furnishing titan has several smart blind options, including the Fytur roller blinds and Praktlysing cellular blinds. IKEA is fairly conservative in its battery life projections, estimating that the blinds will need recharging every 4-6 months.
Real-world use data is more generous, with most users reporting they get more than 6 months out of each charge. IKEA blinds are rechargeable, but you recharge them by removing the battery from the housing and charging it using a cable (much like you would charge a phone or Bluetooth speaker).
Regardless of which smart blinds you have, it’s fair to assume that you’ll get a minimum of half a year of service out of each set of batteries (or recharge cycle)—barring curious kids or house guests that go wild putting the blinds up and down.
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