Quick Links

Key Takeaways

Whether you buy new smart blinds or retrofit existing ones to be smart, Expect to pay a $150-300 premium per window.

If you're curious about modernizing your window treatments, you might wonder how much smart blinds and shades cost. There's a premium for new installations and retrofits, but it might not be as steep as you think.

New Smart Window Treatments Are Pricey

If you haven't gone shopping for window treatments in a spell, you'll likely find the cost of new smart blinds and shades painfully high.

Not only have prices for window treatments (and everything else, seemingly) been rising, but there is a distinct premium price tag stacked on top of the base cost of the window treatment. You're not just paying more for the base materials. You're paying more for the motors and automation component.

It's not uncommon to pay twice as much or more for a motorized smart version of the same window treatment, although the markup percentage typically decreases the larger the individual window treatment becomes. The upgrade cost for motorizing a cellular shade or roller blind from a given company might be $200 per window treatment, for example, but if you double the width of the blind, you don't double the cost of the motor upgrade.

That said, because a new install includes both the cost of the window treatment and the upgrade, it's reasonable to expect to spend anywhere from $300 to $1000 or more per window based on what kind of window treatment and material you opt for.

Related: How Long Do Smart Blind Batteries Last?

That's the price range of window treatments in Lutron's popular Serena smart blind and shade line, and you should expect to pay around that amount for competitors with similar quality. On the upside, the Serena line has some of the longest battery life of any smart blinds on the market.

On the budget side of things, you can pick up smart roller blinds and shades from IKEA starting at around $125. On the upside, that's inexpensive as you get a whole window treatment for less than upgrading a window treatment from a company like Lutron. On the downside, you're limited to a few design options and widths. If those don't fit your windows, you're out of luck.

Retrofitting Your Existing Blinds Is Cheaper

Completely replacing all your window treatments to update to an automated smart system is quite an expense, so we can certainly understand why you would want to avoid it.

Thankfully there are a variety of retrofit kits on the market. Not every roller blind, slat blind, or shade, will be compatible, but if your style of window treatments is compatible, it's typically trivial to retrofit them.

Related: Why You Can't Get Infected Just By Opening an Email (Anymore)

On the really economical side of things, there are products like SwitchBot's Blind Tilt. For $70, the Blind Tilt will automate any horizontal blinds with an adjustment rod by attaching to the rod and turning it to open or close the slats.

For larger wide-slat blinds that adjust with pull cords instead of a rod you twist, products like Somfy's Clever Tilt blind motors fit inside the head rail to open and close the blinds by adjusting the pull cord. You'll pay $230 for the motor but avoid the cost of replacing the whole window treatment.

There are also retrofit kits for roller blinds. Eve has a line of smart blinds called MotionBlinds, but recently announced MotionBlinds Upgrade Kit ($200) that retrofits the MotionBlinds motor system into your existing roller blinds.

Like Eve, SmarterHome also offers upgrade kits to retrofit your existing window treatments with its control platform. You can pick up roller blind kit for $259 or a blind kit for $199.