Is Wireless the Future of Alarm Systems?

Not a day goes by that our clients don’t ask for advice on how to choose an alarm instal­la­tion. Hard­wired or wire­less alarm. To be clear, the focus here is not just on cel­lu­lar trans­mit­ters, but about whether the secu­ri­ty devices in your build­ing should be done the con­ven­tion­al way, with wiring, or with the new­er wire­less devices.

Just like with many things the answer is not always a sim­ple one… both have their own strengths. Here are a few things to con­sid­er when mak­ing a deci­sion.

Ben­e­fits of Wire­less:

1) Ease of instal­la­tion
Wire­less devices are gen­er­al­ly sim­ple to install and do not require much surgery on your build­ing, besides a lit­tle sil­i­cone or small screws to mount the device. Con­se­quent­ly less need for wall repairs or paint­ing after an instal­la­tion. Sim­pler instal­la­tion means eas­i­er more pre­dictable cost esti­ma­tions. Instal­la­tion costs become flat rates when the vari­able of time required to install devices is removed.

2) Time
The instal­la­tion time required is sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduced, what may have been an entire day or more for instal­la­tion of a sys­tem could be reduced to a few hours. The result is less down time and lost pro­duc­tiv­i­ty.

3) Lat­est tech­nol­o­gy
The most R & D is going into wire­less tech­nol­o­gy, if you are look­ing for the lat­est fea­tures and advance­ments you will find them in wire­less devices. Honeywell’s lat­est plat­form the “Lyric” now includes ‘the inter­net of things’ for ulti­mate report­ing and smart “learn­ing” devices. If you want a sys­tem that adapts to your lifestyle and rou­tines, wire­less is the way to go. New Hon­ey­well “Lyric” devices will learn when to acti­vate and de-acti­vate or change set­tings based on your pat­terns. With new Geo-fenc­ing tech­nol­o­gy your devices can work for you based on your loca­tion, using the loca­tion ser­vices from your phone.

4) Inter­con­nec­tiv­i­ty
The newest gen­er­a­tion of wire­less devices can com­mu­ni­cate with each oth­er, offer diag­nos­tic assis­tance when there are prob­lems and even send mes­sages to pre­vent bat­tery fail­ure. Com­mu­ni­ca­tion between devices from every­thing from ther­mostats to mobile phones sim­pli­fies con­trols.

5) Secure com­mu­ni­ca­tions
Wire­less is not sus­cep­ti­ble to “line cut” mak­ing the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of com­mu­ni­ca­tion fail­ure much less like­ly.

Ben­e­fits of Wired

1) Reli­a­bil­i­ty
In many cas­es wired devices are sim­pler tech­nol­o­gy, with few­er parts. Con­se­quent­ly there is “less to go wrong” in the long haul. Because wired devices get their pow­er from the con­trol pan­el there is no need for bat­ter­ies in each device. Thus in the years ahead there will be no need to mon­i­tor or pay for bat­tery changes in all the devices.

2) Com­pat­i­bil­i­ty
With many secu­ri­ty devices, a wired device such as Motion detec­tor, is not pro­pri­etary and will work across var­i­ous con­trol plat­forms. This can save costs when upgrad­ing or switch­ing con­trols. In many cas­es many few­er devices need to be changed or upgrad­ed when mak­ing a change of brand or sup­pli­er.

3) Cost
In many cas­es wired devices can be much cheap­er to pur­chase and install. This can be attrib­uted to the sim­plic­i­ty of the devices, and to the vast com­pe­ti­tion from sup­pli­ers. Because many of the devices are not pro­pri­etary the sup­ply can come from many com­peti­tors, dri­ving down the cost.

4) Few­er size lim­i­ta­tions
While wire­less has com­mu­ni­ca­tion lim­i­ta­tions based on dis­tances, type of build­ing mate­ri­als, and inter­fer­ence. Wired devices are in many cas­es almost unlim­it­ed in dis­tance, as long as a cable can be run. Con­se­quent­ly in large con­struc­tion, large sys­tems, or severe ser­vice set­tings, wired is still the choice of experts.

5) Secure Com­mu­ni­ca­tions
The flex­i­bil­i­ty of wired sys­tems means wire­less com­mu­ni­ca­tors can be added to wired sys­tems for pri­ma­ry com­mu­ni­ca­tions or as a back­up to line cut. The abil­i­ty to have mul­ti­ple paths of com­mu­ni­ca­tion pro­tects against var­i­ous vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties.

In the end, the right answer will depend on the var­i­ous fac­tors of your appli­ca­tion. An expe­ri­enced secu­ri­ty con­sul­tant can point you in the right direc­tion. You may be relieved to hear that you may not have to choose between one or the oth­er, per­haps a hybrid solu­tion will be what works for you, allow­ing you to get the best of both worlds!