Every camera KingsGuard installs is hard-wired. We run a cable to it, it's powered over that cable, and it sends video over that cable. We don't install Wi-Fi cameras, and we turn down jobs where the client insists on them.
That's an unusual position for a security company to state in public, so it deserves a proper explanation. The short version: a wireless camera is a camera that can be switched off from the sidewalk, and we're not willing to put our name on that.
Wireless cameras can be jammed
A Wi-Fi camera talks to your network over radio. Anything that talks over radio can be interfered with. Signal jammers that flood the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands are cheap, small, and easy to find online, and they're illegal to operate in Canada, which has not stopped them from turning up in break-ins. When a jammer is running, a Wi-Fi camera doesn't record anything; it simply loses its connection. The intruder walks in, and the camera's last frame is from the moment before they arrived.
A hard-wired camera doesn't care about radio. The only way to take it offline is to physically cut the cable, which means getting to it first, on camera.
Wireless cameras drop out on their own
Even without anyone trying to defeat them, Wi-Fi cameras are unreliable in the buildings we work in. Condo towers are full of concrete, steel, and hundreds of competing wireless networks. Construction sites have no Wi-Fi at all until the building is finished. Warehouses have metal racking that blocks signal. The result is cameras that go offline for hours at a time, and the gaps always seem to line up with the moment you needed the footage.
Power over Ethernet solves this. One cable carries both power and data, the connection doesn't fluctuate, and the camera stays online as long as the switch does.
Battery cameras are a maintenance job you didn't sign up for
The wireless cameras marketed to consumers usually run on batteries. That means someone has to climb a ladder every few months to swap or charge them, and in an Ontario winter the batteries last a fraction of what the box promises. A camera that's dead from December to March is not a security system.
Video on a shared network is a risk
A Wi-Fi camera puts video traffic on the same wireless network as everything else in the building. If that network is compromised, so is the video. We put cameras on their own wired VLAN, which keeps them separate from staff laptops and guest Wi-Fi, and, with Verkada, the video is encrypted at rest on the camera and in transit to the cloud.
"But wired costs more"
It does, up front. Running cable takes time, and we bill installation per camera to reflect it. But consider what you're buying. A wired camera installed today will still be recording in ten years, which is exactly how long Verkada warrants its hardware. A battery Wi-Fi camera will have been replaced two or three times, and it will have missed the one night that mattered.
Where cabling is impossible, there is a wired alternative for that too: Verkada's cellular cameras and our portable solar surveillance units use cellular data, which is far harder to jam than Wi-Fi, and they're built for sites with no infrastructure at all. That's how we cover construction sites and vacant properties.
What "hard-wired only" means for your project
It means we start with a site assessment, because we need to see where the cable runs. It means a single PoE switch in a secure room, not a scatter of plugs and chargers. It means every camera has a fixed location and a fixed view. And it means that when an incident happens, the footage is there.
If you're comparing quotes and one of them is much cheaper because it uses wireless cameras, you now know what the difference is buying you.
Want a system that stays on? Ask us about a hard-wired Verkada, Ajax, or recorder-based system for your building.
- Security Systems
- Wired vs Wireless
- PoE
- Verkada