Door locks and door video

[rhosch]

Sorry, another thread. I'm doing part of the prewire for our new construction myself and as I do keep uncovering topics I'm just not educated about. Tried to do some reading about this one and searched here on cqc but the confusion remains.

 What is the current best practice or best options for door/entry cameras and electronic locks?


BlueIris looks to be in the lead for me regarding general surveillance cameras.

ElkM1g will be installed.

I like the look of the doorbird door stations but found just one thread on cqc, unless my search was off. That was several years old and Dean didn't seem excited about their API.

Read some on electric strikes, fail safe (for fire) vs fail secure. 

There are of course electric deadbolts instead of strikes, can't be hardwired, these are all stand alone, zigbee or zwave best I can tell. If I used those, they'd probably be the only mesh devices of that type in my house.

Is there a recommended product or at least approach for wired strike, camera, doorbell?

Ideally I'd like to be able to view door video feed on cqc wallscreen/pad, talk if necessary, unlock the door from that screen. Would like the video to be recorded by BlueIris or otherwise. Also nice would be an app that would allow seeing and probably communicating with someone at the door when we are on vacation, perhaps unlocking the door remotely. Possibly interested in a keypad along with camera and doorbell allowing the door to be unlocked without key. Maybe that is mandatory with electric strike?

The remote unlocking I guess I have some security concerns with? Remote viewing and talking is standard fare for ring, doorbird etc but I am uncertain if those products can be integrated well with cqc, BlueIris.

For now, I'm wiring doorbell locations with cat and 4cond security wire. Open to advice there too.

[gReatAutomation]

I, personally, would skip any type of electronic lock. If you need to let people in to your house, utilize the Lutron stuff with your garage overhead door. This is what I use.

If you want to be interacting with the door camera/speaker, would recommend going with the Surface Go or Surface Pro as your main Interface Viewer tablet. It has a camera, a speaker, and microphone all built in.

[rhosch]

Hmm, ok. Thanks for the thoughts. Will mull that over a bit. We have a schlage electric deadbolt on the house we are renting and it has been handy for letting people in that need access without handing out keys. Similar to a gate, it would be awesome to have time limited codes that could be given out.

[Dean Roddey]

If you do locks, using real, wired strikes is the best way to go about it. Otherwise you are into Z-Wave land, which isn't really a pro level solution, and particularly bad if you just are wanting it for locks since it's a mesh network and a few things around the periphery is sort of the worst case scenario.

[rhosch]

OK, I'm wiring all doors so an electric fail secure strike can be added if desired.

Any suggestion on door station camera and/or keypad that plays nicely with cqc?

Biggest goals would be video feed to cqc, issuing of time limited access codes, persistent access codes that have different functions (unlock temporarily, persisting local unlock or lock, global lock/unlock etc). Remote viewing and control from phone a bonus. Some of that might be possible via BlueIris, and/or a remote cqc viewer.

[gReatAutomation]

Another thing to keep in mind is to ensure you install an HVAC supply and return into the closet or space where you will have your gear.

HVAC supply (cold air) at the bottom and the HVAC return at the top. If you can choose only one, I'd choose the HVAC return so you can at least remove the air.

It's important because a closet (3' x 3' x 6' == 72 cubic feet) can hit in the 90's or higher with ease and you need to get that heat out of that space and conditioned by your HVAC.


http://www.coolcomponents.com/Wall-Duct-...p_307.html

http://www.coolcomponents.com/Rooms-Closets_c_9.html

https://www.middleatlantic.com/products/...l-2pt.aspx

Sure you could cut a hole in your door but if you have the opportunity to run HVAC to the room, it will help out tremendously.

The key is getting the heat out of the space.

[rhosch]

Yes, thanks for the tip. I believe a small supply and return will both be going in, with a mechanical damper at the source on supply side I can close while central HVAC is on heat. During the winter I'll use a fan to force air from adjacent room into closet and exhaust via return.

Immediately above the equipment closet is the equiemt space of a future theater room. Down the road when that space is finished I may use a portable or server oriented small AC unit to provide constant cooling and link the two spaces.

[batwater]

You can't go wrong with BlueIris but it does require a dedicated PC. For best video reliability run Ethernet cable for each camera. I have a POE switch located in my garage to handle the front of the house. The switch is fiber connected to a switch in my basement where the remaining cameras are connected.

The BlueIris server is connected into the basement switch. I ran fiber between my switches to isolate in case of lightning strikes (have had 2 indirect hits, one major, destroyed nearly everything electronic in the house and a 2nd strike that only caused minor damage)

[rhosch]

Yep, cat6 to all camera locations and will use POE switches in equipment room.

May pick up another refurbed Dell poweredge server for BI when the time comes. Seems like that should be enough speed if servicing only BI and can't beat the price.

How hard is it to integrate BI and cqc? Can you feed BI video streams into an IV widget?

[gReatAutomation]

How hard is it to integrate BI and cqc? Can you feed BI video streams into an IV widget?

If BI provides an RTSP stream you can, however, viewing an IV over a web browser will not work as you would need to convert the RTSP stream to an HTTP stream.