Had to choose between wired and wireless sensors for a 1970s house last week

The owner wanted all wireless to keep it clean, but the plaster walls were so thick the signal kept dropping on my first test sensor. I ended up running wires to the main zones and using wireless only for the windows, which made the install take 7 hours instead of 4. Anyone else deal with old walls messing up their wireless range on a job?

2 comments

2 Comments

jennifersmith5d ago

My neighbor's 1890 farmhouse needed three repeaters just to keep the doorbell working, but @the_spencer would probably say that's still faster than wiring.

the_spencer5d ago

Bro come on. You gave up too quick on the wireless. I've done a ton of old houses and you just gotta pick the right gear. Z-wave plus a good repeater right in the hallway fixes most range issues. Or bump up to a commercial grade system like Alarm.com's sensors that have a longer range than the cheap stuff. Plaster sucks for signal but wiring everything is way more work than it needs to be. You should have just added one or two extra wireless repeaters instead of running all that wire.