A good door station does more than open: it shows visitors at every control point, reaches you wherever you are — and, if you want it to, starts the whole house over KNX.
A modern door station shows you who is at the door — on the touch panel in the hall, on the screen in the office, by app while you are away. You speak, you open, and you see missed callers in an image log. What sets it apart from a conventional intercom is the integration: the door station is part of the house, not another device with an isolated app of its own.
We are manufacturer-independent and have planned and carried out both systems on many projects. DoorBird's strengths are its open IP architecture and flexible integration; Siedle's are timeless design and one consistent system that runs through to the letterbox unit. Which one suits you we settle at the sample selection — you see, hear and touch both before you decide.
In the KNX system a ring at the door becomes an event: the camera image switches onto the nearest touch panel, the light in the hall comes on, the music turns down. At night it only rings where you want it to. If you are out, you answer the door by app — for the visitor, indistinguishable from being at home.
A door station out of the catalogue works — but as a single device beside all the others.
We plan the door station as one element of the overall concept — from the control panel through to the scene.
The front door decides how assured a house feels — and it is at the front door that most improvising happens. We regularly see cameras mounted at the geometric centre of the entrance panel, filming into the sun in the afternoon and showing nothing but silhouettes in the evening, together with call forwarding that reaches the phone so late that the delivery driver is long since back in the van. Video entry is optical planning, electrical planning and network planning in a single component.
The camera belongs at the face height of the visitors you can expect, not at the geometric centre of the entrance panel. We fix height, tilt and line of sight on the floor plan: where does somebody actually stand, what does the step in front of it do, where does the frame end? Children, a wheelchair and a delivery driver with a box held against the chest all belong in the same calculation.
A very wide angle of view shows the whole forecourt, but distorts faces at the edge of the frame beyond recognition and pushes the person optically away. We choose focal length and framing by use rather than by data sheet: a recognisable face in the middle, context at the edge, correction of the distortion where the optics allow it.
A front door facing south or west produces backlight every afternoon, which weak sensors turn into black silhouettes. We plan orientation, canopy and dynamic range together with the exterior lighting: warm, glare-free fill light across the face rather than a grey infrared makeshift, so that at 11 pm it is still recognisable who is standing down there.
A door station is a façade detail, not an accessory. Stainless steel, concrete or a timber surround, the joint pattern, the installation depth and the choice between surface-mounted and flush with the wall all belong in the shell construction planning — engraved name plates along with them. At the 400-year-old manor house in Cologne the Siedle station settled into the listed fabric instead of dominating it.
Three classes of device with different strengths: the indoor station answers immediately and without unlocking, the panel shows the door image and the house in one interface, the app works anywhere. In the period property in Oberkassel the DoorBird runs alongside Occhio lighting and shading in the same operating view — we settle which device actually rings, and where.
A push notification, setting up the connection and the video stream all take time, more over mobile than over Wi-Fi. We plan the forwarding with realistic expectations: a fast preview instead of a sluggish full connection, a sensible ring duration, a clear order between indoor station and phone — and a rule for when a phone may ring at night at all.
Between a simple door release and a self-locking motorised lock lie cable cross-section, power supply, status feedback and a difference you notice every day. We plan the control so that the door locks securely again after opening, its state is visible in the system, and the release does not hang on the same supply as the door station itself.
The most frequent event at the door is not greeting a visitor but taking a delivery. At Detlef Steves's house in Moers the DoorBird gives the postman the go-ahead remotely: see, speak, point out where to leave it, without anybody having to be at home. That sequence is planned properly rather than improvised afterwards.
A ring at the door is a trigger, not a sound. It raises the exterior lighting to a brightness at which faces can be made out, brings the door image up on the panel and in the visualisation, and sounds in the multiroom system only in the zones where somebody is — and stays silent in the bedroom and the cinema when the night scene is active.
Every ring produces an image and a time stamp, even when nobody answers. We settle beforehand where it is stored, for how long, who has access and how tightly the frame stays within your own property: event storage rather than continuous observation, traceable and with no public pavement in the picture.
The station is a point of access control at the same time: numeric codes for the cleaners and for tradesmen, a fingerprint for the family, a transponder as the fallback. We issue permissions with a time limit, log openings so they can be followed up, and define beforehand what happens when a code is compromised or a service provider stops working on the property.
Door stations want a network, not bell wire. We plan the route from the technical room to the door with spare capacity, the PoE supply on a suitable switch port, the connection to the uninterruptible supply and a network segment of its own for camera and station — plus a conduit to the gate, because the second station nearly always follows.
Video entry that has been planned means this: you can tell within seconds who is standing there, you decide from wherever you are — and the house responds with you.
From the choice of system to the app set up and working — planned, integrated, documented.
A manufacturer-independent recommendation based on the project, the standard you want and the façade — decided at the sample selection.
A network cable to the door, a flush-mounted housing in the façade or in the letterbox column, power over PoE.
The door image on touch panels from Gira, Jung or Basalte — no separate indoor station on the wall.
The doorbell switches lights, panels and music — cleanly programmed and documented.
Live image, two-way speech and door release from wherever you are — handed over set up and working.
From the back box in the wall to the app set up and working — all from one group.
We settle the situation at the door, the operating concept and how you actually live: who rings, who opens, what should happen in the house? Out of that comes the functional concept for your video entry.
You experience DoorBird and Siedle in the flesh: image quality, speech intelligibility, material and design. We give an honest account of what the difference means day to day and in the budget.
A network cable to the door, a flush-mounted housing in the façade or in the letterbox column, power over PoE, integration into the panels and into KNX — documented ready for execution for any specialist contractor.
The installation is carried out by our sister company elektrofabrik — from the back box in the wall to the app set up and working. At handover, the scenes, the panels and the remote access all work.
A listed property: Siedle camera, access control and alarm system all carried out over a wireless system — without touching the character of the house.
DoorBird video entry linked with the alarm system, the garage door and the roller shutter automation — all operable from one shared visualisation.
A complete electrical installation with a DoorBird door station, shading, Occhio lighting and a smart office — video entry as part of the whole system.
smartfabrik is a smart home planning practice based in Düsseldorf (Reisholzer Werftstr. 31A). We plan for private clients and companies in Cologne, Düsseldorf and across North Rhine-Westphalia — and, where wanted, nationwide and internationally. A selection of the places we have already planned and delivered in:
Both are mature systems with different strengths. DoorBird is IP-based, open to integrations and flexible when something out of the ordinary is needed. Siedle is convincing on design, material quality and a complete system from the door station through to the letterbox unit. At the sample selection we show you both — the decision comes more easily in front of the real device than in front of a data sheet.
Yes. When someone rings, the app comes up with a live image and two-way speech — whether you are in the garden, at the office or away on holiday. You speak to the caller and open the door if you want to. Missed callers appear in an image log with a time stamp. The function runs alongside the touch panels in the house, not instead of them.
Yes, that is our standard. The doorbell, the door release and the station's motion detector are available as events in the KNX system. With them you trigger lighting scenes, bring up panels or tie the door release to disarming the alarm system. The door station stops being a single device and becomes one element of the overall concept.
In a new build we plan a network cable through to the door station — power and data then run together over PoE, and separate power supplies are unnecessary. That is the most robust and most flexible basis. In an existing building, depending on the system, two-wire bell wiring already in place can also be reused. What makes sense in your case we settle at the site survey.
Yes — with a live image and two-way speech first, so that you know who you are opening the door to. Every remote opening is logged. The function becomes genuinely useful in combination with a motorised lock and permissions that have been thought through: the tradesman gets into the house when you release it, the delivery driver only into the garage. Those are exactly the sequences we work through with you.
Arrange an initial conversation — after it you will know which door station suits your house.
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