Working in partnership with property developers, Land Charter Homes, Comelit UK has supplied an IP-based door entry system for an 8-storey office block in Chelmsford city centre that has been converted for residential use.
Overlooking the river Can and the green stretches of Central Park and the Essex county cricket ground, ‘Canside’ offers 33 luxury apartments.
Essex-based electrical contracting company, Frost Brothers, was tasked with installing a dedicated LAN for Comelit’s ViP system, providing connectivity for all devices including external and internal units. The development uses the latest in IP door entry technology and allows the residents at Canside to benefit from a host of convenient high-tech features. Equally, maintenance and programming for the system were also made easy for the building owners through the use of Comelit’s remote monitoring software tools.
A total of 33 video entry phones were installed at the apartments. These included 7-Stelle and Smart ViP full-duplex hands-free monitors. Black Ikall panels featuring Simplekey advanced proximity readers were used at the two main entrances. These devices offer residents excellent audio and video communication, as well as other features that cannot be provided with traditional analogue video entry systems. For example, Comelit’s Smartphone App offers Canside residents the freedom to receive audio and video calls from the external unit directly to a smartphone or tablet via their Wi-Fi network at home and through a 3G data connection when they are away. ViP can also be used to record messages at the external unit if the owner is away – in fact up to a hundred 10-second video clips can be saved to an SD card within the video monitor.
The advantages offered by using an IP-based door entry from the perspective of the system manager responsible for the day-to-day maintenance of Canside were the main reason why it was chosen by Land Charter. A site gateway was installed in the building, enabling all devices connected to the network to be configured remotely using special ViP Communication Manager software.
ViP also offers the option of sending text or image messages remotely to all users within the network or to individual recipients should an issue with the system arise. Land Charter use this function specifically for advising residents if there is any schedule maintenance due that might temporarily disrupt their service or if a service call is needed.
A list of user names can be entered, saved and updated from a remote location, making it very simple and cost-effective to manage. ViP is based on peer-to-peer architecture that does not require the presence of a network server. This means that in the event of one device failing, the whole system will continue to run as normal. As a result, facilities companies or building owners are able to offer a high level of service and reliability at minimal cost. Using an IP door entry system overcomes potential issues faced by building owners, such as network redundancy and the need to go onsite for routine maintenance.
Construction Partner for the project developers Land Charter Group, Leigh Knevett said, “We were aware of the obvious advantages of using IP as opposed to traditional analogue door entry. We particularly like having the ability to send messages to the residents remotely. Ultimately, it will be possible to link all of our developments back to one central point for monitoring, which will have huge cost-saving implications for us or whoever may be looking after the system in the future. For this reason alone, we plan to use the ViP system on several other projects we are working on currently.”
The Comelit ViP system is connected using standard Cat5 wiring. This ensures fast, reliable and easy installation with limited additional control equipment required. Using the same IP network, ViP also allows other security devices and video surveillance methods to be integrated simply into the entry phone system.
Comelit’s wide range of compatible IP monitors and external panels provides a flexible and reliable access control solution for any size of residential development, as well as for large-scale industrial applications.
