To buzz in food deliveries and guests in our condo building, we have to pick up a dedicated phone, see who it is, and dial 6 to unlock the door. We made our Obi200 immediately send that door buzzer call to our two mobile phones linked to Google Voice. (How we did that is below, if it helps others searching for how to do the same.)
QUESTION: If we forgot our phones, could we also setup Obi to listen for a specific set of tones from the buzzer box and then spit out "6" to unlock the door? This would be our backup secret key to get in. (Would this involve placing a few second delay on auto-dialing and then something else?)
OUR SETUP:
- Connect Obi to Google Voice Account A. This is the only thing we connected, so it defaults as "sp1".
- In the OBi Expert Setup, go to Physical Interfaces. Choose PHONE 1.
- Change "DigitMap" to "(<:TenDigitMobileNumber>)"
- Change "OutboundCallRoute" to "{TheSameTenDigitMobileNumber:sp1}"
- The TenDigitMobileNumber we used is for Google Voice Account B. We setup that account to ring our two mobiles phones simultaneously, so that either of us can answer the door. Our iPads also ring at the same time, thanks to Apple's something or whatever technology, so a door buzz is a big, blaring, multi-screen event.
That looks like something the OBi's AutoAttendant could do. Have a look at the AA section of the Admin Guide on the Docs and Downloads page.
There are all sorts of unknowns when dealing with a door entry system. If the "buzzer box" acts like a normal corded phone, then you might try this:
Change "DigitMap" to "(1234{t=6}x|<S4:TenDigitMobileNumber>)"
S4 changes your "hot line" to a "warm line" waiting for 4 seconds before dialling the number. As soon as you press any digit the warm line will not be attempted by the OBi. So press the call button, then start dialling 1234 before 4 seconds have elapsed.
"1234" is your secret number {t=6} will instigate DTMF tones for the digit "6". This tone will continue until you press any numerical digit, which will be accepted by "x". Maybe the door entry system hangs up anyhow once the door is unlocked? Anyhow if you get as far as pressing the "any numerical digit" to stop the tone the OBi will attempt to route the series of digits as a call, which will fail. However, in your case, this might be an advantage as by then the door is unlocked and the OBi will clear the failed call if the door entry system does not hang up the call.
Interesting discussion.
Is it possible to fork an incoming call to be picked up by OBi IVR (AA), while continue to ring the actual phone? This way, assuming intercom panel send in-line DTMFs once the call if picked up, it could be setup for an automated door opening upon entering a password in IVR, while still preserving the legacy, human call handling, where upon phone being answered, IVR would cease processing and let human press the ford rbtry button.
I'm not familiar with OBi AA functions aside from glancing over them in a manual. The built in IVR didn't seem to be very robust, by perhaps someone smarter then me can chime in here.
You're right, security panels do present unknown problems. Mine does not allow sending a tone during the page; pressing a button just ends the session. Thus, the warm line and auto attendant solutions didn't work.
I imagine the only option is to have a speech recognition answering service recognize a password and send a tone/audio recording of tone. I doubt any free services like that exist. Oh well.
A possible solution is suggested in this posting -- https://www.obitalk.com/forum/index.php?topic=12476.msg80253#msg80253