Drawing power from wall outlets from within the wall

[Atreyo Bhattacharjee]

I tried searching if this was possible, but either my wording was bad, or there is nothing out there, because I couldn't find an answer.

Is it possible/safe to connect wiring from the back of an installed wall outlet, and route the wiring around within the wall, to power wall mounted cameras, or other smart home devices? Basically, I want to access power from anywhere on a wall, without wasting an outlet, or having visible cables (so to keep all wiring everything in the walls)?

If it is possible, could you point me to a resource where I can learn how to? I couldn't find anything from my searches.

 

[Solandri]

Is it possible? Of course.

Is it safe? Probably not unless you're an electrician.

I dunno what country you're in, but the U.S. requires in-wall wiring to be done by a licensed electrician because too many people were dying in electrical fires. If a power strip catches fire, you see it, scream, and either put it out or run out of the house. If the wiring inside your wall catches fire, you often don't notice until the fire has spread enough that you're cut off from several routes to exit the house.

In the case of a camera, see if you can power it with PoE (power over ethernet). Most cameras will have a network cable going to it anyway. PoE allows you to send both power and data over that network cable (which can be safely run inside the walls). The PoE AC adapter converts the dangerous 110V or 220V AC power into relatively safe 24V or 48V DC for transmission.