Smart Curtain Guide | Is a higher price always better? Can I install it without renovations?

In Hong Kong and Taiwan, "Smart Home" is commonly referred to as "智能家居" (smart home). Smart electric blinds consistently rank second in importance within smart homes, surpassed only by smart lighting control. This article will introduce readers planning to install electric blinds to the price differences, advantages and disadvantages of various styles, pre-installation considerations, installation methods, and more.

Pure Electric Blinds VS Smart Electric Blinds

First, it's important to understand the difference between electric blinds and smart blinds. Electric blinds, as the name suggests, can be opened and closed using electricity. There are two methods of electric control: wall switches and remote controls.

Smart blinds typically feature an iOS or Android app for control. Advanced brand systems can be configured for scheduled opening/closing, sensor-based opening/closing, light-responsive opening/closing, and percentage-based operation.

Through HomeKit Siri, Google Assistant, or Amazon Alexa voice control, they can also be integrated with lighting and audio-visual controls to create a scene mode. The most popular is definitely the AV mode, where one button or one voice command can simultaneously close the blinds, adjust the lighting, and turn on the audio-visual equipment. Even if guests come over and want to watch a movie, you just need to coolly say, "Just press a button."

Advantages of Smart Electric Blinds

Smart blinds offer numerous benefits, elevating them beyond pure electric blinds, and their prices are not necessarily much higher nowadays.

Have you noticed that traditional blinds, whether plain or made with the highest-grade luxurious fabrics, are rarely touched, not even daily, perhaps weekly, or even monthly? Over time, a thin layer of dust settles on the curtains. The advent of electric blinds improved this situation slightly, but truly smart blinds can perfectly solve this problem.

Imagine waking up each morning to blinds that automatically adjust their position according to sunrise times, allowing you to enjoy sunlight without glare. In the afternoon, when it gets too hot, all the blinds close to save air conditioning energy consumption. From sunset to evening, the blinds slowly open with the passage of time. If you want to cancel automatic opening/closing and switch to group or total control, it's just a single button press. If you have 10 blinds throughout your house that you want to close, even with pure electric blinds and a remote, you'd still have to walk near each window to control it. Smart blinds can do it in just 1 second.

Smart blinds transform what might have been purely decorative into a multi-functional and easy-to-use home product.

The biggest drawback of electric blinds is that they require power. This is the main reason why renovations are often needed. Having a power source near the curtain motor (hereafter referred to as the motor) is the first step. Of course, you can run a power cable from a distant location to the motor, if you don't mind the appearance of exposed wiring.