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I'm currently investigating how to best use an outdoor keypad together with Loxone...
My requirements are that it should be a keypad that will open a side door (so not front door where there would be video phone) and you should be able to define timings/days for certain users when they are allowed to enter the house (e.g. cleaning lady,...). Reason why the one-wire dongle is not sufficient for me is that I want to have a system that doesn't require you to have anything with you (e.g. when going running, mountainbiking, working in the garden, an adhoc entry of somebody which doesn't have a dongle,...). It should also be secure so connecting the keypad relay out directly to a door opener is not an option. It should work with a controller unit which is in the house.
So far my requirements. I've searched the forums and I see this question coming back a lot and want this thread to group all possibilities (just an idea) and sollutions for everybodies convenience...
So here is what I've found as solutions to house entry (however mostly focused on a keypad solution). Please feel free to comment or add solutions.
Don't use a keypad:
the response you see a lot is to not use a keypad but to use a funky combinations of light buttons that are pushed in a specific order. However for indoor use this might be a solution, as an outdoor solution this is not valid as you normally only have a doorbell (and in case of my side door not even that.). So as I understand you are building a keypad with light switches...
Use the 1-wire dongle solution:
as stated I want to have a solution where I don't have to carry anything around or give any body a dongle.
Use a KNX keypad/iris scanner/...:
this might be a possible good solution as this will integrate nicely with the loxone. So the keypad would validate the pin/fingerprint/iris scan and then send the result to a group address which would be picked up by the loxone which will open the door & lock. However I haven't found a KNX keypad that allows you to restrict entry on specific days & time slots.
Use a matrix keypad:
these kinds of keypads give you 4 inputs (columns) and 4 outputs (rows). Using a constant polling of the 4 inputs we can see that a button is pressed. We then need to identify, by polling the outputs to identify the unique location of the exact button that was pressed. I assume this could be written in a picoC, however I'm affraid that the constant polling will not play nicely with the other functions on the miniserver and cause the miniserver to be occupied with the constant polling of the inputs. I could be wrong here. A matrix keypad with an interupt might also be an option but I haven't found this.
Disadvantage is also that you loose 4 inputs and 4 outputs. You could however add a resistor ladder which would make that you could use 1 analog input to identify the button pressed. I've seen solutions where an arduino board this this polling and identify the button pressed, which could then send this to the miniserver. However this all adds in complexity.
Use a keypad/iris scanner/proximity scanner/badge scanner/barcode scanner/... with a Wiegand output:
It seems that this Wiegand protocol is a defacto standard among these security scanners.
Here you have different options:
- buy a wiegand keypad/... , a convertor to RS232/RS485 and the corresponding loxone extension. Capture the pin/iris id/keycard id from the serial interface. I'm not sure if it is possible in the miniserver to add a property to a specific user/group which you can use to compare against, as I don't own a miniserver and didn't immediatly find it in the configuration application. Otherwise you could add the pin to a user/group and then would just have to check this field against the serial input. It then follows the same way of working as the 1-wire dongle where you can define the entry criteria too (day & time when you can enter). If however you cannot add a property to a user/group you also need to create logic to compare this and define these timing criteria (or you could still use the user and some logical comparison maybe) which might make this solution a bit too complex (and thus not user friendly). It does however allow you to connect a lot of input devices as long as they have a wiegand output.
- don't use the miniserver to do the logic to see if access is allowed but use a dedicated controller: I've come across different devices, not all allowed to configure day & time of access, and the most useful ones use wiegand as an input thus allowing for most types of scanners to be connected.
My personal favorite is: eIDC - Controller which used POE also for power to the keypad and runs a webserver to which you can connect to define rules & events. Rather smart device, an api is also available but this requires a dedicated pc running the services (doesn't run on the device itself). You could send a signal to the miniserver if access is allowed and then the loxone could open the door.
Note to the Loxone team:
I think it would be a good idea to, or create a wiegand function block or to create a dedicated extension for it and also allow to add additional properties to users/groups which can be used to check against (if this is not the case). This would open up the access control with multiple options and also allow people to have indoor keypads for the alarm function of loxone. Ok there are different solutions for this but the question is asked a lot.
I could also live with it if they don't think this is interesting but then at least make it possible to add fields to a user and do a validation between this and an input from the RS232/RS485 input/network/... , if this is currently not the case. Then at least it would work in the same way as the 1-wire dongle but then over RS232/RS485/network/... and you would be able to use the user/group timings and definitions. In the future the different fields (including the dongle address) could be encoded/decoded with specific function blocks to increase security.
This was my first effort at listing the different possibilities. I hope this clarifies it for most people.
If thinks are incorrect are other options exist please feel free to add them.
My requirements are that it should be a keypad that will open a side door (so not front door where there would be video phone) and you should be able to define timings/days for certain users when they are allowed to enter the house (e.g. cleaning lady,...). Reason why the one-wire dongle is not sufficient for me is that I want to have a system that doesn't require you to have anything with you (e.g. when going running, mountainbiking, working in the garden, an adhoc entry of somebody which doesn't have a dongle,...). It should also be secure so connecting the keypad relay out directly to a door opener is not an option. It should work with a controller unit which is in the house.
So far my requirements. I've searched the forums and I see this question coming back a lot and want this thread to group all possibilities (just an idea) and sollutions for everybodies convenience...
So here is what I've found as solutions to house entry (however mostly focused on a keypad solution). Please feel free to comment or add solutions.
Don't use a keypad:
the response you see a lot is to not use a keypad but to use a funky combinations of light buttons that are pushed in a specific order. However for indoor use this might be a solution, as an outdoor solution this is not valid as you normally only have a doorbell (and in case of my side door not even that.). So as I understand you are building a keypad with light switches...
Use the 1-wire dongle solution:
as stated I want to have a solution where I don't have to carry anything around or give any body a dongle.
Use a KNX keypad/iris scanner/...:
this might be a possible good solution as this will integrate nicely with the loxone. So the keypad would validate the pin/fingerprint/iris scan and then send the result to a group address which would be picked up by the loxone which will open the door & lock. However I haven't found a KNX keypad that allows you to restrict entry on specific days & time slots.
Use a matrix keypad:
these kinds of keypads give you 4 inputs (columns) and 4 outputs (rows). Using a constant polling of the 4 inputs we can see that a button is pressed. We then need to identify, by polling the outputs to identify the unique location of the exact button that was pressed. I assume this could be written in a picoC, however I'm affraid that the constant polling will not play nicely with the other functions on the miniserver and cause the miniserver to be occupied with the constant polling of the inputs. I could be wrong here. A matrix keypad with an interupt might also be an option but I haven't found this.
Disadvantage is also that you loose 4 inputs and 4 outputs. You could however add a resistor ladder which would make that you could use 1 analog input to identify the button pressed. I've seen solutions where an arduino board this this polling and identify the button pressed, which could then send this to the miniserver. However this all adds in complexity.
Use a keypad/iris scanner/proximity scanner/badge scanner/barcode scanner/... with a Wiegand output:
It seems that this Wiegand protocol is a defacto standard among these security scanners.
Here you have different options:
- buy a wiegand keypad/... , a convertor to RS232/RS485 and the corresponding loxone extension. Capture the pin/iris id/keycard id from the serial interface. I'm not sure if it is possible in the miniserver to add a property to a specific user/group which you can use to compare against, as I don't own a miniserver and didn't immediatly find it in the configuration application. Otherwise you could add the pin to a user/group and then would just have to check this field against the serial input. It then follows the same way of working as the 1-wire dongle where you can define the entry criteria too (day & time when you can enter). If however you cannot add a property to a user/group you also need to create logic to compare this and define these timing criteria (or you could still use the user and some logical comparison maybe) which might make this solution a bit too complex (and thus not user friendly). It does however allow you to connect a lot of input devices as long as they have a wiegand output.
- don't use the miniserver to do the logic to see if access is allowed but use a dedicated controller: I've come across different devices, not all allowed to configure day & time of access, and the most useful ones use wiegand as an input thus allowing for most types of scanners to be connected.
My personal favorite is: eIDC - Controller which used POE also for power to the keypad and runs a webserver to which you can connect to define rules & events. Rather smart device, an api is also available but this requires a dedicated pc running the services (doesn't run on the device itself). You could send a signal to the miniserver if access is allowed and then the loxone could open the door.
Note to the Loxone team:
I think it would be a good idea to, or create a wiegand function block or to create a dedicated extension for it and also allow to add additional properties to users/groups which can be used to check against (if this is not the case). This would open up the access control with multiple options and also allow people to have indoor keypads for the alarm function of loxone. Ok there are different solutions for this but the question is asked a lot.
I could also live with it if they don't think this is interesting but then at least make it possible to add fields to a user and do a validation between this and an input from the RS232/RS485 input/network/... , if this is currently not the case. Then at least it would work in the same way as the 1-wire dongle but then over RS232/RS485/network/... and you would be able to use the user/group timings and definitions. In the future the different fields (including the dongle address) could be encoded/decoded with specific function blocks to increase security.
This was my first effort at listing the different possibilities. I hope this clarifies it for most people.
If thinks are incorrect are other options exist please feel free to add them.
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