Living With Motorized Shades During a Power Outage

The question comes up at almost every consultation, usually right after someone says yes to motorized shades. What happens when the power goes out? The honest answer depends on how the motor gets its power and how you control it, and both are easy to choose well.

Power Outage or Wifi Outage

These get mixed up, and they shouldn't be. A power outage cuts electricity to the house. A wifi outage cuts the internet, and it can happen with the lights on.

Motorized shades don't need the internet to move. The motor responds to a signal from a remote, a wall switch or a hub, and the shade does the same thing either way. What changes is how you send that signal. If you control everything from a phone app or a voice assistant, and that control runs over your internet connection, a wifi problem can leave you without it. A simple hand-held remote talks directly to the motor and usually doesn't care.

So when someone says their shades stopped working, the first thing to ask is whether the house lost power or just the internet.

Battery Motors Keep Working

A battery motor has its power built in. A lithium battery sits inside the roller tube, inside the headrail, or in a slim wand at the side of the window, and the shade runs from it whether the grid is up or not. A neighbourhood outage doesn't change that. In a storm that takes the power for an afternoon, these shades still open and close from the remote.

The thing to watch is the battery level, since that is the one limit. If you charge on a routine, you're covered. If the charge has run low when the outage hits, the shade has the same problem any rechargeable device does. We cover how often charging comes around in our post on battery and hardwired motors.

Hardwired and Plug-In Motors Need a Plan

A hardwired system runs low-voltage cable through the walls to a central transformer, and that transformer plugs into an ordinary outlet. A plug-in motor does the same with a small transformer at one window. Either way, when the house loses power, the transformer loses it too, and the shades stop where they are.

That is less alarming than it sounds. A shade left up stays up, and one left down stays down. The inconvenience is that you can't change it until the lights return. If that matters to you, ask Sheila whether a backup power source on the transformer fits your system. It's a question worth settling before the cable goes into the wall, which in a new build is a framing stage decision.

Can You Move a Shade by Hand

Sometimes, and it varies by motor and by shade type, so don't assume. Some systems include a way to operate the shade without the motor, and others don't. Where one exists, it can be a hand control or a separate emergency method, and you'll want to know how it works before you need it.

The question to ask at the consultation is simple: if the motor can't move this shade, how do I raise it? Get the answer for the specific shade you're ordering. A tall window you can't reach is a different case from a small one over a counter.

What to Check After an Outage

If you run your shades on a schedule or from a sun sensor, look at them once the power returns. A control system can lose track of the time of day during an outage, and then your shades follow the wrong clock until it's reset. Whether yours does depends on the system, which is exactly why it's worth asking about up front.

It also helps to know where your remote lives. Keep it in the same drawer every time, and keep the charging cable for battery motors where you can find it.

Which Setup Suits You

If outages worry you, a battery motor with a hand-held remote is the most self-contained choice. It doesn't depend on the grid or the internet to do its basic job. If you'd rather have permanent power and nothing to charge, hardwired is a good answer for a new build, as long as you accept that it follows the house. Large west-facing glass and tall great room windows are where the choice matters most, since those are the ones you really don't want stuck in the wrong position on a hot afternoon.

Sheila can walk through this at the free in-home consultation, standing at your own windows. Motorized shades usually take 2 to 3 weeks from order to installation, and the exact timeline is confirmed the day you order. Read more about motorized shades, see how motors are cordless and safer around kids and pets, or ask for a consultation.