Guides
Upgrading old CCTV while keeping the cable in the wall
Usually, yes. Sound coaxial cable carries modern analogue cameras up to 5MP, so swapping cameras and recorder while reusing the runs — the costliest part of the original job — often lifts an old blurry system to sharp footage for roughly half the price of starting again. Every run gets tested first.
Last reviewed
The cable is where the money went
On most installs the cameras were the cheap part; the labour of routing cable through a finished house or a plaza ceiling was the expensive one. That is exactly why upgrades can be economical here — in a marble-floored sector house or a tiled plaza office, re-running cable means opening finishes that cost more to restore than the cameras themselves. If the old runs test clean, keep them.
Test first, promise second
Old cable is not automatically good cable. Monsoon seasons corrode unsealed joints, renovations crush runs behind new cabinets, and cheap coax goes brittle after a decade in a hot roof space. We meter every run at the survey and mark each pass or fail on the plan; the runs that fail get replaced, the rest are reused. Promising reuse without testing is how upgrades turn into call-backs.
Hybrid recorders and the storage catch
A hybrid recorder accepts the old analogue cameras and new IP ones together, so you can spend on high resolution only where identification matters — typically the entrance and the counter — and keep the rest. One catch bites almost everyone: sharper cameras write more data, so the same drive suddenly holds fewer days. Price the bigger drive into the upgrade, or the retention quietly shrinks from thirty days to twelve.
Can I upgrade my CCTV without rewiring everything?
What does an upgrade cost compared with a new system?
With reusable cable, typically 40–60 percent of a fresh install for the same camera count. Where cabling has failed, a new 4-camera package at PKR 55,000–85,000 is often the more honest quote.
Will my phone app change after the upgrade?
If the recorder brand changes, yes — we set the new app up on your phones at handover and remove the old one, so the switch happens in one visit.
Rather have it done?
CCTV installation means a free survey of your shop, office or home, a camera plan that covers gates, counters and blind corners, cabling run through conduit, a recorder sized for the days of footage you want, and phone viewing working before handover. A four-camera 2MP package in Islamabad or Rawalpindi runs PKR 55,000 to 85,000 fitted.
CCTV installation in Islamabad — prices and scope