[Build] RFID door key feature request: Pinpad door bell

[Henner Zeller]

On 6 November 2014 13:56, Rubin Abdi <rubin at starset.net> wrote:
> Could the * button be used to ring a chime in the space? It's hard for
> newbs to find the door bell hidden next to the phone.

Sounds like a good idea and bell-hookup is the next thing that will be
integrated.

Right now, '*' means 'reset code' and '#' means 'enter number'.
So overloading the meaning would be somewhat ambiguous. If on one of
the special characters, ringing should probably something like '#'
without prior pin.
(I am also open of having a sequence such as '*333#' be the
ring-sequence to eliminate accidental triggering - that could be
clearly marked on the phone).

(in general, the user-interface to use one of the symbol as ring is
highly obscure and uncommon. I personally don't think that the
doorbell on the side of the phone is hard
to find, though we might want to replace the buttons we have there
with something illuminated and clearly marked - it is not at all clear
what the three
buttons do, so I was typically pressing all three when I was door-belling).

Details can be hashed out - but yeah, we need better integration of
door bell functionality. Currently, there is not bell-hookup yet in
the entrance system, which is as well needed for (a) the general
bell-ringing thing and (b) we need an upstairs bell-button.

For anyone interested to help in hooking up the doorbell functionality:

   1) if we have a little aplified speaker that we can hook up to the
output of the RPi, we already have the hardware in place. Probably
simple to find in one of the shelves. This will be regarded equivalent
to ringing.

   2) We need a physical doorbell button mounted outside the upstairs
door, close to the RFID reader (no wire yet needed, I'll hook it up to
the firmware of the reader). IIRC, there is an empty conduit box,
maybe in there ?

   3) There is a 3.5mm hookup on the side of the intercom system. That
outputs ringing noise from the downstairs bell. Someone should measure
that and make a little Schmitt-Trigger breadboard or something to
output a clean signal that we can read with a TTL (not sure if we just
hook it up, maybe I'll rig up something with the internal controller
reader, but TTL signal would be good)

-h

>
> --
> Rubin
> rubin at starset.net
>