Wired Motorised Curtain System

A wired motor is the better system and the shorter window of opportunity. It never needs charging, it outlasts a battery motor, and it is what we recommend wherever it is available. What decides that is not budget. It is what stage your ceiling is at.

This is a sequencing decision

A wired motor needs power at the head of the window. In a fit-out or renovation, before the ceiling closes, that is a cable run like any other: it goes in with the lighting and disappears. Once the ceiling is closed, the same cable becomes surface trunking painted to match, or a visible run to a socket.

Neither is a disaster. Both are compromises you would not have made had the question come up two weeks earlier. Wired is not expensive; it is early.

What has to be decided, and when

Before first fix. Which windows are motorised at all, and whether the track is ceiling-fixed — that decides where the cable terminates.

Before the ceiling closes. The cable position at each window head, and whether the drop is concealed in a pelmet or a recessed ceiling channel — the cleanest result available, and one that cannot be retrofitted.

Before the curtains are made. The finished weight of the panel: the motor is sized against fabric, lining, interlining, heading and hardware, not the width of the window. Wired removes the charging question, not the torque question.

Before handover. Which smart-home system the home runs, so the motor and any bridge are specified to it rather than adapted later.

It is effectively permanent

A battery installation is reversible: unclip the motor, take the track down, make good a few holes. A wired one is not — the cable is in the structure, and changing your mind means opening the ceiling.

So wired is right when you are confident which windows deserve a motor — and that is what most people lack at fit-out stage, having not lived in the apartment yet. Wire the ones you are certain about, particularly the unreachable ones, and leave the rest for a battery retrofit. Two or three windows usually earn a motor; wiring all of them is the expensive way to find that out.

Where wired clearly wins

Villas and new builds, where sequencing is on your side. Double-height and stairwell glass, because a wired motor never asks you to reach it. And any home on Control4, KNX or Lutron, where the curtains should sit inside the developer's system rather than beside it — the compatibility check happens at your property before we quote, as on our motorised page.

The track still decides it

A wired motor does not rescue a track never rated for motorisation. Motor and track are a matched pair, and the track has to carry the span, the weight and a repeated load a hand never applies. On a wave heading that matters more again, and a motorised wave must be specified as one from the outset. What fails later is in what actually goes wrong — and in the older towers of JLT we routinely replace wired systems whose motors are out of production.

How we work

A supervisor visits free and the survey is technical: where power can realistically reach, what the ceiling above each window is made of, the finished weight of each panel, and which system the home will run. One written price per finished window within 24 hours, nothing added later, fitted on the date in your contract rather than a range, with a one-year warranty covering motors and electronics. Book a free survey.

Questions we get asked

My apartment is finished. Is wired still possible?
Usually, as surface trunking painted to match or a visible cable. Possible, but rarely the trade you want — on a finished apartment we would normally recommend battery.

How early do you need to be involved in a fit-out?
Before first fix, so cable positions go in with the electrical works. After that the options narrow at every stage.

Can wired and battery be mixed in one home?
Yes, and it is often the sensible specification: wired on the windows you are certain about, battery on the ones you may change your mind about.