Having a remotely controllable door lock is great; being able to unlock the door with a keyfob or access card too. Especially when you compare it to the old-fashioned key method. My front door key is getting rusty, it’s not used anymore! On the other hand, when I’m at home I usually don’t have my keychain with me all the time; key-chain, cell phone and wallet have their own place in the living room so I always know where to find them.

So what happens when someone rings our doorbell? Before I can walk to the front door, I’ll have to get my key-chain cause I can’t open the door without it anymore. The simplest remedy for this is laying a keyfob or access card near the front door (in our case, on the stairs) and use that one to operate the lock. Simple and easy.

But there’s a much better solution for this! The Nemef RF Module has 3 inputs, of which input 1 can be used to temporarily unlock the Nemef Radaris Evolution. So what I did is mount a momentary on switch to the wall and connect the wires to the RF Module. Done! No more badge on the stairs and a simple push of the button is enough to unlock the door.

My Domotica system will be notified of this push by a so-called Hardware Status Response in which a specific bit will have changed from 0 to 1, indicating that input 1 is low. Once the button is released, the same response will be received again but now with a value of 0 for the input1 bit.

After that, when the door is actually opened, Status Responses are received which reflect the changes to the lock  status, caused by opening the door and the subsequent closing of the door again. Normally, when a badge is used to unlock the door, these Status Responses are preceded by Badge Responses, so it’s very easy to detect whether the unlock was caused by using a badge or by pushing the momentary switch.

Another great tool is the Lock Action command; this command enables you to temporarily open the lock (the lever can be used to open the door). In our situation, this means the touchscreen in the living room can be upgraded with an extra button for opening the front door. When the doorbell is pressed, the touchscreen automatically switches to the front door camera page so we can see who’s there. From now on, with the Nemef Radaris Evolution lock integrated in our Domotica system, pushing the ‘open’ button on the touchscreen is enough to let that person in

From a Domotica perspective, our new Nemef Radaris Evolution is nothing more than a closed system. No communication, I/O or other ways to interface with it. But there’s a really good solution to this: the Nemef RF Module!

The RF Module can be used for transmitting an ‘open’ command to Nemef Radaris locks, it can act as a wireless interface for RF Controllers and can also be used with products of other manufacturers. Last but not least this RF Module has a RS485 interface for easy integration into existing systems. The open ASCII protocol that is being used for the RF Module makes the combination of the Nemef Radaris Evolution and RF Module a complete solution for integration into any Domotica system, including mine.

The RF Module is also equipped with 4 relay outputs capable of switching max. 24V AC/DC @ 0,8A. On top of that, this RF Module has 3 inputs (the middle terminal block with the 6 connectors) which can be used for various pre-programmed purposes. More on that later.

In my case, the RF Module is connected to a RS485 to Ethernet converter so that I can ‘talk’ to the Nemef RF Module over Ethernet.

In the last couple of weeks I’ve been working on the software side of things; classes that represent the RF Controller, RF Module and Badges have been developed and an interface class which takes care of handling the protocol and delivering the protocol data to the corresponding device class instances.

A preliminary version of the resulting page showing some of the information that’s available can be found here.

This RF Module enables me to:

• Lock/unlock the door from my Domotica system (hence, from wherever I am);
• Badge administration: adding and deleting badges from the RF Controllers memory and granting access to the in- and/or outside readers;
• Configure the 3 inputs of the RF Module;
• Switch the 4 relay outputs.

And of course, my system gets notified of all the real life events taking place on the Nemef Radaris Evolution, like

• a badge that has been detected by a reader (which badge, which reader, whether access has been granted);
• the status of the controller (deadbolt position, battery condition, latch status);
• changes on each of the 3 inputs.

All this is done without the need for polling or any other kind of continuous communication; cool ; what more do you want..

More on the advantages of using the Nemef RF Module in an automated (home) environment later!

Nemef Radaris Evolution

Since about a month we have a new door furniture on our frontdoor; the Nemef Radaris Evolution. It has been a long-cherished wish to have a electromechanic lock and now we have one, with the Radaris Evolution as matching furniture.

The Radaris Evolution that was installed on our frontdoor is equipped with 2 RFID readers; 1 on the outside and 1 inside and also has a lever on both in- and outside. To access the Radaris Evolution you can use keyfobs, remotes or credit-card sized transponder cards.

The lock is a multi-point lock, which means the lock doesn’t just have a single dead bolt; this lock has 3 hook bolts. This lock certainly provides much more security than the one we had before because this lock is SKG ** security rated and also has the dutch police “safe living” hall mark. Free levers on both sides make sure the mailbox isn’t that much of a security issue anymore either.

It’s obvious that this lock has been designed with security and convenience in mind all the time; we’ve had an electronic lock before, but this Nemef is of a  different league; you just can’t compare those 2.

The Radaris Evolution is battery-operated and can be used with 2 AA alkaline batteries, or if you prefer a longer lifetime, lithium batteries of the same size. Alkaline batteries should be able to keep the Radaris Evolution working  for  a maximum of 5 years or 45.000 operations.

Now why is this Nemef Radaris Evolution so important to write about it on a Domotica related weblog? Well, more about the Domotica link later; I have to finish some things first!