Hot take: A job in a new condo building made me stop using wireless sensors for main doors

I was doing a full install in one of those big glass and steel condo towers going up in downtown Seattle. The place had over 200 units, and the spec called for wireless contacts on every entry door for speed. About six months after we finished, the property manager called me back because a dozen units on the south side were having false alarms. Turns out, the building's steel frame and the sheer number of competing Wi-Fi and Bluetooth signals from all the residents were causing intermittent signal loss. We ended up having to go back and hardwire every single one of those door contacts, which took a crew of three guys a full week. It was a huge lesson in environment over convenience. Now for any multi-unit residential job, I always push for a hardwired loop for the main entry points from the start. Has anyone else run into this kind of RF interference in dense buildings?

3 comments

3 Comments

charles_mitchell1mo ago

Try using shielded cable runs next time.

avery_ross1mo ago

Yeah, that's a brutal lesson learned the hard way.

the_jennifer1mo ago

But what if the cable wasn't the real problem? Sometimes the issue is with the termination points, not the run itself. I've seen that happen a lot.