Debate: old-school hardwired vs. wireless panels for reliability?

I've been installing for about 8 years and noticed that houses with hardwired systems from the early 2000s rarely have false alarms, but almost every wireless job I do ends up with a sensor dropout complaint within 6 months. What's been your experience with signal stability on these newer wireless setups?

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angelac634mo ago

Wait, what? Six months? That's insane. I've got a house from 2005 with a Honeywell hardwired panel and it's never had a single false alarm in all the years I've owned it. My buddy just put in a top-of-the-line wireless system a year ago and he's already replaced two motion sensors because they kept dropping signal on cold mornings. I honestly can't believe they sell these things as reliable.

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william_taylor4mo ago

Hardwired is the way to go and I will die on that hill. Got a 2003 house myself with a hardwired DSC system and the only time I had a false alarm was when a spider crawled into the glass break sensor. Took five minutes to blow it out with compressed air and it's been fine for five years since. Wireless stuff is just too dependent on batteries and signal strength. Cold mornings kill those little lithium cells faster than you'd think, especially if the sensor is mounted on an exterior wall with no insulation behind it. Told my brother the same thing when he was shopping for a system and he went hardwired too, no regrets after three years.

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