Push button for intercom door using a z-wave actuator?

Hi, I live in an apartment complex and currently own several smart automation devices connected using my smartthings hub. My apartment complex has a door downstairs which I can buzz from upstairs using the intercom. I would like to setup an actuator that is connected to my smartthings hub to which I would send a command from my phone using the smartthings app to push the intercom button so I dont need to use my keys and this would allow me to let someone in when not at home.

I have the following questions:

  • Is there an off the shelf product that exists for the following?
  • I would not have access to my wifi when downstairs thus the command would have to be sent over the internet.

I am well versed with arduino and raspberry pi but not so much with smartthings and Z-wave technology.

Please Advise.

( i’ve moved this to projects, since there are a number of different ways to approach it, and it’s really as much about hardware as it is about coding. That way you can get individualized responses based on your own set up.)

I’m confused about your statement that

How are you going to access the Internet if there’s no Wi-Fi in the area? Are you talking about using your phone app and a cellular connection? Or something else? Are you looking for a device with the communication protocol that could go from downstairs to upstairs?

Anyway, there is a “robot finger” microbot which is just a tiny actuator made specifically for retrofitting non-networked devices that require a button push. I have a set of three of these, and they work well. The problem is that they’re expensive. It’s $49 for each of the actuators and another $89 for their Wi-Fi bridge (which can handle up to 40 of the sensors) but it does solve a lot of problems that are very difficult to solve in other ways. (I’m using mine on a blender to push the blender button, as I am quadriparetic and have limited hand function; another community member is using them to push the button on a pellet stove.)

The microbots use Bluetooth to connect to their bridge and then the bridge uses Wi-Fi to connect to the Internet. So you could probably have the micro bots pushing the buttons down stairs and the bridge upstairs within range of Wi-Fi. They have their own IFTTT service/channel, so you can get integration with SmartThings that way.

So that product, from a Korean engineering company called NARAN, is an off-the-shelf product for exactly this kind of use case. But it might be too expensive for your budget.

If you want to wire something yourself, there are quite a few people who have wired various kinds of doorbells and intercom and access buttons using inwall micros and/or Arduinos. So hopefully some of them will chime in. :sunglasses:

Not a linear actuator, but similar need and solution. I used Dome Water Valve Shutoff. Button is on side of thermostat.

image

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Something like that. I might skin it somehow to enhance its industrial dominance look.

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I have something similar…for openning a garage door.
My recipe:
An aeotec relay;
A solenoid

cheers

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I have the same setup sitting in a box here to try out. I’d like to reclaim that pipe valve for its real purpose eventually.

Fun to watch in the meantime.