Having a doorbell for your large warehouse or business is one of those things you probably haven't given much thought to unless you worked in a larger facility and missed delivery or someone knocking on the door. This is something I never really thought too much about until I started working at 1800doorbell.com. As an eCommerce company without a traditional retail brick and mortar store for customers to browse, there isn't a need to keep our doors open. For security reasons, we like to keep our doors locked. This was an easy decision for us because we have a variety of wireless doorbell and entrance alert products we can use that alert us when someone is at the door or delivery is approaching. Many businesses may not be aware of those options, and in this article, we hope to address some of them for you.
Believe it or not, real stress for many employees who work in a warehouse or large business facility is fear of missing a delivery truck or a visitor out front. With this in mind, it has always struck me as odd that builders rarely ever put wired doorbells in their facility when building out a commercial space.
I assume there may be situations when tenants may not need a doorbell but more often than not, they will surely want to know when someone comes to the front or back of their facility. It's one of those situations when it's better to have one installed than not.
Office Buildings and Warehouse Spaces Require Longer Range Wireless Door Chimes
If wired doorbell is not installed at your location and you want one, running the bell wire and installing the wired doorbell isn't as feasible as you may think. Almost all commercial warehouses are constructed to brick, cinder block or poured concrete. How do you run wire through these materials? On top of that, it's not YOUR building and the owner may not appreciate or approve of you drilling holes through walls.
Here comes the wireless doorbell. As we have discussed in some previous topics, wireless chime products solve a huge problem for tenants. In a matter of seconds they can install and have a fully functional wireless chime system in their warehouse. Until recently, however, there have been some major limitations to this.
Specifically, wireless doorbells did not have the range, or power, needed for commercial applications. The products used in commercial applications, such as re-barb, concrete, steel, etc., will have a negative impact on the wireless range of a product.
The rule of thumb we tell customers is that for every wall in a commercial application the wireless signal has to penetrate, the signal will degrade by 30% each time it passes through the wall. In this example we will use the standard wireless door chime or doorbell you would get from a box store retailer.
A standard 150 ft. wireless chime would actually have a range more like this in a facility with two walls between the front door and an office:
- 300 ft. x .70= 210 ft. range after penetrating the first wall.
- If there is a second wall, the take the 210 ft. and degrade that signal by 30%. 210 ft. x .70= 145 ft.
This is pure line of site as well. You also need to factor other environmental factors that could be interfering with the wireless signal.
A wireless system with a range of 73 ft. may work fine in most residential environments but we find it simply isn't enough in a commercial application.
Compare those numbers with a business wireless doorbell like the ERA-UTDCR which has a range of up to 4,000 ft. Remember in our scenario above where the wireless signal will need to penetrate two walls.
- 4,000 ft. x .70=2,800. Next take another 30% off that number and you get a wireless chime with a range of 1,960 ft. which is typically more than enough for warehouses.
- The ERA-UTDCR is a long range wireless doorbell system with a range of up to 4,000 feet.
- The system is expandable, meaning you can add more receivers and more push buttons, extending the listening area and doors covered.
- Another great feature about the ERA-UTDCR is that it's compatible with a wide range of products such as a PIR sensor, a push button, outdoor PIR sensors you can use to monitor the driveway, and much more.
1800doorbell.com carries a large assortment of wireless door chime products. Regardless if you need a long range system or one for normal residential applications, choosing the right one requires basic knowledge of how they work and what your options are. To assist you in this, visit our business doorbell page and/or feel free to call or email us with any questions.