Guide to Choosing an Intercom System for Your Electric Gate

If you’re thinking about electric gates for your property, choose the gate intercom at the same time. An intercom system is how you talk to visitors and open the gates for them from inside the house. You can check who’s there before letting them in, and nobody has to walk down the drive to find out.

There are several types to choose from, and the right one depends mostly on how far the gate is from the house and whether you’d rather answer callers on a handset indoors or on your phone. These are the main intercom options for homes.

Why Do You Need an Intercom for Your Electric Gate?

An electric gate keeps everyone out until someone opens it, and that includes the people you’re expecting. Without an intercom, the only way to find out who has pulled up is to walk down the drive and look, which gets old quickly on a dark winter evening. With an electric gate intercom you speak to the caller from indoors and open the gate if you’re happy to let them in.

It makes deliveries easier too. The courier presses the button, you check who it is, and they can bring the parcel up to the door while you carry on with what you were doing.

Types of Electric Gate Intercom Systems

Audio Intercoms for Gate Security

The simplest setup is audio only, with a call button and speaker on a panel at the gate and a handset in the house. You and the caller can talk, and the gate stays shut until you choose to open it. There’s no picture, so you’re going on voice alone, but nobody gets through without speaking to you first.

With less to it, an audio intercom is one of the more affordable options. If budget is the main concern, it’s a sensible place to start.

Video Intercoms

A video intercom adds a camera to the gate panel and a screen to the unit indoors. You see who’s at the gate as well as hearing them, which is a real help when you don’t recognise the voice.

The camera and screen push the price up, and you’ll pay more than you would for audio. If most of your callers are people you know, audio may be all you need.

Wired vs Wireless Intercoms

Audio or video, the signal still has to get from the gate to the house, either along a cable or over the air.

A wired intercom is the more dependable of the two. The catch is getting the cable in. If the gate is a fair way from the house, that can mean digging a trench across the lawn or lifting paving to run it from the gate panel to the unit indoors. Where a duct or spare cable went in when the gates were installed, the job is much simpler.

A wireless gate entry system sends the signal by radio or over WiFi instead. Nothing needs digging up, and it goes in much more quickly. That makes it worth considering on larger properties, where the gate is out of sight of the house and a cable would have a long way to go. The link can be less reliable than a cable, though, so test the signal at the gate before you commit.

GSM Intercoms for Remote Access

If you’re often out when people call at the gate, look at a GSM intercom. The gate panel has its own SIM card and rings your mobile when someone presses the button. You talk to them as you would on any call, and you can open the gate from your phone as well.

Because the call comes to your mobile, you don’t need to be at home to answer it. You might be at work when a delivery arrives and still be able to check who the driver is and let them in, provided there’s mobile signal at the gate. That’s as useful on a business site as it is at home.

Smart & WiFi Intercom Systems

Smart and WiFi intercoms connect to your home network and run through an app on your phone, which you use to answer the gate and unlock it. Some can be paired with smart locks too.

Biometric entry is another option on certain models. A fingerprint or face scan opens the gate, and only people you’ve registered can get in that way.

These are among the most technologically advanced intercom options you can buy, and they cost more than a standard audio or video setup. If the unit connects over WiFi, it also needs a good signal at the gate, which isn’t a given on a long drive.

Why Choose TPS Electric Gates for Your Intercom Installation?

TPS Electric Gates is a family-run business based in Gloucestershire, with over 20 years of experience. We fit a wide range of driveway gate intercom systems, wired and wireless, for homes around Gloucester, Cheltenham, Bristol, the Cotswolds and further afield.

Once an intercom is in, we can keep looking after it, with regular maintenance and support if something stops working. If it ever needs attention, you’ll be calling the people who fitted it.

Which gate intercom suits you comes down to a few practical points: how far the gate is from the house, whether there’s a cable or duct already in place, how good the mobile signal and WiFi are at the gate, whether you want video, and whether you’d like to answer from your phone.

We’ve fitted intercoms to all sorts of gates over the years and can recommend a system that suits your property and your budget.

Get in touch with TPS Electric Gates and tell us a bit about your drive and how you’d like to answer the gate.