Debate: Does a hardwired system really beat a wireless one for reliability?

I used to swear by hardwired alarms. Rock solid, no interference. But then I did a swap at an old house in Albany last summer. The place had lathe and plaster walls, running wire was a nightmare. I put in a wireless setup instead. First two months, zero issues. Then one of the sensors started dropping signal after a big storm. Customer blamed me, said wireless is junk. I swapped it to a different frequency and it's been fine since. So here's my debate: the before and after for me was trusting hardwired over wireless for a decade, then seeing a good wireless system hold up just as well. But I still wonder if that was luck. Has anyone else seen a wireless system fail long term or had the opposite where hardwired became a maintenance headache?

3 comments

3 Comments

emma_flores27d ago

yeah @ruby_henderson36 that channel switch thing is real, i had to do the same after a bad storm knocked one of my sensors offline. hardwired is great till you gotta fish wire through old plaster and lathe like that Albany house, then you start wondering if wireless is worth the hassle. i think a lot of it comes down to how much time you wanna put into dialing it in vs dealing with physical wire problems later on.

cole_baker28d ago

same thing happened to me with a buddy's cabin upstate. old log walls, so hardwired was out. went with a name brand wireless kit, worked perfect for like 8 months. then after a heavy snow, one door sensor started going offline every few days. swapped it to a different channel and its been solid for over a year now. i think weather can mess with certain frequencies but once you dial it in its just as good. only time hardwired gave me a headache was a system from the 90s where mice chewed through the wires in the attic, had to re-run everything.

ruby_henderson3627d ago

@cole_baker Do the wireless ones just need a good channel switch or something? That's wild how weather messes with em sometimes.

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