Can you answer your apartment buzzer while you are travelling?
Yes. An apartment buzzer that dials your mobile reaches you anywhere your phone gets calls, because a buzz is an ordinary incoming call. Abroad, that call can cost roaming fees, and a time zone away you may be asleep. The better setup is a buzzer number that rings a roommate or neighbour too, such as a BuzzMeBro number, so someone nearby answers first.
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You are in Lisbon. Your phone rings at three in the morning with a Toronto number. It is the lobby, and a courier is holding the box you forgot you ordered. Do you answer?
You can. Whether you should is a different question, and it has a better answer than staying up for the buzzer.
Why the buzzer can reach you abroad
A dial-out lobby panel places an ordinary phone call to the number stored for your unit. If that number is your mobile, the call reaches your mobile wherever it is, at home, at work or in another country. How a buzz travels.
When you answer, you talk to the visitor and press the door digit, usually 9. The panel hears the tone through the call and releases the door. Distance does not change that, as long as the call stays connected and clear.
What it costs to answer from abroad
Inside Canada an incoming call is usually free on a normal plan. Outside Canada, many plans charge for incoming calls unless you have a roaming pass or a plan that includes the country you are in. Check your carrier’s roaming terms before you go, because a buzzer can call several times a day.
Wi-Fi Calling can help when your carrier supports it abroad, but some intercom calls do not pass the door tone cleanly over it. When Wi-Fi Calling breaks the buzzer. Test before you rely on it.
The better setup: someone nearby hears it too
The trouble with answering from abroad is that you are the only door. A buzzer that rings one phone puts the whole apartment on that phone, whoever owns it and wherever they are. Why it only rings one phone.
BuzzMeBro gives your apartment its own local number that rings up to 4 phones at the same time. A roommate, a partner at home, or a trusted neighbour hears the same buzz, and whoever is free opens the door. You can still answer from abroad if you want to. You no longer have to.
- Pause yourself. Take your own phone off the ring for 1, 8 or 24 hours, say on a flight or overnight in another time zone. Everyone else still gets the call.
- Quiet hours. Set the hours your phone stays quiet while you are away. The others still ring.
- Missed it? Reply 9. If a buzz goes unanswered you get a text, and replying 9 while the visitor is still there opens the door.
- A pass for the house sitter. Send them a guest pass so they let themselves in without anyone answering.
If you live alone
There is nobody at home to hear the buzz, so plan the deliveries and visitors instead. Hold parcels, or send them to a pickup point while you are away. Delivery options that do not need the buzzer.
For a cleaner, a plant waterer or a cat sitter, a guest pass or a code for set days is safer than handing over a key fob. Letting a guest in when you are not home. BuzzMeBro does both, with the first month free. Start free.
Questions people ask
Does the buzzer know I am out of the country?
No. The panel dials the stored number and waits. It cannot tell where the phone is, so a buzz reaches you abroad exactly as it would at home, roaming charges aside.
Will pressing 9 work from another country?
Usually, yes. The digit travels back down the same call. If the line is poor, or the call goes over a service that changes the audio, the tone can fail, so test it once before relying on it.
Can I stop the buzzer ringing me while I am away?
If your own mobile is the stored number, only by asking the building to change it. With BuzzMeBro you pause yourself or set quiet hours, and anyone else on the apartment keeps getting the call.
Is it safe to let someone in from abroad?
Speak to the visitor before you open, as you would at home. Remember that the door lets them into the whole building, so only open for people you were expecting.