Built in the late 1990s, the existing door entry system at Berkeley Lodge was aging, and the system had poor speech quality and a lot of interference and crackling on the line. Installer Olympic Security Systems advised that repairing the existing system would probably not address all the issues and they recommended a new, modern door entry solution but using the same infrastructure and wiring.

Martin Sturmey, lives in one of the flats and is responsible for the block’s day-to-day management, said: “After a bit of research, we decided that the best option was to install a new system and reviewed a range of solutions from various manufacturers. We decided to go with the Videx 4000 panel with 3000 series audio handsets. It was clearly the best system for meeting all of our access control requirements. For example, the modular nature of the 4000 series enabled us to have just the 9 buttons that we needed. It could also be flush fitted and, importantly, it looked very clean, smart and fitted in with its surrounding environment. The 3000 series handsets were marginally larger than our existing handsets and therefore could be fitted without any decoration issues. They also looked very good and allowed each resident to set the call tone volume, a useful feature that we didn’t have with our existing handsets. What’s more, the system could be fitted using the existing wiring which was a major plus point of the project.”

Olympic Security Systems supplied, installed and commissioned the new system. The installation went very smoothly, with the entire system installed and up and running on the same day. As no new wiring needed to be done, the installer simply had to carry out a straight forward system replacement, meaning downtime was minimal.

Ben Davies, South East Sales Manager at Videx, said: “Our 4000 series audio and video entry panel systems are hugely popular because they can meet a wide range of access control needs. The system can be customised for any application range, from smaller installations such as residential and private housing applications like Berkeley Lodge, to large installations including local authority and housing association properties.”

The 4000 series carries a number of features that makes the door entry system a lot easier to use, helping manage access control better. For example, the back lit keypad and graphical LCD display, voice annunciation, call progress for up to 998 apartments and 2800 proximity fobs/cards, are all designed with the end user in mind.

Martin Sturmey added: “The residents really like the new system and have commented on the attractive design of the panel and the handsets as well as the excellent quality of speech. Although we opted for a fairly simple audio system, the fact that Videx offered many more advanced facilities as part of the 4000 series gave us confidence that the system would work well. We would definitely recommend Videx kit for anyone looking to replace an existing door entry system.”