Last updated April 1, 2023.
Hello hello — it's been a while! I'm posting this for other people who may be in a similar situation, having scoured the internet for ways to make their apartment intercom/buzzer smart.
In my last post, I mentioned nello (now discontinued), which is a great idea in concept, except it doesn't support the majority of intercoms that U.S. apartments have. Nello is meant for intercoms that have a handset, and requires rewiring your intercom yourself, which can be hard, and dangerous.
I tried my best with the nello unit I got, but the most I was able to do was continuously activate my door buzzer with it — certainly not ideal.
Nello is a good idea in concept — at least for its home market of Europe — but it falls flat elsewhere.
Enter SwitchBot: though not ideal, it’s a solid product, and it integrates well with smart assistants (in my case, Google Home).
Again — I'm posting this to get the word out to people stuck in a similar situation (renting an apartment, where keyless entry is difficult). With the Sesame smart lock and SwitchBot combined, you can have a truly keyless entry system for your apartment, without having to alter it, which will make make landlords happy.
SwitchBot is pretty much self-explanatory — its sole purpose is to press, and pull, buttons and switches. All you need to do is mount SwitchBot next to your buzzer button on your intercom, allowing you to remotely buzz yourself in.
This solves the dilemma of giving guests access to your apartment while you're away, or at work. Because in an apartment, after all, there's no hiding a spare key under a rock, like you would with a house.
The first half of the equation — the Sesame smart lock, which is mounted on your apartment’s door latch — can be automated within the Sesame app. It has a location sensor that automatically unlocks the door when you get very close, which is extremely helpful, and works great. This can be configured for an infinite amount of guests.
If you want to automate SwitchBot, and have it work in tandem with Sesame, I recommend using “If This, Then That” (IFTTT), which also works with Google Home, and other smart assistants. Thankfully, both Sesame and SwitchBot have open APIs, which allows for a wide variety of IFTTT integrations.
With IFTTT, you create a trigger, and then create a response to that trigger. In this case, saying a phrase like "unlock the door" to Google Home would be the trigger, and Sesame and SwitchBot letting you in, would be the response.
Most guests won't want to download two different apps to access your apartment, so here’s an IFTTT applet I developed, where you can press a button on the IFTTT widget, and both the SwitchBot and Sesame will activate simultaneously. Here’s another applet that will do the same thing, except you trigger it by saying a command to Google Home, such as “unlock all the doors.”
If you want to create a webpage that guests can use to let themselves in, without having to download any apps, here’s another solution I created.
Finally — I forgot to mention — make sure you buy the WiFi accessory for both SwitchBot and Sesame! This is vital for ensuring you can access both remotely (and not just through Bluetooth).
P.S. — if you want to be able to get into your apartment without needing your phone, take a look here.