I have an interesting use case for our new house; however, am not able to determine if it will be feasible. Fortunately, it seems that Nuki is one of the only products on the market that can help me. For some reason outdoor smart locks for gates do not really exist.
I will try and make this as simple as possible.
The house has a outside gate on the street which is under cover
The outside gate has a Google Nest Hello doorbell integrated with Google Nest Hub Screen inside
The front door to the house is approximately 5m from the front gate via a open garden
Proposed Installation
Front Gate
The front gate will have an Electronic Strike lock which will control the opening and closing of the gate.
We would place a Nuki Keypad next to the Nest Hello and Gate on the outside perimeter. When the code is entered, this would release the Electric Stike and allow the gate to be opened.
Front Garden
Because the Bluetooth range from the front gate to the opening inside the house will be too far, we would place an Opener in the garden in a waterproof housing. This would be located approximately 2m from the front gate.
The wiring from the Electric strike will run from the front gate to the opener located in the front garden.
The opener in the front garden will be wirelessly connected via Bluetooth to the Bridge inside the front door of the house - 5m (other side of Brick wall)
Front Door
We will install a Nuki Doorlock on the front door and place a bridge nearby to enable internet control
There will be a bridge placed just inside the front door at the closet power socket
Hallway
Approx. 5m from the front door, we will place another Opener on the wall. This opener will also connect via Bluetooth to the bridge at the front of the house near the door.
The Opener will be wired to the same Opener in the front garden via cable (which cable is needed?) so that when someone rings the doorbell, the gate can be opened from inside the house.
Questions
Can one opener be connected to another opener in order to connect to the Electric Strike? (i.e. can the opener in the garden be connected both to the opener inside and the electric strike) (Similar to a bridge).
What will the time lag be from entering a code at the keypad at the gate, to the gate releasing?
Can you pair the opener with the gate instead of the front door?
Would it be better to purchase 2 bridges - one for the Opener inside and one for the opener outside? (the inside opener would still somehow need to be connected to the front keypad - would this need to be wired or could it be done through the network?) i.e. you press the button on the Opener inside, it sends a signal to the bridge inside which sends a signal to the bridge outside > to the Opener outside > releases the gate)
Not really a developer question but anyhow, i’d recommend the following:
Outdoor: Put 2 Openers together with a bridge in a waterproof, plastic housing. Connect one Opener to the pedestrian gate and the other one to the car gate (which seems to be also electric). Having the car gate on the Opener has the advantage that those things usually have IR sensors and automatically close after some time. You can trigger the opening very nicely via Auto-Unlock (“Open on geofence enter”), which means that the gate is already open when someone comes home by car or bike and closes automatically after some time. Might be not so handy if you have pets or little kids though.
2nd Opener inside: You don’t need that. Just wire it parallel to the existing Opener and connect it to a simple Push button (Lichtschalter). This will also trigger the strike when you push the button. No electronics needed. This gives you also the choice to later on place a 2nd Opener there or move the outside Opener inside if you want to.
First Point: This is actually not such a bad idea; however, as mentioned, we do have a dog. But I think more of an issue would be, what if you just want to park on the street vs. going inside, I guess the gate would then open every time, is that correct?
Secondly: Can you connect two gates to a single opener or will we need two openers?
Third: I was thinking, if the Keypad connects to the bridge and not the opener could you simply run the cable from the Electric Strike into the house to the hallway and mount the opener inside. Then in the garden simply put a Bridge near the front gate. This would mean that the Keypad outside would connect with the bridge in the garden. You could then place a second bridge inside the house near the front door which is what the Opener in the hallway and the front door lock would connect to. Would that be a better option?
If we do go with an opener in the garden and a cable inside to a Lichtschalter would the cable from the Lichtschalter be connected to the Electric Strike directly or would it be wired to the Opener in the Garden and the Opener wired to the gate?
There are actually 3 gates - Pedestrian Gate (listed above), Car gate (listed above) and another pedestrian gate at the back of the house. If we wanted to connect all three to Nuki, would they all show up as individual gates in the App? because in that case we may add another Keypad to the back gate.
Thank you very much for your response - as you can see the basics of what we are trying to do is simply get a ‘Smart Gate’ which does not really seem to exist on the market. With your solution it seems like this might actually be possible; however, if the Keypad and Opener were Wifi enabled, it would be easier - maybe that can be a V2 model!
Yes. But that also means you can walk through this gate without the need to type in a code at the pedestrian gate.
Two
The Keypad always connects directly via BLE with the device it is paired with
Directly with the strike. You could also try to place a Nuki Fob next to the main entrance door instead of the wired connection to the Strike. Would also work as long as the Fob is in BLE reach of the associated Opener.
Yes. You would also need to manage their user separately as Nuki does not support grouping as of now. Usually a minor problem in a single home as there is a limited number of users/devices anyway.
So if you want to control a particular device - i.e. Keypad to control the Opener, the Keypad needs to be paired with the Opener?
Is there no sense of a ‘network’ amongst the Nuki devices -
Bridge 1 - Door Lock + Inside Opener
Bridge 2 - Opener + Keypad
The Inside Opener on Bridge 2 cannot communicate with the Opener on Bridge 1 because Nuki does not have the sense of a logical network amongst its devices? it has to be physically wired.
With your example of placing the Fob next to the main entrance door - the Fob would need to connect to the Bridge in the garden, not the bridge inside the house because the signal cannot be sent from one bridge to the other then to the Gate opener
(i.e. Fob > Bridge (inside) > Wifi Home Network > Bridge In Garden > Opener > Electric Gate Strike.
Lastly, the front and rear gate will be controlled by a BFT Automation motor - can this integrate with the Opener?
Yes and no. One Opener does not support to control another Opener independent of a connection between the two.
If you want to remote control a Nuki device you can do this directly via BLE with Nuki Accessories (Fob, Keypad) or the Nuki App or you use one of the integrations that use the Bridge or Web API.
The Fob is paired directly to an actuator (Smart Lock or Opener) and communicates via BLE with it.
After further review, I think at this stage we are simply going to connect the Front Gate + Front Door + Internal Switch in order to keep remove a lot of the complexities (Although it already seems very complex).
I have tried to go ahead and create a wiring diagram for the electrician as they have never installed Nuki before and have requested it, but with the lack of clear documentation I am stuck. Could you please indicate how the following should be wired for this to work? Once it is wired up, do they need to configure the devices using the App?
Do you have any suggestions on the relay to use? Is there a way to do this with an all in one device rather than an exposed circuitboard?
