Door Intercom

[Peter]

We have two Doorbirds which we’ve lived with for quite a while now. The cameras are excellent, functionality excellent and integration within Loxone straightforward (although being a duffer the latter took a while to sort out).
However, the sound quality is awful, we can barely hear people talking and they certainly struggle to hear us. We’re now at the point where we don’t even bother to try and talk to anyone and they’re just expensive doorbells!
I would be interested if anyone else is or has experienced this problem and if there are any other intercoms out there which are both cost effective and of proven quality.

[Peter]

TTT

I've also read through the other Intercom threads, some of which discuss alternative models but not much feedback post tests.

Would appreciate any thoughts on why the Doorbird sound quality is so poor (hard wired incidentally)  and or any thoughts on other models

[AaronP]

Hi Peter,

How does the door bird handle the SIP audio streams for both internal/external access? Is it using a third patty sip service or doorbirds own?

 We looked at doorbird some time back (so my knowledge of the product needs refreshing a bit) for a setup that already had the NFC code touch installed at the door and in the end the best solution for quality and setup in the specific enviroment we were working with was to leave the code touch there, mount up high out the way and looking down at the door a 4K Hikvision IP camera for the video then in the roof area of the little door cover/porch we mounted a Grandstream GSC3510 which has excellent audio quality and several bidirectional mics in the unit. When configured this gave us the full intercom experience both internal/external with great video/snapshot quality and crystal clear two way sound. I can take some pics of the setup tomorrow if you’d like?

Thanks

[Peter]

Hi Aaron
Using the Doorbird audio which apparently is supposed to be better than using a third party.

Would be interested in your set up. We already have Grandstream IP cameras installed.

Thank you for the reply :)

[James Mitchelmore]

Hi Aaron,

We've had poor results with Doorbird too.  Your setup sounds great.  How have you configured the SIP connections between the Grandstream and Loxone?

Cheers

James

[AaronP]

Hi James

It’s definitely the best setup we believe we could come up with. I did say to Peter I’d post some pictures of the setup outside etc and totally forgot (apologies Peter!) but I’ll do this tomorrow to help contextualise what I’ve been trying to explain. The quality is very good across the board with the picture snapshots, video stream and audio. The grandstream has 3 mics concealed in it and is designed to pickup from around 4m away or something near that which is obviously overkill for the setup but does mean we get good voice quality even though the speaker is basically mounted above where the visitor stands and means they don’t have to get near to a poor quality device to speak etc which happens with others. We’ve had it running for about 3 months now and it’s never an issue. One DPD driver did say once he thought it was the voice of god coming from above him when he pressed it and we were out so arranged a safe delivery place over the intercom 😂 - quite amusing.

As for SIP, we just went with the recommended Loxone service which is antisip and has the auto answer service when you call the device, I.e. Loxone calls the Granstream and the “call” connects right away for the two way audio exchange. Antisips website looks like something from a 2005 Dreamweaver implementation but it is basic, simple and works. One worry is obviously it’s a free service and could shut down at any point so with Loxone not having their own SIP service built into the Miniserver as it stands I do have getting a plan B setup on my todo list. Will likely just install an open source solution on a RPi or something but as it stands, just Antisip configured on the speaker with the extension always logged in then Loxone set to call that SIP line ans auto connects for the audio exchange.

Will post some config screenshots tomorrow if you’d like?

Cheers

Aaron

[James Mitchelmore]

Thanks Aaron,

That's very helpful.  Looking at the sparse documentation from Loxone they were recommending iptel as SIP service but that seems to have disappeared.  I'm not entirely comfortable relying on a free service with no control over its availability.  I see what you mean about the website!  I might look further into an RPi option...  Any configs you can share would be much appreciated.

Cheers

James

[AaronP]

No worries. Will post the pics of the setup and config tomorrow. Btw, I was looking at RasPBX which may be a helpful starting point for you on looking into the RPi option. If I get some time this weekend I’ll try spring it up and see if I can get a working internal self hosted setup and post any config for it or a message confirming I’m still drowning my sorrows and have even less hair which is more likely I should think. If you find anything along the way in your research into the RPi option I’d be keen to know more myself if you don’t mind sharing.

Cheers,

Aaron 

[AaronP]

Hi Peter/James,

See attached images showing the code touch on the wall (and you can just about make out the bottom the the camera on the left side of the door roof covering/porch bottom edge, and then a close up of the IP camera on the wall and Grandstream box mounted on the underside of the roof area directly above where visitors stand. Also two screenshots showing the live view and a last visitor snapshot.

What config was you after specifically James - Loxone, Hikvision, Grandstream and antisip or just parts of it?

Excuse the mess outside, en-suite currently being worked on.

Thanks

On Friday, 10 July 2020 08:18:06 UTC+1, Peter wrote:

[Peter]

Thanks for posting Aaron. You’ve certainly got the intercom issue well and truly covered!
Unfortunately not something I can replicate, It’s either a one for one intercom replacement or we stick with the Doorbirds.

[AaronP]

No worries and yep, it’s not a setup everyone would be able to replicate unfortunately as it is obviously very dependant on the house design and the area by the front door etc which allowed us to use multiple bits of concealed (ish) hardware to make the solution.

I’ve been reading a bit into the Doorbird audio quality to try and help. Have you tried using their app as a test to see what the quality is like that way, I.e. just bypass Loxone for now. Some are saying they had far better results that way and if that’s the case for you I’d be intrigued in reviewing your current config and seeing if I can spot anything we could tweak in order to help improve the current situation. I also think it’s worth testing an external sip service instead of using doorbird and then go from there - be that we decide based on the tests that the hardware looks to be the issue and look for suitable alternatives or actually the sip service/network layer and try triage and resolve from there 

[Peter]

Hi Aaron, that’s really good of you. I’ll take another look and get back to you.
Although the video stream is integrated into Loxone, I have never set up a third party SIP

[AaronP]

Peter - Sure no worries, shout if you need an extra pair of eyes/hands on the config. The below may be of interest too

FYI James - I setup RasPBX earlier on an RPi and tested using this as the SIP service so can now have an internal SIP service removing the dependency on any external free services that may shutdown/change service offering at any time. So the Grandstream SIP speaker/mic is now connected to the RPi hosted SIP service and flowing through Loxone etc. Can PM you some install steps if you’re still pursuing this route