Are electric curtains worth it? An honest UK guide

The honest answer is yes, but only in the right room. Most of the electric curtains we sell go to homes with bay windows, very tall windows, someone in the household who finds reaching curtains difficult, or someone who wants the curtains opening and closing on their own when the house is empty. In all of those cases the value is obvious from day one. If you've got a standard two-metre window in a bedroom you walk past anyway, the maths is more interesting and worth thinking through. This article is the version we'd give a friend who asked.

The real all-in cost in the UK

The price you see online is the track and the motor. The price you actually pay also includes installation if it needs an electrician, and depending on what you've already got, sometimes the curtains too. The good news on the curtains is that you don't have to splash out on a new pair. The Silent Gliss tracks we sell take standard curtain headings, so if your existing curtains hang from a regular track or pole now, they'll usually transfer onto the new electric track without any modification.

The Silent Gliss Autoglide 5100 starts at £484. It comes with a fitted UK three-pin plug and a five-metre cable, so as long as there's a socket within reach of the window you don't need an electrician at all. Most competent DIYers fit one in an afternoon. The Silent Gliss 5600 starts at £1,849 and is hardwired into a fused spur, so that's the one product where you do need an electrician for the connection. The Silent Gliss Metropole electric pole starts at £882 and uses the same plug-in motor as the 5100, so it's the same DIY-fit story. The full price-by-length-and-control-option breakdown for every product is in the cost guide.

When electric curtains are genuinely worth it

These are the cases where the maths almost always works.

Bay windows and long spans

Operating a 3 to 4 metre bend with a cord drawn manually is an actual chore, and most people who try it stop bothering with one of the curtains and live with it half-shut. An electric track hides the awkward run behind a wall switch, a remote, or a phone tap. The cost premium over a manual bay track is real but not dramatic, and the daily-use difference is enormous. Bay windows are the single most common reason customers come to us.

Tall windows that aren't easy to reach

Floor-to-ceiling glass, vaulted ceilings, mezzanines, any window where you'd need a step or a stool to draw the curtains. The accessibility argument for electric isn't only about mobility, it's about how often you actually open the curtains in a room you walk into and out of. If reaching the cord requires effort, you stop opening them, and the room sits dark for months. Putting a wall switch by the door changes that overnight.

Someone in the household with limited mobility

This is the case the accessibility article covers in detail. For a person who genuinely can't operate a manual track, the system pays for itself in independence rather than convenience, and that's a different value calculation entirely.

Holiday-home security and the empty house

If you go away regularly, having the curtains open and close on a timer while you're away is one of the simplest deterrents going. It's more convincing than a single light on a plug timer because curtains move and they move at the times someone living in the house would actually move them. The 5100 with its built-in programmable timer (variants T and TC) does this on its own with no smart home setup needed. The 5600 with the Move 4.0 Server lets you control them from your phone wherever you are.

Multiple rooms on a schedule, hotels, AV installs

When the system is doing work for you (opening the house at sunrise and closing it up at sundown, or syncing with lighting scenes) the convenience compounds. A single window with a wall switch is a luxury. Eight windows scheduled together across the house is genuinely useful, and that's where the smart-home crowd and the commercial AV market live.

When electric curtains aren't the right call

These are the cases we'd tell a friend to think twice about, and they almost never appear in articles written by people trying to sell you something.

One small window in a room you barely use

A spare bedroom, a downstairs WC, anywhere the curtains get drawn maybe twice a week. The convenience saving over a manual track is small in absolute terms and the cost is the same as it would be for a window you actually use, so the return on the spend just isn't there.

A rental flat where you can't fit a hardwired spur

The 5100 plug-in works in rentals if you've got a socket near the window and the landlord's fine with you fixing the track to the wall. The 5600 is a different story, because it needs an electrician to install a fused spur and that's a building-fabric change most rental agreements don't allow. If you're renting and you want electric, the 5100 is the route in.

You're stretching the budget for it

If the all-in cost is making the room budget tight and there's no accessibility need, a quality manual track and good curtains will serve you better right now and you can always come back to electric later. The Silent Gliss tracks we sell are at the proven, long-life end of the market, and the right time to buy one is when the budget's there for the right product, not when the budget's stretched for a compromise.

Smart home control: which products actually do it

This is the bit most people get confused about, so it's worth being plain. Of all the products we sell, only one electric curtain track integrates with Alexa or Google Home, and that's the Silent Gliss 5600 when paired with the Move 4.0 Server accessory. The Move Server bridges the track onto your home WiFi, runs the Silent Gliss app, and integrates with Amazon Alexa and Google Home on the residential side, plus KNX, Control4 and Crestron for commercial specifications. Apple HomeKit is the one platform Silent Gliss don't support, so if HomeKit is a hard requirement, we'd rather tell you that up front.

The 5100 and the electric Metropole don't connect to a smart home at all. They run on RF remotes, wireless wall switches, and a built-in programmable timer, and that's the lot. If "smart" for you means the curtains opening and closing on a schedule without you touching them, the 5100 with its built-in timer is the right product. If "smart" means voice control, app control, or routines tied into the wider smart home, the 5600 with a Move Server is the one. Most customers land in the first group.

The smart curtains article goes into this in more detail if you want the full breakdown.

The decision table

Run your situation through this and the answer is usually clear.

Your situation	Verdict
Bay window or 3 metre+ span	Yes, almost always
Tall window beyond easy reach	Yes
Someone in the household with limited mobility	Yes
You're often away and want the curtains running themselves	Yes
Multiple windows you want on a schedule	Yes
Long-term home, sockets near windows, mid-range budget	Probably yes, 5100 plug-in
Standard window in a low-use spare room	Probably no, a manual track is fine
Tight budget, no accessibility need	Manual track now, revisit electric later
Rental, want hardwired smart-home control	Look at the 5100 plug-in instead

FAQ

Are electric curtains a gimmick?

Not when the room actually needs them. Bay windows, tall windows, accessibility cases, holiday-home security, and scheduled multi-room setups are the places where electric tracks earn their money many times over. The negative reviews you see online almost always come from someone who fitted them on a small accessible window in a room nobody really uses, where there was never a real job for them to do.

How much do electric curtains cost in total?

A 5100 plug-in track starts at £484 and you can usually fit it yourself in an afternoon, so for many customers that's the all-in figure plus their existing curtains. A 5600 hardwired track starts at £1,849 plus the cost of an electrician for the spur. The cost guide has the full price-by-length breakdown for every product we sell.

Are electric curtains noisy?

The motor itself is virtually silent on a Silent Gliss, which is part of where the brand name comes from. Most of the sound you hear when the curtains are running is the gliders moving along the track and the curtain fabric brushing against it, and that's the same sound you'd hear drawing the curtains by hand. Most customers stop noticing it within the first week.

How long do electric curtains last?

Silent Gliss is built to last and the system has been the UK industry standard for decades. We've been selling the range since 2008 and we've got first-generation customer installs from those early years still running today. The lifespan question is mostly a specification question: pick the right track for your curtain weight (the 5600 if your curtains are on the heavy side) and you're looking at a long-term install, not a system you'll be replacing in a few years.

Can I use my existing curtains on an electric track?

Usually yes. The Silent Gliss tracks we sell take standard curtain headings, so curtains that currently hang from a regular track or a pole will normally transfer onto the new electric track without any modification to the curtains themselves. If you're not sure about your specific curtains, send us a photo and we'll confirm.

Do I need an electrician to fit them?

Not for the 5100 or the electric Metropole. Both ship with a fitted UK plug and a five-metre cable, so you plug them into a normal three-pin socket and that's it. Both can be self-fitted in an afternoon by anyone comfortable with a drill and a spirit level. The 5600 is the only product in the range that needs an electrician, because it's hardwired into a fused spur for the heavier load it's built to handle.

Should I get electric curtains?

Look at the decision table above. If your situation lands in the yes column, the maths almost always works. If it lands in the probably-not column, a manual track will serve you better right now and you can always come back to electric later if your circumstances change.

If you're still not sure

Send us your room dimensions and a couple of photos of the window, and we'll tell you straight which system fits or whether a manual track would do you better. The contact form is on the electric curtains page or you can call 01543 279996 if you'd rather have a chat about it.