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CCTV » Upgrading an Apartment Intercom System without recabling

How to replace an Apartment Intercom System without upgrading or using the existing cables.

Apartment living (or any multi-tenant dwelling) is becoming more popular as the price of housing becomes unaffordable or travelling long distance from an affordable suburb to your place of work is not an option. 

Intercom upgrades without recabling

COVID has necessitated spending more time working from home or being at home.

Apartment buildings usually control access to the facilites with intercom systems allowing the visitor to request access from a tenant or local staff.  These intercoms may have differing technologies such as voice calls, video calls, card reader technology and pincode access. Visitors can either call a resident or attendant for remote access permission or access through local permission via card reader / pincode. 

Many older apartment buildings 10+ years old have intercom and access control systems that are failing or spares are becoming difficult to source. We often receive calls from body corporates or tenants looking for replacement parts or repair.  A faulty handset in one apartment degrades the whole system especially if the handset is no longer available.

The cabling system used by these systems often included coaxial cable for video (analogue) and multicore cable for power, voice and signalling. Voice only systems used multi-core cable for voice, power, and control. The cable looms are often quite large and complicated and were installed as the building was being constructed.  Trying to replace these cables now is often difficult due to cost or access issues, leaving apartment body corporates with an expensive mess to fix.  The biggest cost of any access control system is always the cable infrastructure upgrade and labour.

There are intercom and access control systems that use IP over 2-wire technology allowing a new system to use the existing cabling.  While this sounds straight forward, in reality there may be many amplifiers, power supplies, junction boxes, and connector blocks which need to be removed or replaced.  Additional issues may be the diameter of the cables (copper core), noise on the wiring due to joints, nearby motors (airconditioning plant, elevators, electrical wiring), identifying and documenting the existing cabling infrastructure and new interconnections on completion, and ongoing support of a modified system.

Further issues may be around integrating into an existing elevator control system or other building management systems. And because of poor access to cable, any damage sustained before or during retrofit may require new cable sections to be run (usually in external conduit) further adding to the cost.  All of this is time and materials which greatly inflates the cost of the system upgrade.  Ongoing support may be a significant issue in cost or time as you are locked in to the installer and their processes for the life of the system.

There is a way around these issues, that can provide state of the art video intercom and access control with card reader technolgy without recabling the building.  The answer is mobile broadband or 3G/4G (LTE) mobile phone networks.  These systems utilise the mobile network as either mobile broadband (IP data) or standard mobile calls to communicate with apartments or attendant / concierge.  They also provide integration to existing systems over the same network or utilising the existing cables for Weigand or RS485 networks.

These systems can be as simple as calling a phone (fixed or mobile) to full video systems that have video touch screens in each apartment and use the internet for intercom calls – no cables!

Further benefit for body corporates is that each apartment can have the technology they desire e.g. call to mobile, call to audio only handset, call to video touch screen (or multiples), and calls to mobile App when apartment unattended.  In this scenario the body corporate is responsible for shared infrastructure (door station and 4G SIM / Internet connection) and the apartments are responsible for the apartment equipment.  The whole system is managed through a cloud service making adds – changes – deletes very easy.

There are a number of different types of system and each has advantages and features for users. Please contact us to discuss your requirements.

 

Mobile Telephony Based Systems

These systems use traditional mobile calls to contact Apartments, concierge, attendant, kitchen, etc.  Phone numbers are programmed in for each end point and most of these systems allow multiple numbers to be programmed for the same end point.  Being phone numbers means that they could be mobile phones, or room phone numbers. The door may be opened in the call or preauthorised numbers can call the door station to open the door / gate.  These systems tend to be audio only and are a quick and easy upgrade for an ailing audio intercom and access control system.

There is a video option that also supports phone calls.  The video option is via an app on a smartphone.

Mobile based voice only systems are an easy and cost effective way to replace an intercom system.  They work well with elderly or those who do not like technology due to the calling method via the telephone.  There are no Apps or video screens and the system is quickly adopted.  

The systems below are currently sold and supported by us.  Each system can be viewed by clicking on the image or title where there is more information available including data sheets.  You may also contact us to discuss relevant to your own situation.

4G (LTE) Door Stations

Mobile Data Based Systems

Mobile broadband provides the speed and capacity in modern networks to stream video in realtime.  These systems are capable of high data throughput and use IP rather than telephone calls to communicate to end points.  Typical endpoints may be a mobile App on mobile phone or tablet, a purpose built video endpoint device, or even SIP devices or SIP servers.  Being mobile broadband based IP devices they can send commands to networked IP systems such as building management systems and application servers. 

Akuvox R29C-LTE-SM Smart SIP Video intercom, with Facial Recognition, LTE (4G), with surface mountThese systems are managed via a central server giving full control from anywhere with access to the internet.  Management of the door station and the endpoints is through the same service and monthly subscription charges do apply.  These can be apportioned to each apartment which is a good option for body corporate management in comparison to the large capital expenditure required for new cable infrastructure.  Another benefit for body corporate management is that any owner who does not want the system does then incur a large bill for unwanted infrastructure works and can easily be added at a later date.

Each apartment requires an answering unit or an App can be downloaded to mobile phone or tablet device.  

Akuvox have an LTE solution that can be managed in the cloud and uses apartment internet and 4G / LTE or internet for the door stations.  Answering units are connected to the internet and registered with the Cloud service.  

Akuvox LTE

Akuvox Answering Units

In Conclusion

Apartment intercom and access control upgrades can be a costly exercise.  Where a body corporate is tasked with overseeing the project on the collective owners behalf it can be a difficult process.  We have experience with a number of these projects that could not proceed simply because of internal politics or lack of funds or support to properly evaluate the requirements.  The systems presented above give an easy route to upgrade as they are cost effective, can exclude some apartments who choose to stay on the old system, are easy to install and manage, and allow for easy adds and changes as apartments change ownership or people come and go.

A recent project request involved a gated estate where recent floods had destroyed the existing intercom cable infrastructure.  The proposal was to utilise a 2N IP Verso with 10 call buttons (3 modules) connected to the NBN at the gate and 2N Indoor touch screens and mobile in the homes, via NBN.  Adding a 2N 4 relay module to allow control of the gate allowed home owners to select up to 5 actions when answering the call.  This same system could easily be used to control an elevator in an apartment building – ask us for more information.[

Elevator controls need to be assessed on individual basis.  Generally these are relay based systems and the current intercom system cabling may be able to be maintained just to call the elevator through a switch on the wall.  The types of systems are many and each needs to be assessed to ascertain the best way forward.

Please contact us to discuss if you would like more information on these systems.

If you are interested in a similar system please contact us for a no obligation discussion of your requirements.

If you would like to discuss your options please contact us.  We consider ourselves to be technical knowledge experts rather than sales professionals and are always available to assist you with your system.  Our support continues long after the sale has concluded and we believe this makes us very different from other suppliers.

To find out more about Active Online please see our About Us page

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