The Edge, a £15m development in Leeds, pictured, has IP door entry.
Visitors to The Edge – hotel-style rooms for university students – use Anthracite-coloured Ikall entrance panels on the exterior of the seven-storey building to call residents in the 131 apartments. These panels, from Comelit’s ViP range, provide audio communication for door control, with LED backlighting and screen characters. The products come with touch-sensitive keypads and a colour LCD display. The DDA-compliant panels are flush-mounted and made of stainless steel.
The modular design means panel components can be changed and upgraded as site needs evolve. This reduces total cost of ownership (TCO), the door entry product company says. Given turnaround in students, tenant information can be updated by uploading names via the ViP Manager software over an Ethernet connection, so saving the property manager’s time.
The Edge also employs Comelit’s multi-user SIP gateway to network the entrance panels with VoIP telephone handsets in the apartments via a VoIP PBX system. The gateway is SIP-compliant to enable telephone calls to be made via a SIP server. The gateway can communicate with up to 200 apartments and installers are able to carry out maintenance and health checks remotely from a web browser. If required, the gateway can allow residents to communicate with visitors at an entrance panel when they are off-site, by using an app on their smartphone or tablet.
Comelit worked with building services engineers, J H Shouksmith and Sons Ltd, which supplied a £1.2m mechanical and electrical contract, including CCTV.
Nick Stevens, Business Development Manager North East, Comelit UK, said: “Comelit is moving clients away from outdated closed technology and we have used our expertise with open protocols to link entrance panels to VoIP phones at The Edge. The Comelit response through the SIP gateway product was agile and flexible, allowing the contractor to deliver a multi-vendor solution that was best suited to site needs.”
About the site
Aimed largely at international students and post-graduates, The Edge features a gym, cinema and games zone. Residents enjoy 100 Mb broadband, high-speed Wi-Fi, music streaming and the services of a 24-hour concierge. The apartments are characterised by poured-resin floors and white lacquered furniture. The Edge welcomed its first students at the start of the 2015-16 academic year. It has been developed by Leeds-based Parklane Properties, a brand set for national rollout.
