One remote for a whole wall of paddock-facing glass

Battery or wired — the honest trade-off

Rechargeable battery motors need no wiring and suit a retrofit on an existing home, charged every few months. Wired motors suit new builds and renovations — permanent, no charging, and the better fit for big or heavy systems and anything mounted outside. Because many Inanda properties already run generator or inverter backup for load-shedding, wired motorisation is often the simpler long-term choice on a full-house fit-out rather than a retrofit patch.

Control that matches how the house actually runs

A single multi-channel remote can run every blind in a room. App control means checking from the stable yard whether the west lounge blinds are still up. Schedules drop west-facing blinds automatically as the afternoon sun swings round, and sun sensors do the same without anyone remembering to press a button. On anything mounted outside — external venetians, awnings, zip screens — a wind sensor that auto-retracts before a highveld thunderstorm gust hits is the responsible spec, not an optional extra.

Where motorisation stops being optional

Spans too wide or heavy for a chain, blinds above a stair void or double volume, concealed ceiling-recess systems, and anything fitted outside the glass — on all of these, motorisation is essentially required rather than a nice-to-have. "One button, six blinds" is a common ask on Inanda's bigger glazed walls, and it's exactly what a linked motorised system is built to do.

Practical honesty

No dangling chains makes motorised operation the most child-safe option there is. The motors themselves are quiet, not silent, and quality units carry a multi-year guarantee. Battery motors do need that periodic charge — we set the expectation at quote stage, not after installation.

• Remote, app, schedule and sun/wind sensor control layers
• Battery (retrofit) or wired 220V (new build) motors
• Wind-sensor auto-retract standard on exterior products
• No dangling cords — the most child-safe operation available

What it costs

Motorisation is priced by whatever it is driving, so the honest answer is a range: about R2,500 to R7,500 per square metre installed across the products on this site. Count on R2,500 to R3,800 per square metre for a motorised blockout or sunscreen roller, R4,500 to R6,500 for motorised external venetians, and R5,500 to R7,500 per square metre of projection for an awning driven by a motor and a wind sensor.

All of those are guide bands per square metre installed and none of them is a quotation; small windows still carry a minimum charge. What decides the actual figure is the room: how many blinds share a control, whether a battery tube or a wired motor suits that wall, and how far the nearest power point is. The free measure settles all of it, with the written per-window price to follow.

Where we fit motorised blinds

Wide, high or multi-room glass calls for the same motorised answer wherever it sits — this is close to the default spec on the big renovations in Hyde Park and Sandhurst, and comes up just as often on Atholl's mansions and Bryanston's larger stand-alone homes.