Favorite Wireless Video Surveillance 2014

We surveyed 120 integrators asking them "What, if any, is your favorite wireless system to use with video surveillance? Why?"

5 manufacturers stood out, with 1 interesting rising company who did not make our 2011 ranking.

In this note, we examine whom these manufacturers are and the reasons integrators gave for choosing them.

Lots Still Not Using

~30% of respondents said they did not use any wireless or used it so infrequently they had no real favorite. This 'beat' any individual manufacturer.

Ubiquiti

Like 2011, Ubiquiti received far more votes than any other manufacturer, at ~27%, coming in 3x higher than any other competitor.

The reasons centered around solid quality at low price, with integrators saying:

• "Cheap and easy to deploy."
• "Cost effective and pretty darn reliable"
• "The bandwidth we require is achieved easily and economically and the equipment is user friendly and dependable."
• "Solid, reliable, inexpensive"
• "Ubiquity is great value for the price. They have many models to choose from, is easy to setup and have performed well under bandwidth stress and adverse conditions."

There were many other comments, but the themes were very similar in each.

Engenius

Engenius, a brand of a Taiwanese company, made headway and cracked the second tier of integrator favorites.

Integrators choose Engenius for similar reasons as Ubiquiti:

• "priced right and I have had good luck with them"
• "It works and our cost is <$90"
• "Never had a product failure that wasn't caused by improper installation or configuration."
• "Very inexpensive (~ $200 for a short link). Reliable - zero failures in five years."

One integrator even asked, "Are these basically the same ? But branded differently I wonder?" They are different companies but Engenius is evidently doing a decent job of providing an Ubiquiti alternative.

Fluidmesh and Firetide - Higher End / Larger Scale

The two 'premium' marketed wireless video surveillance manufacturers came in around the same level as each other and Engenius. Both companies were disproportionately selected by integrators specializing in larger camera projects. For instance, no integrator averaging 32 cameras or less in our survey choose either of them. However, for integrators averaging more than 32, they both beat Ubiquiti and Engenius.

Cisco

Cisco camera in fifth, with the main theme from integrators was that it was because they are Cisco. One comment that sums this up, "Cisco simply because we are a Cisco partner. We have the personnel with expertise on Cisco technologies."

Other Manufacturers

A number of manufacturers got 1 or 2 votes, such as Avalan, Comnet, KBC and more prosumer focused offering like D-Link and Netgear. However, none of them had enough support or detailed recommendations to justify more coverage here.