How do we transmit CCTV footage from one building to another without running a cable?

If you’ve ever asked yourself that question, then this is the article for you.

Consider this scenario:- you have a number of buildings that you want to cover with CCTV, but some are quite a distance away, and there’s no pre-existing cabling between the two.

You could run cables between the two, but that would represent a seriously large investment, especially if you wanted the cable buried underground.

Thankfully, the solution is fairly simple — the wireless bridge.

There are a number of manufacturers and models available, and even the entry-level model claims a range of up to 1km — but there’s a couple of caveats that we want to make here.

1) We’ve never installed one at that distance, so we can’t comment on how reliable it is at longer distances — although there are models higher in the range that will cope with that sort of distance.

2) It does require a direct line-of-sight for it to work — as soon as another building gets in the way, you need to find another solution.

Setting up a bridge between 2 buildings is straightforward. Connect the camera, via the included PoE injector, to the transmitter unit. Connect the recorder, via the other included PoE injector, to the receiver unit. Mount them on the walls, pointing at each other, and that’s it, they’re good to go.

(In case you need to ask, PoE stands for Power Over Ethernet, it’s a method of using the data cabling to transmit power to a device, saving you from running a separate power cable).

It’s perfectly feasible, although a little harder to set up, to have multiple transmitters, all sending images to the same receiver.

If you’d like to know how much CCTV systems cost, we have a handy pricing tool on our website, and you can find that here.