I’m actually pretty surprised how bad the intercom ecosystem is these days.
Why aren’t there more ‘semi dumb’ Ethernet or wifi products that just let you announce that dinner is ready? It doesn’t need to be a fully ruggedised commercial system like this one or a fully integrated cloud managed solution like ring.
The cheap no name wireless ones can’t handle comms between rooms, let alone across a house.
The security implications aren’t insurmountable - you could use pairing codes if there are multiple on the network.
I’ve accepted that it’s a niche market, and that the only solution is to use Asterix with a some cheapo voip phones.
I had the same problem and I've searched for ready made solutions for over an year before I found a guy that reverse-engineers and builds ready-made boards to install in my intercom for less than 30 euro.
Related, I'm still upset at the lies told by landlords regarding phone number privacy in buzz-in intercoms. I've been told multiple times at multiple apartment buildings, "don't worry, while the system will call your phone when someone taps your entry code, your phone number won't be revealed". And then you sign the lease, get a delivery from Instacart in your new place, and find that your 'private' number is blasted out loud, heard a whole city block away, in a loud-ass DTMF tone sequence.
Frank's guests just need to get the Doorking 16120 default key and start letting themselves in.
Edit: undergrad shenanigans from ten years ago:
Our university student-run electronics lab had an issue: technically anyone with a student card was allowed on premises at any given time, but the department only gave us a small set of keys that we had to share with the rest of the student associations. Obviously we needed a solution.
We did some snooping and found that the request-to-exit button wire was running on a cable tray alongside all the other wiring and plumbing, as the lab was in the basement. We picked a suitably dark, inconspicuous spot and wired up a Raspberry Pi driving a transistor and in turn a relay which we then wired in parallel with that button. Users could then connect to the local lab wifi and then SSH into the device. Login shell was replaced with a script that pulsed the GPIO line for half a second and subsequently caused the door to open.
We never got caught and apparently all the evidence was destroyed when the building was renovated a few years later.
Confessing to felonies, in writing, under one’s real name is wild.
Here’s hoping nobody decides to bother them about this. I’m not a lawyer but this appears to this layperson at the very least a CFAA violation by accessing the router and resetting its root password, as well as possibly criminal mischief as well as whatever stealing AC power is.
You couldn’t pay me to do a writeup like this, and I’d be wearing gloves the whole time.
Meh. Plenty of landlords suck, if anything his only mistake was not making it available to others in the same building.
The last apartment I rented (London) I never even met my shitty landlord hiding all the way up in Scotland. Randomly one day after getting home from a long day at work, my fob wouldn't let me in at the front door. Message the landlord ("SMS only, no calls") and it turns out that he'd got another copy made in case he needed it - when he got this copy made, the security company disabled the current fob (my one).
Initially he was going to make me wait until a new fob could be sorted out. After much anger and aggression I got his fob sent down to me in the post. Was still not able to access my home for several days and had to emergency crash with some friends.
Didn't get a discount on the rent and the fucker came up with every excuse under the sun to take my security deposit upon moving out as well.
I use a Ring Intercom Audio for a similar use. Works surprisingly well, I wish someone would clone the hardware and make an open version so Jeff didn't listen in every time someone rings my doorbell or buzz himself in whenever he wants.
I did similar in my apartment in Amsterdam but a little more low-tech. I soldered the relay on an Esp8266 directly to the unlock button on the intercom PCB in my apartment. Worked flawlessly for years
That aside, I enjoyed this read and it's such a niche thing that there is almost no way they'll step on the toes of another resident wanting to do the same thing
It's a little sad that, having realised that the simplest route for the hardware was the best, a simple route for communications wasn't explored. I suspect that cramming in a complex stack wasn't the best or quickest solution.
Great, the esp32 will probably never be discovered. Because when the landlord decides to fix the original problem, the whole unit will probably be replaced.
I have a similar Apple HomeKit integration to my apartment door system in a much simpler way;
When you buzz the apartment from the intercom it connects to a dedicated landline phone, That landline is setup to automatically go straight to voicemail, and then the voicemail message is just a recording of the tone required to open the door.
Then I have a smart power socket that the landline phone gets its power from - which I can toggle in the home app.
So if you turn on the power socket and dial the apartment code at the entrance, it buzzes you straight in. Or turn the power socket off and it doesn't.
I do something similar with voip.ms (hosted Asterisk).
The intercom calls my voip number, which can be set two ways: 1) play DTMF tone 9 to let the person in, then hang up (which is a security risk if random folks at the intercom buzzed me up trying to get in.
Or 2) plays audio "enter passcode", then:
- if the visitor enters the code that I told them, it plays DTMF 9 to let them in
- if the code is incorrect, plays "incorrect passcode" and hangs up
It also sends an email and SMS whenever someone triggers the intercom so I know about it. With passcodes, I can even set up multiple passcodes to give out to various people (like Amazon, friends) and my notification will display which code was used.
This reminds me of another annoyance I have. We have a wall mounted thermostat using batteries at the cabin. It controls how much water is let through from the central heating to the floors by sending some radio signal. I would like to be able to control this remotely, for instance to turn on heating a day before arrival. But the only way to do this is to buy a new unit connected to the pipes as well and upgrade the whole thing, which was quoted like $2k++ and need their app and their subscription. But why can't something just mimic the radio signals? That already works today! Why do I have to rebuild the whole heating setup for this? So stupid when technology locks you in without need.
I'm tempted to have a remote controlled screw driver that can twist the knob remotely or something.
The key with all furnace/heating/cooling automations is to start at the source of heat - figure out what IT needs to do what it wants, and work from there.
They're almost always incredibly simple at the furnace/boiler - you just need to make sure that you never turn the heat on without the pump/blower or whatever is required.
My complicated Eco controller ends up with three outputs: blower on, heat on, cooling on. Three wires.
If it's actually using radio, almost certainly there is a radio receiver unit at your furnace which converts the radio commands to simple voltages on physical wires, likely to power a 24v solenoid. All you need to do is hook in a esp32 or similar to also send those voltages when it receives a command.
For some European intercoms, there is Doorman [0]. Their authors reversed engineered the protocol used by Koch and built an ESP32 + Home Assistant solution that works quite nicely (including board). The "party mode" [1] was a life saver for me when doing events on the rooftop.
> I bought the cheapest compatible BTicino intercom device (BT 344232 for 32 €) that I could find on eBay, then soldered in 4 wires and added microcontrollers to make it smart. It now connects to my Nuki Opener Smart Intercom IOT device, and to my local MQTT Pub/Sub bus (why not?).
Tldr: he found the wire to the solenoid. Cool stuff. Do the easy thing! The rabbit hole avoidance was impressive. Like an escape room of sorts. Questionable legality notwithstanding.
This is a good way to breathe new life into existing tech for your smart home ecosystem. My setup mainly consists of Philips Hue lights at the moment, which. I have hooked up using Openclaw, I'd love to add more smart functionality and like an intercom, thermostat and digital lock, but the current devices are stuck in the past, so cant do much at the moment.
When I was shopping for an intercom system for my 8 unit building I purposely went for the dumbest system I could find. I wanted it as a foundation and isolated from the rest of the world. I also wanted no cameras.
Here is the installation documentation I have the 4-wire system. I installed it using Cat-5 and standard 548B wiring layout. The rest of the electronic door locks uses the Identiv Liberty key fob system. This was the only system I could find that allowed self-hosting.
I wouldn't mind another layer of integration that would add smartphone access control. The way the 2 systems are currently deployed I could ignore the TekTone side and just integrate the key fobs with the smartphones. I think this might already be possible be possible as the key fob readers already react to the NFC radios on my smartphone.
Legally and ethically extremely dubious, hooked up to the box in your apartment, I can understand it. Hooked to the shared door controller, handing out access "keys" to all your friends, not great. You seem to know this based on all your attempts to avoid discovery.
My mom's condo building hasn't had a working buzzer in forever, so she has to go downstairs every time there's a delivery. I've been tempted to do this, but am highly discouraged by the presence of video cameras. I don't particularly want to catch a charge to save my mom a trip in the elevator.
40 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 53.1 ms ] threadWhy aren’t there more ‘semi dumb’ Ethernet or wifi products that just let you announce that dinner is ready? It doesn’t need to be a fully ruggedised commercial system like this one or a fully integrated cloud managed solution like ring.
The cheap no name wireless ones can’t handle comms between rooms, let alone across a house.
The security implications aren’t insurmountable - you could use pairing codes if there are multiple on the network.
I’ve accepted that it’s a niche market, and that the only solution is to use Asterix with a some cheapo voip phones.
Those Doorkings have had to get replaced at so many buildings in Seattle now that criminals figured out how easy they were to override.
I'm unsure if I should post the link or not as it's specific to Romania, but I love how janky the buids are: https://www.olx.ro/d/oferta/automatizare-interfon-electra-cu...
BS.
Edit: undergrad shenanigans from ten years ago:
Our university student-run electronics lab had an issue: technically anyone with a student card was allowed on premises at any given time, but the department only gave us a small set of keys that we had to share with the rest of the student associations. Obviously we needed a solution.
We did some snooping and found that the request-to-exit button wire was running on a cable tray alongside all the other wiring and plumbing, as the lab was in the basement. We picked a suitably dark, inconspicuous spot and wired up a Raspberry Pi driving a transistor and in turn a relay which we then wired in parallel with that button. Users could then connect to the local lab wifi and then SSH into the device. Login shell was replaced with a script that pulsed the GPIO line for half a second and subsequently caused the door to open.
We never got caught and apparently all the evidence was destroyed when the building was renovated a few years later.
Here’s hoping nobody decides to bother them about this. I’m not a lawyer but this appears to this layperson at the very least a CFAA violation by accessing the router and resetting its root password, as well as possibly criminal mischief as well as whatever stealing AC power is.
You couldn’t pay me to do a writeup like this, and I’d be wearing gloves the whole time.
The last apartment I rented (London) I never even met my shitty landlord hiding all the way up in Scotland. Randomly one day after getting home from a long day at work, my fob wouldn't let me in at the front door. Message the landlord ("SMS only, no calls") and it turns out that he'd got another copy made in case he needed it - when he got this copy made, the security company disabled the current fob (my one).
Initially he was going to make me wait until a new fob could be sorted out. After much anger and aggression I got his fob sent down to me in the post. Was still not able to access my home for several days and had to emergency crash with some friends.
Didn't get a discount on the rent and the fucker came up with every excuse under the sun to take my security deposit upon moving out as well.
No native apple home - homebridge handles that.
That aside, I enjoyed this read and it's such a niche thing that there is almost no way they'll step on the toes of another resident wanting to do the same thing
When you buzz the apartment from the intercom it connects to a dedicated landline phone, That landline is setup to automatically go straight to voicemail, and then the voicemail message is just a recording of the tone required to open the door.
Then I have a smart power socket that the landline phone gets its power from - which I can toggle in the home app.
So if you turn on the power socket and dial the apartment code at the entrance, it buzzes you straight in. Or turn the power socket off and it doesn't.
I guess I'd also set it up so right after the voicemail message runs and lets someone in, it would turn the socket off.
But it wouldn't work for OP, whose door intercom can no longer make phone calls.
The intercom calls my voip number, which can be set two ways: 1) play DTMF tone 9 to let the person in, then hang up (which is a security risk if random folks at the intercom buzzed me up trying to get in.
Or 2) plays audio "enter passcode", then:
- if the visitor enters the code that I told them, it plays DTMF 9 to let them in
- if the code is incorrect, plays "incorrect passcode" and hangs up
It also sends an email and SMS whenever someone triggers the intercom so I know about it. With passcodes, I can even set up multiple passcodes to give out to various people (like Amazon, friends) and my notification will display which code was used.
I'm tempted to have a remote controlled screw driver that can twist the knob remotely or something.
They're almost always incredibly simple at the furnace/boiler - you just need to make sure that you never turn the heat on without the pump/blower or whatever is required.
My complicated Eco controller ends up with three outputs: blower on, heat on, cooling on. Three wires.
[0] https://doorman.azon.ai/ [1] https://doorman.azon.ai/guide/features/ring-to-open
> I bought the cheapest compatible BTicino intercom device (BT 344232 for 32 €) that I could find on eBay, then soldered in 4 wires and added microcontrollers to make it smart. It now connects to my Nuki Opener Smart Intercom IOT device, and to my local MQTT Pub/Sub bus (why not?).
I love the future so far.
Here is the installation documentation I have the 4-wire system. I installed it using Cat-5 and standard 548B wiring layout. The rest of the electronic door locks uses the Identiv Liberty key fob system. This was the only system I could find that allowed self-hosting.
I wouldn't mind another layer of integration that would add smartphone access control. The way the 2 systems are currently deployed I could ignore the TekTone side and just integrate the key fobs with the smartphones. I think this might already be possible be possible as the key fob readers already react to the NFC radios on my smartphone.
https://www.tektone.com/pdf_files/manuals/IL826_PK543A_insta...