This article will help you to decide which system is best suited to your needs.
Introduction
As you should know, all alarm systems comprise:
- A control Panel
- One or more detectors
- One or more signalling devices - usually an external sounder
The way the above components are connected is either by physical cables (Hard-wired) or Wireless (aka wirefree, radio, RF). Hybrid systems use a combination of the two types.
Each type has its advantages and disadvantages as follows.
Hard-wired
Hard-wired systems use multi-core colour-coded sheathed cable - normally 6 cores, to connect the components together. For the amateur installer, the simplest way is to run individual cables from each detector and signalling device back to the control panel. More experienced installers often use 8 or 12 core cable to carry more than one detector zone back to the control panel, resulting in a tidier installation.
Advantages
Hard-wired systems are more secure and more reliable than wireless systems. Hard-wired systems are also considerably cheaper from the component point of view, but bear in mind the labour involved in fitting the system. In an ideal world, the cabling would be fitting at the 'first fix' stage of building the property, and of course many new-build properties are pre-wired for alarm systems.
The other big advantage of hard wired systems is their versatility; with wireless systems you are constrained as to the devices that can be
connected to the system, that is you can only use devices that are designed for use with that system. For example, the popular Powermax system will only work with 'powercode' devices on the same frequency. Whereas with Hard-wired systems, any hard wired detectors sounders etc. can be connected, which allows for a large range of detectors etc to be connected.
Disadvantages
The main,and probably the only, disadvantage is in the ease and tidiness of the installation. It can be difficult to route and hide the cables, although with good planning very tidy installations can be achieved.
Wireless
Wireless systems use a narrowband radio frequency to communicate between the various alarm components. There are two major frequency bands in current UK use - 433Mhz and 868Mhz. More modern systems now use the 868Mhz frequency, but 433MHz is still in widespread use. The 433Mhz band has a slightly longer range than the 868MHz but the 433MHz band is cluttered with other devices, whereas the 868MHz is almost solely used for alarm systems.
Advantages
The big advantage with wireless systems is their ease of installation, for example, the Powermax Quick fit kit can be fitted in 2 hours or less.
Another advantage is that the alarm system can be taken with you when you move house with minimum disruption.
Also, adding extra detectors to the systyem is very simple - the new detector is simply 'learnt' into the system.
Disadvantages
Unfortunately, there are several disadvantages with wireless systems:
- They are relatively expensive - wireless alarm systems typically cost two to three times that of hard-wired alarm systems.
- Wireless alarm systems are not as secure as hard-wired systems - wireless systems cannot achieve a security grading above 2. But note that this is not ususally a problem in domestic properties where grade 2 is ususlly sufficient. Click or more information on Security Grades.
- The detectors and other devices rely on batteries for power which have to be replaced after approximately 2 years.
- There can be reliability problems particularly with some cheap imported wireless alarm kits. The wireless alarm equipment we supply is all fully-supervised; i.e. there is a constant two-way communication between the control panel and the detector.
- The range of detectors is limited to detectors from a particular manufacture on that frequency.
Hybrid Alarm Systems
Hybrid alarm systems attempt to provide the best of both hard-wired and wireless systems. Note that the majority of wireless alarm systems have provision for connecting hard-wired detectors. For example the Powermax System has two hard-wired zones available. However these are not true 'Hybrid' systems.
A true Hybrid alarm system comprises a Hard-wired control panel with a wireless expander. An example of such a system is the Scantronic Homelink 55 system, which consists of a conventional hard-wired Scantronic 9751 control panel and Scantronic RF16 wireless expander. Any hard-wired devices can be connected to the 9751 control panel and any of the devices in the Homelink 55 section can be used with the RF16 expander.
It should also be noted that it is possible to add a wireless expansion to an existing hard-wired system with the use of a wireless expander such as the Powermax Plus MCR304 Receiver. This unit can accept up to 10 wireless devices and provides a single hard-wired output for connection into an available zone on a hard-wired control panel.
Where Next?
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