How Often Do Motorised Blinds Need Recharging?

Somfy rates its WireFree blind motors at twelve months between charges. Louvolite puts its One Touch lithium motors at about six. Both numbers assume one full up-and-down a day on a mid-size blind, so a wide bifold blind on a morning and evening schedule will want charging sooner than that, and a spare-room blind you touch twice a week will go a good deal longer.

Here is what the two makers actually publish, motor by motor, rather than the "once or twice a year" figure that gets repeated everywhere.

What Somfy and Louvolite publish

Read Somfy's twelve months with the small print attached. It is measured on a blind 1.2m wide and 2m high running on a 38mm tube, moved up and down once a day. Nothing in that datasheet covers a 3m bifold blind in heavy blackout fabric, and Somfy points installers at its own sizing tools instead of publishing a table for the bigger sizes.

Louvolite is looser again. The six months comes from the fitting instructions for the discontinued R1912 and R1918 motors and from Louvolite's own consumer guide. The current USB-C One Touch motors carry no published interval at all, and the cells in that range run from 800mAh on a Perfect Fit motor to 5000mAh on a 3000 Series.

Why yours might need charging sooner

Three things move the number, and only one of them is about the motor. The first is how often it runs, because every published figure is built on one cycle a day, so a morning and evening schedule has doubled the work before anyone has touched a remote. The second is size and weight, which is why Somfy ties its figure to a particular width, drop and tube diameter. The third is whether there is a solar panel on it, and that changes the answer completely.

How to charge one

Somfy's current Zigbee motors take a USB-C charger. A Sonesse 28 is full in an hour and a half, a Sonesse 40 in four hours, and an external battery pack in an hour and three quarters. The older RTS motors charge in under four and a half hours and carry a low-battery LED on the motor head.

Louvolite's discontinued lithium motors use an external charger and want six to eight hours. The current One Touch range charges over USB-C, or from a solar panel on a 1.4m lead.

The habit that ruins a blind battery

Somfy prints this on the datasheet and it is the one instruction worth acting on. Recharge the battery at least once every twelve months even if there is power left in it. Recharge it straight away if it does go flat. And take seriously that leaving it fully discharged for more than two months may permanently damage its ability to charge.

That is how a battery dies at three years instead of ten. A holiday let shut up from October to March, or a blind in a room nobody uses, is the usual culprit.

Solar panels, and where they earn their money

Somfy's WireFree Zigbee solar panel claims it extends a motor's autonomy by up to five years. It is a 1.5W panel, rated for indoor use only, and it sits up to 3.5m from the motor on an extension lead.

Louvolite says its panel trickle charges the motor from daylight and removes the need for the six-monthly charge, without putting a figure on it. What Louvolite does publish is performance by which way the window faces. A south-facing window gives the panel full output in summer and 65 per cent in winter. East-facing is 97 and 90, west-facing 90 and 63, north-facing 30 and 25. So a north-facing window is where a panel is least worth fitting.

When a charge stops lasting

A blind that used to go ten months and now goes six weeks has a battery at the end of its life rather than a fault. A blind that runs and then stops halfway is usually something else, and our guide to motorised blinds not working takes the common faults one at a time. For how long the rest of the blind should see out, read how long motorised blinds last.

If you would rather someone else dealt with it, 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.