Wireless is only for retrofits. Think batteries.

Good point David. Does hard wiring have a backup battery in case you lose power?

You can go wireless (cellular) for the phone line to the central alarm office, so that thieves can't cut your phone line and prevent the alarm signal from going to alarm switchboard or police.

"Does hard wiring have a backup battery in case you lose power?"

Yes for smoke detectors.

The batteries normally die of old age every few years.

brickeyee misses the boat a touch. I've fooled mostly with Ademco/Honeywell at my house, but it has a 12V sealed lead acid battery in the panel (think of a small version of a car battery). You'll probably have this regardless of wired/wireless sensors. It keeps the panel running for a time when the power goes out.

Wired sensors run off AC via a power supply in the panel, and the battery if AC goes off. Wireless sensors each have their own battery in addition to this. For a wired system, contacts at doors windows are just switches and don't use any power. Other devices (motion, smoke, etc) do.

We have mix of the two- wireless for the original alarm, wired that I added when we remodeled. The wireless ones have been more of a pain (alarm starts to behave odd when battery on motion detector runs low). But I did have a few recessed contacts that were messed up between when I put them in and when all the finish work was done. Replacing those took some effort.

Whether you then have a wired or wireless (cellular) connection to central station monitoring is another thing entirely.

To me it is a no brainer, I would have wires ran weather or not I used them or not.

I will be running cat6 cabling throughout our house also even though a lot of our devices are wireless.

Just my thoughts

Aesthetics is another consideration. I had no idea, but hardwired door contacts (and maybe even window contacts) can be concealed in your jambs. Whereas wireless contacts are stuck onto the doors or windows. Not an eyesore, but certainly not invisible either.

There is a big cost difference between the two. It also seems that the wireless can be expanded in the future but with wired, you are stuck with old technology. Maybe I am missing something.

let me add another reason to NOT go wireless.

The wireless window ones are glued/sticky taped on the window. A friend of mine who is a state police office told me they see a lot of burglaries where the robber uses a glass cutter to cut a small hole in the window, then lifts the wireless transmitter out intact so it wont go off. Then they simply unlock the window and go in.

I had wireless in my old house, when he saw it he gave me lots of details on why they are bad.

I interviewed 2 security camera system guys.
Both claim to have done installs for police depts.
The one guy insisted on stuff I didn't want and wouldn't price the stuff I did want ( a security camera)
the second guy came in at over $2000 for just 1 camera (a bullet outdoor camera worth only $60!), monitor and video storage system.

Neither of these guys recommends wireless.

Maybe consider your budget and make some calls. I was disappointed with the prices.

Hi,

I think one thing to check is what ever system you install, if this is a new build, then just check with your building inspector to see if it will past code. I know that some smoke systems, even from ADT are not code compatible.

In my case the ADT smoke alarm volume was not loud enough...
That may since have been fixed though. I built 6 years ago.

best, Mike.