Ring the door. It opens.
Dial release gives every site one phone number. No app, no account for the caller, nothing to install on their phone. It works on any handset that can make a call.
Known callers, recognised by caller ID.
A member or staff member's phone number is stored against their record in the panel. When they call the site number, the system looks at the caller ID:
- One door on their access level: it opens straight away and the call ends.
- Several doors: a short keypad menu reads out the options and they press a digit.
- Unknown number: nothing opens, and the attempt is logged with the number.
Schedules still apply. A member calling at 3am on a daytime-only level gets the same "outside hours" refusal they would get at the reader.
For holiday lets, Airbnb and apartment blocks.
Guests do not have a fob and you may never meet them. Apartment mode lets a caller enter the apartment number and then a PIN on their phone keypad.
- Give a guest the site number, their apartment number and a PIN before they arrive.
- Change the PIN in the panel after they leave. No keys to hand over or get back.
- Residents can use a fob, caller ID or the PIN, whichever suits.
- Wrong-PIN attempts lock out with escalating backoff, and each attempt is logged.
A new fob, without a trip to the office.
Somebody is standing at the door with a replacement fob and nobody is in the office. They ring the same access line and enrol it themselves, in under a minute.
- The line recognises them and offers "to enrol a new fob, press hash". Ignoring it just opens the door as usual, after a three-second pause.
- They press hash and key in the building's site number, a short number unique to that site, so one phone number can serve every building you run.
- They then have ten minutes to present the new fob at one of the doors you put into enrolment mode. It is attached to them, with the access level you chose, added to whatever they already hold.
- The call itself never opens a door, and a fob can only ever be attached to the person whose number rang in.
- Every step is in the log: the window being armed, the caller's number, and the fob landing.
A booked room answers the phone too.
Where a door is a bookable room, a resident with a confirmed booking can open it by ringing the access line from the mobile they booked with, for the length of their slot and no longer.
- Nothing to set up per person: the booking is the permission.
- It works on a room with no card reader at all, which is what makes a shared lounge or laundry cheap to fit.
- Outside the slot the same call is refused, and logged.
Runs on the phone system you already have.
Hosted by 2plus1
We provide the number and the PBX as part of the hosted service. Nothing to set up on your side beyond adding phone numbers to people.
Asterisk or MiRTA PBX
Supported out of the box. Point a number or extension at the panel's phone API and the dial plan does the rest. Works with an existing 2plus1 VoIP service or your own.
Anything else
A simple HTTPS API: the PBX sends the caller ID and any digits, the panel replies with what to do. If your phone system can make a web request, it can open a door.
An honest word about caller ID.
Caller ID is not authentication. It can be spoofed by someone with the right tools and the will to do it, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise. So here is how we think about where dial release fits:
- Use caller-ID-only release for convenience on lower-risk doors: a gym floor, an office front door during the day, a car park barrier. It saves fumbling for a fob and it leaves a full record with the number and outcome.
- Add a PIN where you want more. Apartment mode requires the apartment number and a PIN on top of the call, and PIN entry is rate-limited per source with escalating lockout after wrong attempts.
- Use fobs and schedules for high-security doors. Server rooms, stock rooms and anything you would not leave on the latch should be on a reader, not a phone number.
Every call is logged whether it opened a door or not, PINs are stored hashed and never displayed, and the PBX secret link can be regenerated from the panel in one click if it is ever exposed.
Want dial release on your doors?
Tell us which PBX you use (or do not) and we will set up a demo number.