Comelit’s Award-Winning IP Panels Chosen for High-End London Development

24 Nov 2015

Comelit has supplied its ViP video entry system for door control at Holland Green, a development of three high-end residential buildings in the Holland Park district of London. These new blocks consist of 54 apartments and are on a heritage site that includes the future home of the Design Museum.

Building services specialist, Gratte Brothers, fitted Comelit’s award winning (Red Dot Design Award) 3-one-6 Sense IP entrance panels at seven entrance locations around the site. Visitors to Holland Green announce themselves to residents using buttons on the capacitive displays of the panels. A mini-lens colour camera and speaker units then allow audio and video communication. Residents themselves can also use the 3-one-6 Sense panels for access control via the keypad or an integrated proximity reader. These display a customised welcome message and offer a Braille option that ensures compliance with the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA).

Inside the apartments, residents communicate with their visitors using Comelit’s white Planux Lux monitors. The monitors feature a 3.5-inch colour display screen and allow hands-free interaction with the caller. The keys on the integrated backlit control panel are capacitive and enable the user to configure operations to their exact needs. Options include a privacy function and a setting for granting immediate access to health workers.

Remote management via Smartphone App

Crucially, the Comelit equipment enhances residents’ lifestyles by allowing them to have remote contact with their visitors via Comelit’s smartphone app. Comelit achieves this with its ViP apartment gateway that uses both local Wi-Fi and mobile 3G/4G, switching automatically between modes. Residents who are elsewhere in the complex, off-site or abroad use tablets or mobiles to receive calls from visitors or the concierge.

Up to four family members from each apartment can simultaneously use the smartphone app, which is available for Android and IPhone users. Residents can even grant access to their property (or not) after assessing the visitor remotely. Installers connect the apartment gateway to an ADSL modem router or similar device and, typically, it is used as a ‘slave’ unit requiring the presence of a door entry monitor from Comelit’s ViP range to act as the ‘master’.

Comelit has also supplied its ViP switchboard software that is used on PCs across the Holland Green complex by 24-hour concierge staff. The concierge can communicate with the entrance panels and all of the apartments, as well as be contacted by residents. The software acts as an alarm manager, messaging server and system health monitor. It also allows event logging, call queuing and call transfer or divert.

Residents at the apartment blocks have their own swimming pool, spa facilities, gym and cinema. There are private function rooms, a children’s play area and even a golf simulator. The civil contractor is MACE and the developer is Chelsfield, which worked with security consultants, Armadillo Shield. The apartments are located on a historic site, grouped around the former exhibition hall of the Commonwealth Institute. This is a landmark Grade II-listed structure dating from the 1960s and will open as the Design Museum in 2016. It has received a £20 million fit-out, with fund providers including Arts Council England, the Heritage Lottery Fund and Sir Terence Conran.