Video Highlights:
00:23 – Top reasons for motorising blinds
00:30 – Motorised blinds look more modern
00:45 – Long cords for high blinds are impractical
00:59 – C-Bus integration for central control
01:15 – Convenient and easy to operate
01:36 – Automatic timing pre-sets
01:45 – Maybe because you’re just lazy?
01:54 – Screen projectors with motorised roller blinds
02:17 – The blinds that we can motorise
02:23 – Roller blinds
02:30 – Fixed guide awnings
02:40 – Roller shutters
02:50 – Folding arm awnings
03:00 – Control for your motorised awnings and blinds
03:05 – Blockout Blinds use a 4-channel remote control
03:43 – Things to consider when getting motorised blinds and awnings
03:48 – The price of the product
04:09 – Product Warranty and what it covers
04:30 – The inclusion of an electrician’s service
05:26 – Motorising blinds in special situations
Transcription:
Hi I’m Jason from the company, Blockout Blinds.
Today, I’m going to be talking about what can be motorised in terms of blinds and awnings. You might ask, well, why would I want a motorised blind? There are few reasons why you might want to motorised a blind.
First of all, one it’s modern and it’s also pretty impressive when your friends come around and your blinds go up automatically. But of course, that’s probably the least likely option why you’d want to get motorised blinds. Some other reasons are simply might be because your blinds are up really high and to have a cord control dangling down might be ugly or impractical so you might get it motorised. You might have an automated home where you have a C-bus system and that’s when you have a system that wires into all different devices in your home and you can control it automatically at pre-set times or login with your iPhone to control your blinds or fridge or whatever it may be.
Also, because they are easy to operate. You know, if you have 4, 5, 6, 7 or 8 blinds going up and down at once with a press of just one button, compare that to walking around to each window individually and rolling the blind up or down.
Another great feature of motorised blinds are if you spend a little bit more, you can have automatic timing, so you may have the blinds come up and down at preset times of the day. It also could be because you’re lazy like me. No, not really, that’s just a joke, but they are the main reasons seriously.
Also, as you can see in the picture here, you can use motorised roller blinds as screens for projectors. The picture here, which is showing a slot where we are about to install the blind up above that to hang-through in the business and that was a motorised blind going in there that we’re going to just pull down when needed to put their projector against.
So what blinds, can we motorise?
Well, at Blockout Blinds, we can motorise roller blinds as you can see in this picture here. We also can motorise fixed guide awnings. In fact, with the normal type awnings, fixed guides are the only ones that can be motorized and you can see it in the picture. We can also motorise roller shutters which generally, most people tend to do and of course, as per this picture, you also have the Folding Arm awning that extends out and you sit underneath. Generally, we motorise these because it just makes it much more easier to use.
Now, how do you control your motorised awnings or blinds? Well, generally, you use a remote control and this here is a remote control of one of the blinds, one of the types of motors that we sell and it’s very simple. You have an up bottom, a down bottom and a stop button and this is actually a 4-channel remote which means it controls up to 4 blinds individually or 4 blinds at once. And as you see as I press this, that’s 2nd blind, 3rd blind, 4th blind, that’s all blinds together. So you can just select blinds one to four or all four at once and you can get up to a 20 channel remote if you really need to.
Now, what to watch for when getting motorised blinds
Well the first thing is, if the price is really cheap, be a little bit concerned. Our prices are fairly well priced but there are a lot of Chinese motors flooding the market now and they seriously, don’t last that long and you know, how do you tell if it’s a Chinese motor, well you ask.
Also, a thing to be wary of, is motors that have very low warranties and they’re offering a one year warranty or a two year warranty, you have to really think well what’s the reason behind that. You know, there must be a reason. If they only thing the motor is going to last 2 or 3 years, well, it’s not that good.
Another thing to watch out for with getting motorisation is a lot of companies would quote prices for motorised blinds and not make it clear to you that their price doesn’t include the cost of an electrician coming out to wire up the blind and then also physically set the blind up in terms of its up and down positions and program the remote controls.
At Blockout Blinds, we do supply an electrician to do it for you. We have one electrician that specialises in installing motorised blinds. And it’s really important to get an electrician who knows what he’s doing in when it comes to blinds. If it’s just any old electrician, sometimes they can’t do the job the same. As I said earlier, you don’t want one of those companies that don’t supply an electrician because the electrician probably makes up about half the cost of the overall motorised package.
A couple things to think of as well in terms of what we can and can’t do
When you have a double bricked home, it’s a lot harder for us to access inside the walls to run wiring to your motors. Sometimes we can do it, sometimes we can’t but that just requires a special consideration for an electrician to come out and actually evaluate if they can do it. Or else, we have to run a conduit on the outside of the wall, inside of the wall but sometimes, it doesn’t look pretty. A lot of times, flats and apartments, 2nd storey, 3rd storey, can be quite difficult because we can’t get into the roof cavity to run your wiring.
So they are the probably the two main situations where we have a little difficulty in putting motorised blinds. I’m not saying it can’t be done but sometimes it just costs a bit more because there’s a bit more labor involved for the electrician.
So there you have it! Motorised blinds, rollers, fixed guides, roller shutters and folding arm awnings. You might not need it, maybe you do. Either way, if you have it, they look super impressive. So I hope I’ve helped you out today. Until next time.
