Your wireless home still needs wires
Some buyers of new homes are told they can skip low voltage wiring because everything is wireless now. That advice leaves out how wireless devices get their power, and it can cost you later.
Wi-Fi is fast and cameras run on batteries, so why pay to run cable through a new house? You may hear that question during construction.
The word wireless describes how a device sends and receives information. How the device gets its power is a separate question, and that advice skips it.
Every device needs two things
A camera, a speaker, a television, or a touch screen needs a signal, meaning the information going in and out. It also needs electricity. Wireless technology only replaces the signal cable.
That leaves every wireless device with three ways to stay on. It can plug into an outlet, which has to be exactly where the device goes. It can run on a battery that someone charges or replaces. Or it can get power and data together from one low voltage cable installed during construction.
Going wireless removes the data cable. The camera still needs power from an outlet, a battery, or a network cable that carries power and data together.
The trouble with batteries
Battery devices are useful in a finished home, where they avoid opening walls. Across an entire new house, they add up to a maintenance schedule.
A battery security camera typically runs two to six months on a charge, depending on how much motion it sees. Most of them get there by sleeping and recording only when something moves, while a camera on steady power can record around the clock. The rechargeable battery inside wears out too, often after two to three years.
Motorized shades do better. Lutron rates its battery shades at two to five years per set of batteries, depending on shade size and fabric, which is a good number for one shade. A home with 30 of them still needs several battery changes a year, and some of those shades hang over windows you can only reach from a ladder.
Lithium-ion batteries handle warm weather well in the short term. Long exposure to heat shortens their life, though, and an outdoor camera facing the South Florida sun gets that exposure most of the year.
Even good battery ratings add up when a house has dozens of battery devices.
Wired devices are more reliable
A cable gives the signal its own path. A radio signal shares the air with everything else in the house that transmits, plus your neighbors' networks.
Concrete block, stone, tile, and metal all weaken Wi-Fi as it passes through, and South Florida homes use a lot of them. Mesh Wi-Fi units that relay the signal from one unit to the next lose speed at every wireless hop. Connected by cable, each unit delivers its full speed.
Police in Los Angeles, Minnesota, and Texas have warned about burglars using inexpensive Wi-Fi jammers to knock wireless cameras and alarms offline before breaking in. The Los Angeles Police Department advised residents to consider hard-wiring their alarm systems. A jammer cannot reach a signal traveling through a cable.
Power outages are easier to plan for, too. Wired cameras, Wi-Fi access points, and the alarm panel can all run from a single battery backup in the equipment rack. One battery, in one place.
Where wireless belongs
Plenty of things should be wireless. Your phone and laptop are the obvious ones, along with the speaker you carry out to the pool. Battery shades and sensors are also the practical choice in a finished home where opening walls is out of the question.
Good wireless in a house depends on good wiring. A Wi-Fi access point is a wireless device with a cable behind it. Every television or camera that has its own cable also leaves more Wi-Fi for the devices that move around with you.
What a well planned home looks like
In a well planned home, low voltage cable from every room runs back to one equipment rack, usually in a closet, utility room, or garage with cooling and its own electrical circuits. The network, the security recorder, the alarm panel, the control processor, and the audio and video equipment all sit there. A technician can service any of it without walking through your bedroom.
Low voltage cable runs from each device location back to the equipment rack. Access points and cameras draw their power from the same cable that carries their data.
Networking
Internet service enters the rack and passes through a firewall to a network switch. Cables run from the switch to Wi-Fi access points on the ceilings, each one placed for the rooms around it, so the far end of the house gets strong Wi-Fi too. Anything that stays in one place, like a television or a touch screen, gets its own cable.
The switch can power devices through that same cable using Power over Ethernet (PoE). One standard network cable carries data and electricity up to 328 feet, and the newest version of the standard delivers up to 90 watts. Access points, cameras, door intercoms, and touch screens all run on it, with no outlet or battery at the device.
The access points give your phone its Wi-Fi and have a cable behind the ceiling. Screens that stay in one place get a cable of their own.
Security
Cameras connect by cable to a video recorder in the rack, which stores footage in the house around the clock. You can still watch live video or play back a recording from your phone. Door contacts, motion detectors, and glass break sensors are wired to the alarm panel. The panel reports to the monitoring center over the internet and can fall back to a cellular connection if the internet is cut.
Footage is recorded in the house, so it is still there if the internet goes down. The alarm panel can report over cellular when the internet is out.
Sensors
Occupancy sensors turn off the lights in empty rooms. Water leak sensors under sinks and beside the water heater and washing machine can close a motorized valve on the main water line. Temperature sensors let the air conditioning run room by room. Wired sensors never need a battery, and the cable to a shutoff valve is far easier to run before the drywall goes up than after.
Each sensor reports to one control processor, which carries out what the system was programmed to do.
Audio and video distribution
Streaming players, cable boxes, and game consoles can live in the rack instead of behind each television. A video distribution system sends any of them to any room in 4K over network cable, controlled from one remote or app. Each television location needs its own cable run, plus a spare.
Built-in speakers connect with speaker wire to amplifiers in the rack. The music can still stream from your phone. The wiring is what lets it play in the kitchen, on the terrace, and in the primary suite at once, in sync.
Video travels to televisions over network cable. Built-in speakers are connected to amplifiers in the rack with speaker wire.
What to plan before the drywall goes up
Cable is cheapest to install while the walls are open. After they close, each new run means cutting into finished drywall and repairing it.
A cable to every screen
Run network cable, plus a spare, to each television and touch screen, and to any spot where you might want a screen later.
Ceiling cable for Wi-Fi
Pick access point locations from the floor plan and run a cable to each. This is where Wi-Fi coverage gets decided.
Cameras and sensors on the plans
Put camera, door contact, motion detector, and leak sensor locations on the drawings so the cable is already there when the devices arrive.
A proper equipment room
Give the rack a cooled space with its own circuits and room to work. Conduit to the attic and the exterior gives future cable an easy path.
Plan your wiring with Interseckt
Interseckt has designed and installed home technology in South Florida for more than 25 years, across Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, and Collier counties, and in Nassau and the wider Bahamas. We hold a Florida low voltage license and HTA Estate Tier certification. We start at the plans stage, working with your architect, builder, and electrician, and we are not tied to any one brand, so the equipment is chosen to suit your house.
Tell us where your project stands. We will mark where cable belongs and where wireless makes more sense, and we will price it against your budget before the walls close.