Off switch for household intercom speakers or doorbells

 All household intercoms should be made with an off switch for the speakers. Alternatively, a potentiometer for the volume would not only allow one to switch off the speakers at any given time, but also adjust the volume to a lower level suitable for cat and sound tech ears.

I manually installed two off switches for my own and a neighbours' intercom. Nowadays, I usually leave it on when I ordered takeaway food or expect mail delivery, but keep it turned off at all other times. I also want to attach a resistor to decrease the volume to a fixed level, since installing a potentiometer would require adjustments on the motherboard, which may make it more difficult to return to the default settings of the intercom, if I would like to let the flat to someone else someday.

Advantages of an off switch:

- Allows you to sleep in peace after a night shift. Usually, post employees will ring the doorbell in the morning hours, hoping that one of the neighbours of the receiver of a package will be at home. The intercom at my flat has also had periods of malfunctioning and/or there have been weirdos ringing doorbells in the middle of the night, repeatedly.

- Cats who are easily scared by foreigners and doorbells, like mine, have a less stressful life. This is also why I would like to install the resistor.

- No disruptions during rehearsals and/or home studio time.

- The sound is not very appealing, so less of it increases one's overall quality of life.

The technical heart of our intercom. A moment of triumph as I detached the loudspeaker from the wiring. All of a sudden, my quality of life had increased significantly.

Intercom off-switch that I installed for my neighbour. Off-switch kindly provided by my workmate Elmar, who is a genius at playing around with various Raspberry Pi smart home applications that he designed by himself - for watering plants, switching off lights etc.