Interact with your TCS or Koch intercom with a Telegram Bot and ESP8266
Open Door Demo![]() |
Telegram Actions
Example Notifications
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Currently supported TCS bus events:
- send open door command (up to two doors)
- receive notifications for open door
- receive notifications for intercom call
- receive notifications for apartment doorbell
- receive notifications during lift handset
- Multi-user: easily register/remove additional 2 telegram chatIDs (group chatID or user chatID) as bot user
- Silent mode (per user): disable notification of TCS bus events for specific user
- Party mode (all users): automatic door unlock every intercom call
- Sniff mode (main user): forward all TCS bus events (for collecting protocol codes for initial configuration)
- Dev mode (main user): silent mode for other users and enable sniff mode (useful for debugging and testing)
- Simple DevOps environment via PlatformIO, Arduino OTA, and GitHub Actions
Other hardware-specific features:
- possible isolation of TCS BUS and ESP circuit via optocoupler when ESP is powered by separate supply
- possible de-isolation of TCS BUS and ESP circuit via jumper when ESP is powered by TCS bus P-Line
- separate pin for resetting config to defaults (short-to-ground)
(Detailed user manual coming soon in /docs)
- Setup PlatformIO dev environment and build (or download latest .bin from release)
- Make interface circuit
- Setup Telegram Bot
- Flash, integrate and test
- Enable "Sniff Mode" to capture own TCS:Bus protocol codes
- Change default config with captured codes
- Enjoy!
(Detailed integration manual coming soon in /docs)
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Link to Interface Circuit Schematic Diagram
- find a way to power ESP from TCS bus P-Line without cracking sound
- proper cabling and housing
- support for telegram-keyman for complete keyless apartment entry!
- create user manual, getting started (sphinx-docs), integration manual (with oscilloscope photos)
- add section for known issues and limitations
- low power mode/wake-up/proper scheduling for optional battery support
- PCB layout
- logs (reset counter, etc.) and error handling
- simple HTML web server to update config
- simple web server for wireless serial debugging
- add sample unit tests for TDD demo
- create GitHub actions for automated test and docs generation
- add sample domain and application models for DDD demo
- from the TCS Hacking YouTube video, the TCS Bus A-Line is between 20V-24V, our system is between 7V-24V (verified using oscilloscope)
- in our apartment, we have 2 doors: main door (facing street) and garage door (inside tiefgarage)
- our system has 6-line TCS bus with video intercom (instead of the usual 2/3 line)
- getting 5V from the 24V TCS bus P-line using DC-DC buck converter to power the ESP produces noise (cracking sound) in the video intercom (EMI/grounding issues?)
- decided to use an optocoupler to separate the ESP ground from the TCS bus B-line
- atc1441's TCSintercomArduino, for the YouTube video and TCS bus decoding
- peteh's doorman, for the TCS bus library
- AzonInc's Doorman, for the insights on ESPhome and home automation
- witnessmenow's Universal-Arduino-Telegram-Bot, for the Telegram library
- Strooom's demoCloudBuilds, for the PlatformIO-baesd CI/CD workflows
- MrDIYca's wireless-serial-gateway, for insights on serial wifi bridge








