Wired or Wireless Security Cameras: Which Is Better?

There are really three options being argued about here, not two, and lumping the last two together is where most of the confusion comes from.

• Wired. One Cat6 cable per camera carrying both power and video back to a recorder.
• Wifi. Video over your home wifi, power from a nearby plug. Still needs a cable, just a different one.
• Battery. No cables at all. Records in short clips triggered by motion, and needs recharging.

Why wired is the default

A wired camera has one cable doing everything. The power comes down the same Cat6 as the video, so there is no plugpack in the roof to fail and no separate power supply to find when something stops working. It records continuously if you want it to, at full resolution and full frame rate, because it is not rationing battery or bandwidth.

It also does not care about your wifi. On a house full of phones, tablets, a TV and a couple of laptops, wifi congestion is real, and video is the first thing to suffer. A wired camera keeps recording at full quality even when the network is busy, and keeps recording when the internet drops out entirely.

The cost of all this is the install. Running Cat6 through a roof space, down a cavity and out behind a camera bracket takes time and it is the bulk of what you pay for. It is also the part that lasts fifteen years.

Where wifi cameras fall down

Wifi cameras are sold as the easy option and they can be, indoors, near the router. Outdoors on a brick house they are a different proposition.

Brick, rendered walls and a tiled roof all cut wifi signal hard, and the far corner of a house is often the worst spot in the building for reception. A camera at two bars will drop frames, freeze during the exact moment you needed it, and come back once whatever happened is over. It is not a fault, it is physics.

Then there is power. Nearly every wifi camera needs a plugpack, so unless there is an external power point exactly where you want the camera, an electrician has to add one. By the time you have paid for that, the wired install often costs the same or less and works better.

Battery cameras: what they are actually good at

Battery cameras do one thing well. They go up in minutes, anywhere, with no cable and no holes worth mentioning, which makes them genuinely useful in a rental, on a temporary site, or in a position where cable cannot be run at all.

What they do not do is record continuously. To make the battery last they sit asleep until motion wakes them, which takes a second or two, and by then somebody walking briskly is already halfway across the frame. Most of the battery camera footage we get shown starts with the back of a person leaving.

Battery life claims assume a quiet position. Put one on a driveway facing a street in Brisbane and it will trigger dozens of times a day, and the six month claim becomes three or four weeks. Each recharge is a ladder, a removal and a few hours offline.

Recording and retention

This is the difference people find out about later. A wired system records to a surveillance drive in your own house and holds weeks of continuous footage with no subscription. You own the recordings, you can export a clip to a USB stick, and nobody can switch the service off.

Most wireless cameras record short motion clips, often to a cloud service with a monthly fee, and often with a retention period of a week or two on the cheaper plans. If the account lapses or the company changes the plan, the footage arrangement changes with it. Some store to a card in the camera instead, which works until somebody takes the camera.

Night vision

Continuous power makes a real difference after dark. Wired cameras can run strong infrared, or a low light colour sensor, or a white light that triggers on a person, because there is no battery to protect. Battery cameras keep their infrared conservative to preserve charge, so the useful range at night is shorter than the spec sheet suggests.

The sensible mix

Most of the jobs where we end up recommending wireless are partial. Wired cameras on the four or five positions that matter, and one battery camera on the spot where a cable would mean lifting a tiled roof or trenching a driveway. That gets you a reliable core system without paying an unreasonable amount for one awkward position.

If you are renting, wireless is usually the only practical answer, and that is fine. Just buy one that records locally to a card as well as the cloud, and know its limitations rather than finding them out during an incident.

For an idea of what the wired route costs on a standard house, see our Brisbane installation cost guide, and how many cameras you need for working out the positions first.

Common questions

Are wireless cameras really wireless?

The video is wireless. The power usually is not. Most wifi cameras still need a plug, which means a power point near every camera position. Battery cameras are the only truly cable free option, and they trade recording performance for it.

How long do battery cameras actually last?

Manufacturer claims of six months assume a handful of events a day. On a front driveway facing a street, expect weeks rather than months. Every recharge is a ladder trip.

Will wifi cameras work if my internet drops out?

Local recording keeps working if the camera records to a card or a local recorder. Cloud only cameras stop recording entirely when the connection drops, which is worth knowing before you rely on one.

Can I mix wired and wireless?

Yes, and it is often the sensible answer. Wired for the permanent positions that matter, one battery camera for the spot where running cable is genuinely impractical.