real basic stuff

lenslizard

lenslizard

n3wb
Apr 14, 2025
3
2
United States
I know nothing about this. I hope to have security cams and lighting around my house and a way to open my door remotely. I think these could all communicate over wifi with some kind of app.

I'm about to have the roof off my house, down to bare rafters. This would be a good time to run any wires, especially for outdoor lights/cameras. Do I just need to run standard electricity? No need for ethernet or coax, etc.? Or low-voltage power?
 
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OK, this is a 1.5 story house - steepish roof comes down to the first floor, narrow second floor wedged under. So it's got crawl spaces down each side above the first floor. So, I could get down there later, but easier while I have the roof off.

I'm definitely not a big budget guy. Prolly even a low budget guy. Maybe too low, lol. And def too old to be crawling in attics.

Ethernet is prolly easy - at least to the point of laying the wiring out and leaving a tail dangling out a hole the eave where I want a camera. I'll already be there installing electrical outlets and lights around the house. LOL, not a wiring guy either, but IIRC, Ethernet just uses rj45 connectors and there are all kinds of tees and splitters available. At rough in, I could just daisy chain a line from one eave hole to the next, two ends hanging out each, and let someone come hook it all up later?
 
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The problem with cameras much above 7-8 feet is you lose all of the IDENTIFY distance in the vertical.

A camera 15 feet high will get tops of heads and hoodies, but not the face. That height makes a good overview though.
 
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lenslizard said:
At rough in, I could just daisy chain a line from one eave hole to the next, two ends hanging out each, and let someone come hook it all up later?
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The answer is no.

Each POE camera requires one CAT-5 line back to a POE switch. i.e. one cable per camera.

Some run one CAT-5 line from a central location back to their main POE switch. Then at the far end of the run they add a remote POE switch. That remote switch requires power and thus that needs to be addressed.

If it is an 8 port POE remote switch with an uplink port, then one can run eight POE cameras from that remote switch provided the switch can supply sufficient power for the connected cameras.

The advantage, is that only one CAT-5 cable is needed to reach your main POE switch and not eight lines. The disadvantage, it is one more point of failure or if the power goes out that set of cameras will be off line as the remote POE switch does not have a backup UPS.

Some have also used a two port POE powered remote switch. Two cameras into the remote switch with one line back to the main POE switch. i.e. three RJ-45 connections - two for the POE cameras and one for the run back to the main POE switch. Note: this switch uses power from the main POE switch to operate and does not require a separate line for power.
 
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lenslizard said:
I know nothing about this. I hope to have security cams and lighting around my house and a way to open my door remotely. I think these could all communicate over wifi with some kind of app.

I'm about to have the roof off my house, down to bare rafters. This would be a good time to run any wires, especially for outdoor lights/cameras. Do I just need to run standard electricity? No need for ethernet or coax, etc.? Or low-voltage power?
Click to expand...

Not only is WiFi a really bad way to transfer data for CCTV cameras, you would still need to provide power to those camera. It is MUCH easier to simply run a network cable to each camera location and use cameras that support POE (power over ethernet). This way you both hardwire the data transfer and provide power to the camera over a single wire. Plus, the wiring regulations for low voltage network cabling is MUCH less stringent than running regular power. So it will be both easier and cheaper to run ethernet and utilize POE for your cameras than it would be to have to run normal 120v power through your attic.

Honestly it is a Win-Win to use ethernet to your cameras for all of these reasons.
 
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+1^^ going wired with Ethernet/POE.

I might also add that regarding the CAT-5e or 6 cable, insure you use solid (not stranded) copper (not CCA/Copper Clad Aluminum) with a jacket rated for the appliaction which in this case would likely be CMR (Riser) for use in-wall, ceilings, floors, between floors, crawl spaces and attics. You can in a pinch use the more expensive CMP (Plenum) where Riser is warranted but not the other way around....no R to be used where P is required.

Lastly, I recommend using the thicker 23AWG CAT-6 if possible in any instance where a large power budget POE device is located an excessive distance (but not beyond the max of 100m/328 ft.) from the POE source.
 
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FYI - remember, I prefer to wire N+1+ quality cat5e/6 cables awg 25 or 26 to each location I plan to use.

This way I always have one extra cable run, for testing, for swapping, for another PoE device ( camera ), as when you start out the major costs are the labor for the run not the cable and often I find there is just one more camera I wanted on a corner or front of the house to capture the street or faces of thieves
 
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