Hardwired vs wireless panels for old houses: what did you pick?

I had a house up in Portsmouth that was built in 1923 and the walls were a MESS of plaster and lath. I was torn between going with a hardwired panel like a Vista or just using a wireless system from Qolsys. The hardwired route felt more reliable but fishing wires through that old insulation was going to take 2 extra days. I ended up going wireless with the Qolsys IQ4 because of the time savings. It worked fine for the most part but I had some range issues with the door contacts on the third floor. Now I'm wondering if the extra time for hardwiring would have been worth it. Has anyone else dealt with tough plaster walls and which way did you lean?

3 comments

3 Comments

ray_miller4112d ago

Did those third floor contacts drop out often enough to make you regret skipping the hardwire?

andrew_rodriguez12d ago

Tbh yeah they dropped out a decent amount. Not like every minute or anything but enough that I had to keep an eye on it during longer calls. I don't fully regret skipping the hardwire cause the flexibility was worth it for me, but man those few dropouts were annoying.

sage_ramirez4212d ago

Hardwired a couple of drops in my old place and it was night and day for stability. Picked up a cheap powerline adapter that used the existing wiring and it solved the dropout issues completely. Might be worth looking into if the flexibility of wifi matters but you still want something more reliable.