Wifi vs wired CCTV: which is right for your home?

It is the first question almost every homeowner asks us, and the honest answer is that it depends on far fewer things than most comparison articles suggest. Two, really: how many cameras you need, and whether the footage has to be there on the day something happens.

What a Wi-Fi camera actually is

A Wi-Fi camera is a small computer with a lens, a microSD card and a wireless radio. It records continuously to the card in its own body and streams to your phone over your home network. It needs a power socket nearby and a reasonable wireless signal, and that is the whole site requirement.

The consequences are all positive at small scale. Installation takes an afternoon. There is no ceiling work and no cable run back to a central recorder. If you move flat, the cameras come with you. For a two or three camera home this is not a compromise, it is simply the correct system.

Where Wi-Fi stops being the right answer

Every wireless camera holds an open connection to your router and uploads a burst of video whenever it detects motion. Three cameras are unremarkable. Six cameras on a builder-grade router in a long flat produce dropouts, and the dropouts happen at the far end of the flat, which is exactly where you most wanted a camera.

The second limit is what happens when the router reboots, the ISP has an outage, or someone in the household unplugs the wrong thing. Recording to the local card continues, which is good. Remote viewing does not, and neither does any notification. You find out afterwards.

What a wired system buys you

A wired IP PoE camera has a single network cable running back to a recorder. That cable carries power and video. There is no wireless link to congest, no router in the path, and no dependency on your internet connection for recording to continue.

The recorder itself holds a surveillance-grade hard disk sized for sixty days of continuous footage. Nothing is dependent on a microSD card that may have quietly failed eight months ago.

The rule of thumb we actually use

• One to four cameras, existing router, no ceiling access: Wi-Fi.
• Five or more cameras: wired, every time.
• Renting, or drilling is restricted: Wi-Fi.
• The footage may be needed as evidence: wired.
• Outdoor perimeter, long runs, no mains power nearby: solar and 4G.

The failure mode we see most often is a homeowner who started with two Wi-Fi cameras, liked them, and added four more over two years. The system does not fail cleanly. It gets slower, drops the occasional clip, and nobody notices until the day it matters. If you already know you are heading for five cameras, run the cable at the start.