Does Anyone Have Any Experience With Butterflymx?

David,

I've sold/installed it a few times. The concept is being specified more often as a result of a high volume of multi-residential developments. The technology is solid but, the door station is not weather resistant. Also, the list price for the RMR is not much higher than the dealer price.

I've used DoorKing for traditional telephone entry and, they have a "Smart Open" app that will provide the same technology as ButerflyMX. This one I've only seen demonstrated.

IT techs tell me that the concept is fairly simple and requires just a hosted site, an IP camera with two-way audio, and an output to unlock the door. That noted, the access and administration software is the "secret sauce." 

Hope this helps.

David Coughlin

Comment from Michael Silva:

New apartment construction is going on like crazy in the Seattle market right now and I am seeing a lot of new installations of the Butterfly MX at the higher-end buildings.

The Butterfly MX works in conjunction with smartphone app that allows you to see a video camera at the door.

I am preparing a proposal for a project that specified ButterflyMX. This is my first experience with them and I am not impressed. Their pricing model and especially their total cost of ownership is much higher than other, well established IP systems being offered by Comelit and 2N.

I think they are really marketing directly to building owners/managers rather than dealers/integrators.

I would much rather install high quality systems from well established companies with good support systems and a strong distribution channel aimed at the dealer.

We just looked into Butterfly and not seeing the value. Several issues but the most obvious is no access control. All this thing does is pop one door. So you need a separate database system for other doors...

UD1. What kind of experience do you have with Comelit? We had one of their demo units for a trade show, and the app didnt work well at all. Kept going offline

Butterflye has been acquired, no details disclosed. Somewhat interesting is they were bought by Ooma, which has primarily been voip/telephony focused.

Has anyone had luck with this system? I talked with someone from the company a couple of months ago and they have no interest in working with integrators for discounts for the recurring. Seems that they are missing a huge portion of the market when they bypass security integrators?

Take a look at our system, we offer what Butterfly does but also includes their missing access control piece for way less cost than theirs. There is also no restrictions on our RMR model, sell 1 or sell a thousand systems, we will still pay you 20% every month.

Here is a small demo video for the video intercom:

Our single entry access controller can control a gate or even a washing machine:

Our systems runs off plain vanilla WiFi, no need for SIP, VOIP, nor POTS, think of it like a Skype call.

If you must, the least expensive way to provide cellular based Internet access is to get a cellular hotspot and use it to provide the WiFi to our controllers. The downside is that the range is very limited compared to standard hotspots, so you can only provide WiFi to nearby controllers. It's usually much easier to piggyback off existing Internet services on site, using outdoor access points to extend the range to the gate / door.

The video intercom is WiFi only, but the Wiegand single entry controller can be either WiFi or Ethernet hardwired.

The $599 10" pre-assembled kit is made for outdoors but is not rated officially because there are 2 big vent holes on the back of the inside box, so it must be used in conjunction with the accompanied hood.

Here is the install instruction video: