What you need to know about AV wall plates before installation
AV wall plates are one of the most helpful additions you can have for your AV installation. Before you decide whether you want to utilise them in your set-up, it is important to know the specific areas where they can help the most. Take a look at our guide to see exactly how an AV wall plate can help you out.
Keeping things tidy
This is one of the most overlooked aspects of AV installation. Keeping things tidy is vitally important. Firstly, keeping your cables tidy will make sure that you do not have any trouble when it comes to cable damage. Twisting and bending cables can cause internal breakages, which can lead to loose connections and eventually stop the cables from working altogether. An AV wall plate removes this problem because it allows you to choose a plate that has the cables attached. These cables then run through the insides of your walls and will not be left to twist and tangle behind your devices.
Keeping things tidy can also apply to covering over any holes that you might have made in order to push through cables. For this, you can use a simple brush wall plate to cover the hole, but still allow the cables to come through for you to use them. This does not require any electrical knowledge to install and is a very useful aesthetic addition.
Access in awkward places
If you are installing a projector system, then an AV wall plate is a very useful addition to your installation. Projectors are often installed on the ceiling, meaning that trailing wires to and from devices could be inevitable. Using AV wall plates means that you can bring all of the different input sockets you need much closer to the projector. This limits how far any cables will have to travel and ensures that you can reduce the risk associated with trailing wires.
It also means that you can offer networking access in awkward places. For example, if your home does not have Wi-Fi access in certain areas, an AV wall plate will allow you to offer wired internet access to this area quite easily. You could even connect a wireless router to it to create a Wi-Fi hotspot in a room that does not normally have access.
Not just for schools
A lot of people think that AV wall plates are just for use in schools. However, this is not the case. AV wall plates can be used in almost any environment. They are extremely useful for educational facilities, but on top of this, they can also be used in both commercial and residential buildings. As previously mentioned, AV wall plates ensure that the areas around media sources are much tidier. This can apply to any commercial building that has wall-mounted televisions as part of its display. In the home, this will obviously be applied to any devices that the homeowners use to consume media. As such, AV wall plates can be used anywhere that features a media source.