Show HN: Buzzcut – Make Your Apartment Buzzer Smart

1•aphrx•8mo ago

Most apartment and condo buildings still rely on phone-based intercom systems. A visitor buzzes, your phone rings, and you press 9 to let them in. But if you miss the call or aren't home, you're out of luck. There's no easy way to grant remote access or see who’s coming and going.

Buzzcut turns these buzzers into smart access systems. It lets you unlock your building door from anywhere, share temporary access links with guests or delivery drivers, set auto-unlock rules during certain times, and keep a log of buzz-ins. No hardware changes are needed—just link your buzzer to a virtual number managed by the app.

It’s built with Flutter (iOS and Android support), a Python backend, Firebase, Twilio for virtual numbers, and RevenueCat for subscriptions. Group access control makes it easy to share access with roommates or family members.

This started as a solution to a personal problem and is now being tested in a few buildings in Toronto. Still early, but looking for feedback, testers, and ideas.

Would love to hear what you think.

Comments

pavel_lishin•8mo ago

What you describe as "legacy" is actually leaps-and-bounds ahead of nearly every apartment buzzer I've ever had in my life. The "call my phone #" was only ever a feature at one apartment, and it was great - everywhere else, it's always been either a physical box with three buttons & a speaker/mic mounted somewhere near the door, or a hard-wired telephone that functioned identically.

aphrx•8mo ago

You're totally right — "legacy" probably wasn't the best word. In a lot of cases, even the setups that call your phone are more functional than what most buildings still have: just a mic, speaker, and a few buttons, or a hard-wired landline. I think what I really meant was that there's a lot of untapped potential for automation and smarter access, even in those "more advanced" systems.

Long term, I'm also exploring a hardware solution to modernize those even further — something that could work with the more basic setups and bring them up to speed with features like remote unlock, access logs, and scheduled access, too.

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