Luxury Student Accommodation Kept Secure by Comelit

25 Oct 2015

Working with building services engineers JH Shouksmith & Sons Ltd, Comelit has supplied an IP door entry system to The Edge, a £15 million development in Leeds that provides luxury boutique hotel-style accommodation to the city’s university students.

Visitors to The Edge use Comelit’s Anthracite-coloured Ikall entrance panels on the exterior of the seven-storey building to call residents in the 131 apartments. These panels, from Comelit’s ViP range, provide audio communication for door control, with LED backlighting and screen characters offering optimum visibility for users. Easy operation is facilitated by touch-sensitive keypads and a large colour LCD display. The DDA-compliant panels are flush-mounted and constructed of stainless steel.

Modular design offers cost-savings 

The modular design means panel components can be changed and upgraded as site needs evolve. This generates savings and reduces total cost of ownership (TCO). With rapid student turnaround, tenant information can be kept up-to-date by uploading names via the ViP Manager software over an Ethernet connection, thereby saving the property manager’s time.

Aimed largely at international students and post-graduates, The Edge features a gym, cinema and games zone. Residents enjoy 100 Mb broadband, high-speed Wi-Fi, music streaming and the services of a 24-hour concierge. The apartments are characterised by poured-resin floors and sleek white lacquered furniture.

Open systems

The Edge also employs Comelit’s multi-user SIP gateway to network the entrance panels with VoIP telephone handsets in the apartments via a VoIP PBX system. The Comelit gateway is SIP-compliant to enable telephone calls to be made via a SIP server. The Comelit gateway can communicate with up to 200 apartments and installers are able to carry out adjustments, maintenance and health checks remotely from a web browser. If required, the gateway can allow residents to communicate with visitors at an entrance panel when they are off-site, by using an app on their smartphone or tablet.

Amenity-rich 

The Edge welcomed its first students at the start of the current academic year. It has been developed by Leeds-based Parklane Properties as part of the amenity-rich iconic brand that is set for nationwide rollout. Comelit worked with building services engineers, J H Shouksmith and Sons Ltd, which supplied a £1.2 million mechanical and electrical contract, including CCTV. Nick Stevens, Business Development Manager North East, Comelit UK, said: “Comelit is moving clients away from outdated closed technology and we have used our expertise with open protocols to link entrance panels to VoIP phones at The Edge. The Comelit response through the SIP gateway product was agile and flexible, allowing the contractor to deliver a multi-vendor solution that was best suited to site needs.”