My apartment block is upgrading the intercom network so I decided to take the opportunity to upgrade to a video-enabled intercom. When I arrived home yesterday I was a little startled to see my previously slim handset had been replaced by a very large chunk of plastic, buttons and screen that’s almost too wide to fit in to the allocated space between a light-switch and the wall.

The design of this monster took me a little by surprise. I’m sure the screen is a good size but there’s an awful lot of wasted space, random buttons and placeholders for more buttons. There were no instructions and I was confused about why I had four buttons to choose from when the only thing our intercom system provides is the ability to open the front-door. I looked a little closer and found some fine raised markings to the upper-left of the buttons:

The first appeared to be a key so I’m safe to assume that it will be the button to press to let people in. The next was a vertical line beside a rectangle with two rounded corners. Third was a single dot. Fourth were two dots placed vertically.

Someone at least seems to have thought through the placement and size of top-most button as unlocking something after visual confirmation may well be one of the top uses of intercoms. The symbols for the other buttons however still has me pondering what they might be used for when this device is installed in other places that make more use out of intercom systems.

The way that these icons are presented pose a problem. They can’t be seen without good light and squinting so a learning curve is required (or at least would be if more than one button provided an action). The contrast and brightness dials have black icons beside them so why can’t these icons be displayed in the same way? Black paint may get scratched and wear away but no doubt there’s some method to try and keep them there under reasonable use for the life of the device. There’s also plenty of room in that area to separate the buttons and show larger centered icons so they are easier to see.

There’s a great waste of space in the device for no reasonable gain. All of the buttons could sit below the screen saving a small amount of the width. And does an intercom really need a detachable handset or could a microphone and an answer button work just as well?

No doubt there are some amazing looking and functioning intercom systems out there and this is just not one of them. The same goes for everything man-made – some things are beautiful and considered and some, well, they’re just not. Now I have to wait until they finish installing the remaining intercoms to find out if it actually works.