PoE or Wi-Fi: which is right for your building?

PoE runs power and video down one network cable. Wi-Fi cameras still need power at the camera, so "wireless" only ever means half wireless.

Choose PoE when you can run cable: a house under construction, an office with a ceiling void, a shop where the run is short. It is more reliable, it does not compete with your internet for bandwidth, and the recorder powers the cameras, so one UPS keeps the whole system alive through a cut.

Choose Wi-Fi when cable is genuinely impossible — a rented flat, a heritage wall, a gate a long way from the house — and accept that the picture is only as steady as the signal at the far end.

The mistake we see most often is a Wi-Fi camera at the boundary wall, two concrete walls away from the router, recording nothing for weeks because nobody checked the signal after the installer left.

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