CAT 7… Is it worth it?

I’ve taken to running a few more cables myself these days, Loxone were really pushing their CAT 7 at the last course I went on, so I thought i’d pick up a reel and see what all the fuss was about.

Why would you want to CAT 7? well according to Loxone the following reasons:

• It Works! well Loxone test everything with CAT7 cable, so if you want it guaranteed to work with all their shiny new devices, thats the choice to make.
• One Step Ahead! Well its the best thats out there at the moment, so its as future proofed as it can be.
• Greater Copper Cross Section, you can run longer lengths of cable with less voltage drop-offs, I won’t try and explain the science in as there are far better sites you can find the information on!
• Double Shielding, with the additional shielding its far more resilient to interference.

Well those were Loxone’s recommendations for using it, mine are far simpler! Its a lot easier to handle for a sausage fingered individual such as myself. The number of times i’ve broken the cores in a CAT5 or 6 cable when trying to connect up is embarassing, when i’ve used the CAT 7 cable i’ve not broken a single core yet. This means i dont get grumpy and throw my toys out of the pram which is also a big plus point for the wife.

As for cost, well its a little more expensive than CAT5 or 6 but you can feel the difference, 250 metres of that stuff weighs a ton, and when you see a CAT6 cable side by side with the CAT7 stuff you can understand why.

So there you have it, my review of CAT7.