We are in the middle of 2018: The Gira System 106 door intercom system is one of the first intercom systems on the global market that can be fully integrated into a single-family home or a smart home villa (blog post) with KNX. What does complete mean here?

You can see who is at the door from inside the house via a touch panel. The latter can be an outdated Gira Control 9 client – or you can opt for a modern touchscreen such as the Peaknx Controlmini – see our blog post Top 5 KNX touch panels in comparison – 899 € to 4499 €.

Remote door opening via touch panel or Gira app

And there’s more: the front door can be opened electrically via touch panel from anywhere in the house – without one of the residents having to go to the door to open it. The front door can even be opened remotely via the recently launched Gira app: From a desert island, for example.

Some clients are now asking: What is the effort involved and how much does it all cost? We can answer both questions straight away: quite a lot. In this case, a lot means a lot of technical and programming effort and, consequently, a lot of costs.

No longer technically up-to-date: 2-wire bus

A lot of effort is required to connect the not-so-fresh Gira video intercom system to the KNX system and the network at the same time. Internally, the stylish Gira System 106 still works with an outdated 2-wire bus.

The resolution of the image sensor is 320×240 pixels and is scaled up to 640×480 pixels. This fact alone explains why the video images appear so washed out and cloudy on the touch panel.