How Long Do Motorised Blinds Last?

Expect the motor to outlast the battery by years. Somfy warrants a motor for an interior blind for five years from the date of manufacture and the battery inside its WireFree motors for two, and its trade material puts motor life expectancy at more than ten years. Louvolite gives five years on the current One Touch range and life-cycle tests its roller system to ten.

So the honest answer depends on which part of the blind you mean. The tube, brackets and motor are a ten-year-plus proposition. The battery is a consumable inside that.

What the makers actually warrant

• Somfy motors for interior blinds: five years from the date of manufacture. Somfy UK's own help pages quote five to seven years on tubular motors, again from the production date rather than the day they went on your wall.

• Somfy WireFree batteries for interior blinds and curtains: two years from manufacture. The terms name batteries as an explicit exception to the five-year motor cover.

• Louvolite One Touch, current range: five years. The discontinued R1912 and R1918 lithium motors carried three.

• Fabric: neither company publishes a period, so treat any fabric lifespan you are quoted as an estimate.

What Smart Blinds warrants

Manufacturer cover is one thing. The warranty you can claim against is ours, and clause 9.2 of our terms and conditions sets it out. All blinds and the fitting work carry 12 months from the date of order. Shutters and Somfy motors carry 36 months. Awnings carry 60 months.

A Somfy motor therefore sits inside two clocks at once: Somfy's five years from the date the motor was made, and our three years from the day you ordered the blind. The manufacture date is usually the earlier of the two, which is why it is worth checking both before assuming cover has run out.

Two conditions worth knowing before you call. A £50 call-out applies to any warranty visit more than five miles from the Thatcham showroom, and to every shutter, Somfy motor and awning visit wherever you are. Cover is void if the blind has been damaged, modified, or taken down and refitted by anyone other than us, and it stays with the original purchaser named on the order rather than passing to the next owner of the house.

What wears out first

Nobody in the supply chain publishes a ranking of failure modes, so anyone telling you the motor always goes first is guessing. The warranty split is the strongest evidence available, and it points at the battery. Five years on the motor. Two on the cell inside it.

Neither Somfy nor Louvolite publishes a charge-cycle count either, so there is no manufacturer number for how many recharges a blind battery is good for. What Somfy does document is a single failure mechanism: leave a lithium blind battery fully discharged for more than two months and it may never hold a proper charge again. That one is avoidable, and how often motorised blinds need recharging covers the charging routine that avoids it.

What shortens a motorised blind's life

Somfy is direct about the biggest factor. It ties expected service life to correct application, installation and use, and says a motor over-specified or under-specified for the blind will shorten it. That is a fitting decision, made once, that you then live with for a decade. It is also the argument for having motorised blinds measured and specified by someone who fits them for a living rather than bought off a size chart.

After that the list is short. Leaving a flat battery flat. Running a blind that is already binding or stalling instead of getting it looked at. Louvolite notes that its roller components are aluminium, treated steel and plastic and do not present corrosion problems in normal environments, so a dry indoor blind is not fighting where it lives.

Repair or replace

Check the manufacture date before anything else, because both warranties run from it rather than from your invoice. A motor inside five years is a warranty conversation. A battery past two years is a part rather than a claim, and replacing it costs a fraction of a new blind.

Replacing the whole blind makes sense when the fabric has faded or the size no longer suits how the room is used. A blind that still runs sweetly but looks tired is a fabric job, not a motor job.

If a blind has stopped responding altogether, work through motorised blinds not working before assuming the motor has died. Most of what looks terminal is a flat battery, a lost pairing or an end limit that has drifted.

We fit and service motorised blinds across Berkshire and north Hampshire. Call 01635 866600 for West Berkshire or 01189 509449 for Reading.

Fitted locally in Reading, Newbury, Thatcham and Caversham.

Last updated 25 September 2026.