One of the best features of Doorbird, and what sets it apart from the competitors, is it’s ability to open doors and gates. Being able to see and talk to your visitors when you’re not home is great, but being able to let them in is AWESOME.

How does Doorbird do this?

1) By integrating with smartlocks (see integration page here)

2) By electro-mechanical relays

Integration with smartlocks will require you to purchase and install a compatible smartlock, but by using the relays, you can control almost any door or gate. Lets look at that further.

The way Doorbird does this, is with the help of an electric strike. A normal door ‘strike’, is the plate in the doorframe with the hole that holds the tongue of the lock when the door is closed. An electric strike can either hold the tongue (like a standard strike), or release the tongue. By replacing a standard strike with an electric strike, you can essentially open a locked door. 

So the handle stays locked all the time, and when you activate the relay on the Doorbird, it releases the electric strike for a predetermined amount of time, and allows you to open the locked door. Once you close the door again and the electric strike resets, the door will be locked and unable to open.

In this case, the door or gate already has a motorised electrical way of opening and closing, so all the Doorbird needs to do is send a trigger from the relay to the motor, to tell it to open or close.

Motorised Driveway Gates

About 95% of driveway gate motors, whether sliding or swing, have an input on the motor that Doorbird can connect to. In most cases, this will allow the Doorbird to ‘toggle’ the position of the gate. That means if it’s currently closed, activating the Doorbird relay will open it. If it’s open, the Doorbird relay will close it.

Some motors actually have a connection for Open and a separate connection for Closed. Although this requires 2 relays on Doorbird rather than 1, it allows for greater control. Selecting the ‘Open’ relay on Doorbird will open the gate if it’s closed, or do nothing if its open. Similarly, the ‘Close’ relay will close the gate if opened, or do nothing if closed.

This is achieved by a simple 2 wire connection between the Doorbird and the motor, no power supply needed. 

Motorised garage doors

Garage doors work the same as motorised gates as above, except maybe only 70% of Garage door motors have the input for an external ‘toggle’ connection, and very few have a separate ‘Open’ and ‘Close’. So first thing is to check your garage door opening motor, or the manual, to see if there is an external input.

If yours does, great news! Again it’s a simple 2 wire connection from the Doorbird to the motor. 

A1121 Keypad Access Controller.

This is a standalone keypad and card reader  that adds 2 x more relays. This unit can be used anywhere and everywhere you don't need visitor intercom, but you do want the door or gate controlled within the DoorBird app. For example, access to the shed, or through the pool fence, or the laundry door. The options are endless.

A1081 Multi IO Door controller.

This is an add-on peripheral to support a Doorbird Door Station that adds 3 x more relays. So for example if you have a D1101KH doorbird at the pedestrian gate, and the relay is connected to that electric strike; you can add an A1081 to control the driveway gate, garage door, and front door.

A1101 Indoor Station

The A1101 is a truly multi-functional device. As well as being a touch screen that allows you to answer the Doorbird from inside the house, it also has an A1081 Multi IO Door controller built in. That’s right, you have 3 extra relays to control more doors and gates when you purchase an A1101 to support your Doorbird Door station.