History of Blind Automation

With wireless technology and the Internet of Things making our homes smarter than ever before, it’s hard to remember a time when our appliances, fixtures and décor weren’t controlled by user-friendly devices.

Of course, this type of technology is relatively new and has only been available to consumers within the last couple of decades. While primitive blinds were used centuries ago, firstly in the form of woven fabric in Ancient Egypt, it’s only in the last couple of centuries that they’ve become a popular choice in UK homes.

Now more than ever, blinds and window fittings are offering homeowners more choice when it comes to the style and management of their properties. With a blistering arrayof fabrics, materials and adornments, blinds can be installed in almost any location.

Although the technology to power motorised blinds has existed for quite some time, scaling down the size of components so that they’re functional within a home environment and making the technology cost-effective for consumers took a little longer.

Bringing Motorised Blinds into The Home

In recent years, technology has revolutionised the way we live. Compared to thirty or forty years ago, when most people grew up without a computer and mobile phones were practically unheard of, the ubiquitous nature of Wi-Fi-compatible devices highlights the speed at which this revolution has taken place.

Now used to control every element of your homes, from security to power and cooking to washing, we rely on automation to carry out day-to-day tasks and activities. When decorating your property or creating a new home, the role of automation should play a key part in your planning and design. While the colours, fabrics and materials you choose will undoubtedly have a significant impact on the ambience and visual appearance of each room, the automated system you choose will determine how your home functions and how you control its fixtures and fittings.

Once considered a super-luxury option, motorised blinds have become a more popular choice in the last decade. Technological advancements have made automated blinds affordable for all consumers, meaning everyone can add luxurious window fittings to their home.

Automated Blinds for Every Type of Property

These days, homes vary quite considerably and properties can have a whole host of features. While some families may live in a period home, with listed features and authentic fixtures, others may reside in a modern townhouse or a spacious detached home.From apartments with roof terraces, country estates, terraced properties and rustic semi-detached homes, every homeowner wants to create an environment that’s their own and automated blinds allow them to do just that.

Choosing the right fabric and material for your blinds can undoubtedly give you control over the décor of a room, floor or property, and it can also allow a particular area to function in a certain way. If you want to use a south-facing room as a bedroom, for example, blackout material will ensure you aren’t kept awake by the early morning sun.

However,automated blinds can offer you much more choice and you may even be able to incorporate previously unused areas into functional rooms by installing motorised blinds. Many loft or attic conversations failed to offer a permanent living space, for example, and lack of light meant that many well-intentioned conversions failed to live up to their expectations. The use of Perfect Fit blinds and motorised blinds certainly gave homeowners extra options when it came to these types of rooms. Roof windows may have allowed light to enter aloft conversion, for example, but opening and closing these types of blinds could be tricky.  With automated blinds,however, you can open and close the blinds in seconds, without stretching awkwardly to reach a high window or getting a stepladder out every time you want to adjust the light in the room.

Similarly, blind automation gave a new lease of life to conservatories, orangeries and extensions. Often noted for retaining the heat in the summer and getting cold in the winter, these rooms may not have allowed homeowners to use them as they originally intended due to problems with climate control.

Blinds made from standard material helped to combat this problem, by preventing light from entering during the hot, summer months and keeping extra heat in during the winter, but thermal control blinds were particularly game-changing in this respect. Of course, opening and closing numerous blinds, in a room where numerous windows are a key feature and a structural necessity, can be time-consuming and tedious.

By installing automated blinds, however, homeowners gained additional control over their outhouses, extensions and conservatories. No longer required to spend an inordinate amount of time opening and closing blinds trying to maintain the right temperature, homeowners could open or close the blinds with just the touch of a button. What’s more – the use of automated blinds on roof windows in conservatories made it far easier for homeowners to add extra security measures and privacy to their home.

Adding Automated Blinds to Your Home

Blind automation has certainly changed the way we think about window fixtures and fittings. Now compatible with a wide-range of systems, there’s no reason not to add automated blinds to your property. Easy to use and reliant on very little power,motorised blinds offer a low-cost way of minimising home maintenance and improving temperature regulation, not to mention the thousands of décor options which come with an automated blind system.

For homeowners with an existing automated system, it’s never too late to add extra functions to your motorised blinds or to upgrade your current system to something more modern. Alternatively, why not change the fabric in your blinds and keep the automated system in place? With hundreds of blinds to link into existing automated systems, we can help you find exactly what you’re looking for.

To find out more about installing automated blinds in your home, contact us at Smart Blinds today.