Home intercoms allow you to communicate clearly and easily from room to room throughout your home, as well as from outside areas like gates and entran- ceways. Intercoms also help make your home more secure by allowing you to know who’s at a door before answering it, monitor a child’s room remotely, or stay in touch with a sick family member in another room.

Whether wired or wireless, the main components of an intercom system consist of the control panel, or master station, and ubstations with speakers.
e master station is the control panel. It contains the electronic circuitry for the intercom system, and may have the power switch for the entire system as well as radio or other music distribution controls. Some basic systems only allow you to talk from a substation to the master station, rather than from subs- tation to substation. Keep this limitation in mind when you are shopping for a system.

Substations, also called slave or remote stations, consist of a speaker, which can deliver audio and act as a microphone during a reply, and a switch to transfer from listen to talk modes.

Most standalone intercom systems are audio only, meaning you can talk and listen from station to station, but not see the person with whom you’re talking. However, video systems are becoming more a ordable and available. A video intercom includes a camera, with a monitor at the control panel, which allows you to see who’s at the front door or entry gate while you’re talking with them, or you can keep an eye, as well as an ear, on your child’s room or on an ill family member.