Home › Guides › Blackout vs sunscreen
Blackout vs sunscreen roller blinds
Blackout blocks light. Sunscreen lets it through on purpose. They are opposite products that look similar in a brochure, and choosing the wrong one is the single most common regret we hear about. The short answer is below; the reasoning follows.
blackout dark, sunscreen showing the view
approx. 760×620
The short answer. Choose blackout for bedrooms, nurseries and anywhere you need darkness or night privacy. Choose sunscreen for living rooms, home offices, kitchens and conservatories, where you want to cut glare and heat but keep the view. If a room needs both, that is what day and night blinds exist for.
Side by side
| Blackout | Sunscreen / solar | |
|---|---|---|
| How it works | Coated or foam-backed fabric that light cannot pass through. | A woven mesh with tiny gaps. You see out through the holes. |
| Light | Blocks all light through the fabric. Gaps at the edges are the only leak. | Lets light through by design. Cuts glare rather than removing light. |
| View out | None when closed. | Keeps it, which is the whole point. |
| Daytime privacy | Complete. | Good: brighter outside means people cannot see in. |
| Night-time privacy | Complete. | None. Once your lights are on, it reverses and people can see in. |
| Heat | Reduces heat loss in winter. Blocks solar heat only when closed, which means a dark room. | Reflects solar heat while you carry on using the room. The better summer fabric. |
| Best rooms | Bedrooms, nurseries, home cinema, shift workers. | Living rooms, offices, kitchens, conservatories, any sunny room with a view. |
The night-time reversal
If you take one thing from this page, take this. Sunscreen fabric works by letting light pass through it, and light always travels from the bright side to the dark side. During the day the outside is brighter, so you see out and passers-by see very little. After dark, with your lamps on, the room is the bright side, and the effect runs the other way.
It is not a fault, it is not brand-specific, and no sunscreen fabric from any supplier behaves differently. It is simply how an open weave works. But it catches a great many people out, because the blind is bought in daylight and the problem appears at nine o'clock one evening.
So the honest rule is: if evening privacy matters in that room, sunscreen alone is not enough.
The light-gap problem
Blackout has its own catch, and it is the mirror image. The fabric genuinely blocks all light. What lets light in is the gap around the edges, every roller blind is cut slightly narrower than its opening so it can turn freely, which leaves roughly 10 to 15mm at each side.
In a bright bedroom at six in the morning, that reads as a glowing outline. Fitting the blind outside the recess so it overlaps the window, or adding side channels, is what closes it. Our blackout roller blinds page explains the three fitting options and what each one costs you.
Both products have an honest limitation. Sunscreen gives you the view and fails at night. Blackout gives you darkness and leaks at the edges unless fitted deliberately. Anyone selling you either without mentioning its catch is not telling you the whole thing.
Room by room
Bedrooms: blackout
Darkness and night privacy, both of which sunscreen fails at. Fit outside the recess or add channels if you are sensitive to early light. See best roller blinds for bedrooms.
Nurseries: blackout, cordless
Same reasoning, plus a cot near a window means no chain. Cordless or motorised removes the hazard rather than managing it.
Living rooms: usually sunscreen, often day and night
You want the room light and the view intact while you are using it. If the room faces a street and you sit in it after dark, a day and night blind solves both on one chain, which is why it is the most common thing we fit in a front room.
Home offices: sunscreen
Screen glare is the complaint, and blackout would leave you working in the dark. A 3% or 5% openness fixes it while you keep daylight and the window.
Kitchens: sunscreen, in a wipe-clean fabric
Usually a garden view worth keeping. Near a hob, specify a coated finish. See waterproof roller blinds for why grease is harder on a fabric than steam.
Bathrooms: neither, strictly
Sunscreen is not private enough, and standard blackout fabric does not enjoy constant steam. What you want is a moisture-resistant dim-out or blackout-weight fabric in a coated finish.
Conservatories: sunscreen, pale
Heat is the problem, not light, and blackout would turn a glass room into a dark box. A light-coloured solar fabric reflects heat back out. See conservatory roller blinds.
Loft bedrooms: blackout, channelled
Roof windows face the sky and catch light earliest. Because a roof blind runs in channels, there is no side gap at all, which makes it the darkest blind in the house.
What about dim-out?
There is a middle option people rarely hear about. Dim-out fabric blocks most light but lets a soft glow through, so the room goes dusky rather than dark, and it gives complete privacy day and night.
It is often the better answer for a child frightened of total darkness, a living room where blackout feels oppressive, or a bathroom where you want privacy without a coated blackout fabric. Ask us for dim-out samples alongside the other two.
Can you have both on one window?
Three ways, in ascending order of cost:
- A day and night blind. One blind, one chain, sliding between open weave and closed. Not as dark as true blackout, but it covers view and privacy properly.
- Two blinds on one window. Sunscreen at the front for the day, blackout behind for the night. The most effective and the most expensive, and it needs enough depth in the reveal.
- A blackout blind plus curtains, or a sunscreen blind plus curtains. Perfectly normal, and often the cheapest route to both.
Tell us what the room has to do at both ends of the day and we will tell you which of these is worth it on your window.
Deciding
Hold both up at your own window
This is genuinely a decision you cannot make from a screen. A sunscreen sample against your glass, in your light, facing your view, tells you in ten seconds what an hour of reading will not.
Order both and try them in daylight, then again after dark with the lights on. That second test is the one that settles it.
blackout and sunscreen together
approx. 560×420
Read next
The two products in full
Blackout roller blinds
The three fitting methods and how dark each one actually gets a room.
Read moreSunscreen & solar
Openness factor explained, and why colour choice is counterintuitive.
Read moreDay & night blinds
The one-blind answer when a room needs both.
Read moreWhat they cost
Blackout sits above standard. Price bands for both.
Read the guide
Common questions
Blackout or sunscreen, answered
Blackout, in almost every case. Sunscreen gives you neither darkness nor night privacy, which are the two things a bedroom blind is for.
The exception is a bedroom used mainly as a study during the day, where some people fit sunscreen and add curtains for the night.
Yes. The fabric lets light through in both directions, so whichever side is brighter is the side that gets seen. With your lights on after dark, that is you.
It applies to every sunscreen fabric from every supplier. If evening privacy matters, pair it with a day and night blind, a second blackout blind or curtains.
Sunscreen, in practice. Both reflect solar heat, but blackout only does it with the blind fully closed, which means sitting in a dark room on a sunny day.
Sunscreen cuts the heat while you carry on using the room normally, which is why it is the standard choice for conservatories and south-facing rooms.
Dim-out fabric. It blocks most light but lets a soft glow through, so the room goes dusky rather than dark, with full privacy at any hour.
Good for a child who dislikes total darkness, or a living room where blackout feels heavy. Ask for dim-out samples alongside the others.
No. The coating on the back does the blocking, so a white blackout blind blocks exactly as much as a charcoal one.
Colour only matters for reflected light: a pale blind bounces some light back into the room, which matters in a home cinema and almost nowhere else.
Blackout generally sits above standard roller fabrics because of the coating, and adding side channels to close the light gaps increases it further.
Sunscreen fabrics vary by openness factor and brand. Our price guide gives the bands for both.
Tell us what the room has to do
Which room, which way it faces, and whether you sit in it after dark. That is usually enough for us to tell you which fabric before we even visit.
Unit C3, Star Business Centre, Marsh Way, Rainham RM13 8UP