SoftGate - Home Intercom Access

SoftGate is the last SIP client for your home Intercoms that You will need! Use your Android phone or Tabled as old as running Android 9 to manage access to your property. It integrated with Home Assistant of your choice to run automations. No longer need for buying expensive indoor units or additional subscriptions. You can do whatever you want with it, no data is being collected (only what’s required by AdMob) everything is kept on your device.

Learn more visiting official SoftGate Documentation

That’s a good question. Let’s start from the beginning. I started planning security for my home. The plan is to have a fenced plot which requires to somehow let visitors from inside the house. I wanted to see who is coming so camera was a must. What was also mandatory is the ability to see the person before actually picking up the call. I find that as an absolute necessity as for security and In case where I would like to know who this is, but not necessarily let them know that I’m home.

This started a semi-long session of researching available options. At first I thought of Ubiquiti since I like the brand and have a good experiences with their AccessPoints. Their Intercom was looking absolutely great especially bundled with cameras, but it was pricey and requiring to jump into their ecosystem to experience all of the cool features. I started looking for alternatives inside my budget which…​ wasn’t going well. Between devices with bad video quality or straight up looking like something from early 2000 I finally found device that which satisfied my requirements completely. I ended up choosing Hikvision DS-KV6133-WME1. The only issue that I quickly learned with it was that their Indoor units:

That’s when I learned what SIP protocol is, that this Hikvision model supports it, I can self host it and connect to it with dirt cheap Android tablets or basically anything that I want. The only issue was…​ no available Free or OpenSource solution out there. That’s when I thought hey, I can make computers do things I will create a solution of my own.

So now to the fun part, what exactly can SoftGate do? To keep things simple and clear I won’t bloat this section with unnecessary text. Please enjoy a list of features

I have quite a few ideas how the app can be improved, but for the nearest future I am planning to add native support for intercom built-in access controls (to open the gate etc.). UI could use some improvements as well. Also I’m thinking of adding settings to be password protected. In case if you are renting your property or in general, don’t want anyone to access it.

Long term goal is to add support for older devices, so that you can run it on whatever you have at hand.

The app is completely free available on Google Play Store. There are only small, non intrusive adds that do not impact functionality in any way, are not annoying (no pop ups) and especially there are NO ads during the actual call. Period.

Any feedback is greatly appreciated. You can submit a review directly in the store, or if you have any issues, questions feature ideas you can create an Issue in this Github project or contact me directly under this Email.

At first it might be difficult to setup everything. For that case I have created this guide. Enjoy!

Thanks for reading the article, hope you found it useful!