Introducing Smart IoT adapters: boom barriers, ANPR and smart meters

For two years, the most requested integration from our gate-heavy communities has been the same: "the boom barrier already knows the car came in — why am I telling the app the same thing?" Fair question. Today we're shipping the answer: Smart IoT adapters, a family of integrations that connect gate and utility hardware directly to your community dashboard.

What's in the first release

Boom barriers & access controllers

Radiatus now talks to the relay controllers behind most boom barriers and swing gates installed in Indian societies. A QR pass scan, an RFID tag read, or a guard's manual override all trigger the barrier and write the same entry to the visitor log — one event, one record. The override button in the guard app logs actor and reason automatically, which converts your most argument-prone gate event into your best-documented one.

ANPR cameras

Automatic number-plate recognition finally earns its keep in a society context. Resident vehicles registered in the system glide through on plate match; unknown plates raise a guard prompt with the camera still. The practical wins are unglamorous and real: the school-run queue moves, night-shift data entry stops, and "when did my car leave?" has a timestamped answer with a photo.

Smart water & energy meters

Common-area electricity is typically a society's second-largest expense after security, and the first one nobody watches daily. Pulse and Modbus meter adapters stream common-area consumption into the dashboard, with anomaly alerts — a borewell pump that ran all night now announces itself the next morning instead of on the bill. For societies with unit-level water metering, readings flow straight into maintenance billing, ending the monthly staircase-climb with a clipboard.

Design principles (or: what we refused to build)

• The gate must fail open to humans. Every adapter has a manual path that works with the network down. Hardware automation that can strand an ambulance at a gate is not a feature; the override is always one guard action away, and it logs after the fact.
• No rip-and-replace. Adapters speak to the controllers societies already own — the common relay, Wiegand and Modbus interfaces — because "buy new barriers" is not an integration strategy.
• Data stays yours. Plate reads and meter data land in your community's tenant, under the same retention policy as the rest of your gate log. We don't aggregate it across communities, full stop.

What this unlocks next

Once hardware events and software records are the same thing, some long-requested reports become trivial: true visitor dwell times, parking occupancy by hour, energy cost per common area. The IoT dashboard ships with the first three; tell us what your committee actually argues about and we'll prioritise from there.

Availability

Smart IoT adapters are rolling out to communities on the White Label and Professional plans, with a hardware compatibility check as part of onboarding. If your society has a barrier, camera or meter installation and you're unsure whether it qualifies, send us the make and model — the answer is usually yes, and when it's no we'll say so before anyone spends money.

Our favourite line from the pilot came from a facility manager in Pune: "The barrier worked before. Now it testifies." That's the release in one sentence.