Remote control garage door monitoring and operation

Forums › Gadgets, robotics, home automation, electronics (including wearables) › Remote control garage door monitoring and operation - suggestions?

lchiu7

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#226305 31-Dec-2017 11:19

Went for a day trip up to Martinborough yesterday and having got to Upper Hutt realised we were not sure we had closed the garage door! But rather than driving back to check was luckily able to ask a neighbour to check (and it was closed).

Made me think a remote monitoring and open/close system would be very useful. I do have both a Google Home and Amazon Alexa in the house and also run OpenHAB and HABridge to simulate Insteon controllers.

Can anybody provide some advice on what might be a good solution?

Looking around i cam across these devices

http://nexxgarage.com/

They seem to be about US$99 which seems reasonable. Look easy enough to install with just attaching their switch mechanism to the wired switch on my door opener, and fitting the sensors to the top of the door and the garage frame. It seems it's designed for folding doors and I have a tilting door. But I can mount one sensor to the top of the door and one on the door frame and that should work.

Any other suggestions I could be looking at?

Thanks

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#1927315 31-Dec-2017 11:55

Looks like it's sonoff wifi switch, but tripple the price.

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#1927317 31-Dec-2017 12:00

I'm quite interested in this too. We have a reasonably recent Garador opener and that's not on their list of compatible systems - but I have a feeling that the Garador unit might be an overseas brand that has been re-badged in NZ. Does anyone know about this?

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richms

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#1927320 31-Dec-2017 12:08

kobiak: Looks like it's sonoff wifi switch, but tripple the price.

That case the first gen sonoff uses is an off the shelf one, so just because the outside looks the same doesnt mean the inside is. Tripple $5 is still only $15, that is 20x the price so I guess it has magic pixies inside it or something

Richard rich.ms

lchiu7

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#1927354 31-Dec-2017 14:48

richms:

kobiak: Looks like it's sonoff wifi switch, but tripple the price.

That case the first gen sonoff uses is an off the shelf one, so just because the outside looks the same doesnt mean the inside is. Tripple $5 is still only $15, that is 20x the price so I guess it has magic pixies inside it or something

From what I can tell the Sonoff WiFi switch (if this is typical)

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Original-Sonoff-Wireless-Wifi-Switch-For-Smart-Home-Automation-Relay-Module-10A-90-250V-220V-Support/32844904283.html

could do the relay side and allow the door to be opened and closed remotely. And it looks like it can be made to talk to the Amazon or Google devices.

But what I can't see is the feature to tell you the door is open and signal that to you. That to me is the main application - I need to be informed that the door is open and then I can close it.

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richms

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#1927356 31-Dec-2017 15:00

The so off TH models have a 2.5mm 4 pole socket that can take sensors. You could use that gpio pin to read door state. You'd have to flash it with something else tho

The big thing that this one seems to offer is it appears to take power from the openers button terminals rather than a separate supply.

Richard rich.ms

MarkH67

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#1927362 31-Dec-2017 15:11

I'm not sure it is really necessary to pay any more than US$50 to do what you want.

https://opengarage.io/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=666&v=HpwEa_48-Cw

You can check the status and open or close the door from wherever.

davidcole

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#1927363 31-Dec-2017 15:16

Have you seen this?

https://www.geekzone.co.nz/davidcole/8960

At least for the monitoring side. If you control unit is old enough they quite often have terminals and could add the control as well. Failing that either do it via your alarm (which I’ve done - expose alarm to home automation software, expose garage door to alarm - therefor home automation can open door). Or rf capture the commands and play them back (rm pro or something)

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lchiu7

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#1927393 31-Dec-2017 17:09

MarkH67:

I'm not sure it is really necessary to pay any more than US$50 to do what you want.

https://opengarage.io/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=666&v=HpwEa_48-Cw

You can check the status and open or close the door from wherever.

That looked interesting but to get Alexa or GH support you need to use IFTTT and I am not a fan of that. But then again my goal wasn't automation (Alexa open the garage door) but to be able to be notified when the door is open and then close it remotely.

I did see a hack to get it work without using IFTTT by backing the blynk app

https://community.blynk.cc/t/amazon-echo-esp8266-control-with-natural-speech-commands/10676/7

However given I don't have the appropriate SDK I would not be able to compile this code. For $50 more I might just stick with the plug and play solution I linked to originally

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lchiu7

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#1927394 31-Dec-2017 17:10

davidcole: Have you seen this?

https://www.geekzone.co.nz/davidcole/8960

At least for the monitoring side. If you control unit is old enough they quite often have terminals and could add the control as well. Failing that either do it via your alarm (which I’ve done - expose alarm to home automation software, expose garage door to alarm - therefor home automation can open door). Or rf capture the commands and play them back (rm pro or something)

Again my programming skills are pretty rusty now and I don't have the IDE's available to be able to cut any code but that looked interesting.

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/rooms/32019730 Mention GZ to get a 10% discount

davidcole

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#1927412 31-Dec-2017 18:15

lchiu7:
davidcole: Have you seen this?

https://www.geekzone.co.nz/davidcole/8960

At least for the monitoring side. If you control unit is old enough they quite often have terminals and could add the control as well. Failing that either do it via your alarm (which I’ve done - expose alarm to home automation software, expose garage door to alarm - therefor home automation can open door). Or rf capture the commands and play them back (rm pro or something)

Again my programming skills are pretty rusty now and I don't have the IDE's available to be able to cut any code but that looked interesting.

The ide I should have linked to. Honestly once the frame work is in it’d be about 5 lines of actual code. I’ve got a sketch that controls a fan. But again the issue of how you talk to the door (ie hardware)

MadEngineer

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#1927571 1-Jan-2018 10:52

Wire this into your home alarm:

Wired plate gets bolted to your garage floor, magnet goes on the door.

SP-3000A from any electrical wholesaler

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lchiu7

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#1928108 2-Jan-2018 17:03

Bit too much here left an an exercise for the reader alas :-(

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plas

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#1928381 3-Jan-2018 10:08

lchiu7:

MarkH67:

I'm not sure it is really necessary to pay any more than US$50 to do what you want.

https://opengarage.io/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=666&v=HpwEa_48-Cw

You can check the status and open or close the door from wherever.

That looked interesting but to get Alexa or GH support you need to use IFTTT and I am not a fan of that. But then again my goal wasn't automation (Alexa open the garage door) but to be able to be notified when the door is open and then close it remotely.

I did see a hack to get it work without using IFTTT by backing the blynk app

https://community.blynk.cc/t/amazon-echo-esp8266-control-with-natural-speech-commands/10676/7

However given I don't have the appropriate SDK I would not be able to compile this code. For $50 more I might just stick with the plug and play solution I linked to originally

I have one and it works perfectly fine with Openhab + Alexa, no need for IFTTT.

lchiu7

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#1928409 3-Jan-2018 11:36

Are you saying that the open garage kit can be controlled with openHAB and an Alexa? Without the use of ifttt. Do you have details as I have already have openHAB running. Thanks

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plas

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#1928493 3-Jan-2018 14:37

lchiu7: Are you saying that the open garage kit can be controlled with openHAB and an Alexa? Without the use of ifttt. Do you have details as I have already have openHAB running. Thanks

Yip sure can. Going from memory I used the comment below to extract the state of the door, It does require the http binding.

The API documentation contains the call to trigger the door.

https://github.com/OpenGarage/OpenGarage-Firmware/blob/master/docs/OGAPI1.0.4.pdf

Then use the Hue Emulator to allow Alexa to control it. I would rather not use the openhab Alexa binding as it requires the openhab cloud service.

https://rayshobby.net/introducing-opengarage/#comment-137484

Peter says:

May 25, 2016 at 4:58 am

I’ve managed to connect openhab using http binding. Here’s the configuration:

/etc/openhab/configurations/openhab.cfg:
# configuration of the first cache item
http:opengarage.url=http://192.168.4.1/jc
http:opengarage.updateInterval=11000

/etc/openhab/configurations/items/opengarage.items:
Group Garage
Contact Garage_Door “Garage Door [MAP(opengarage.map):%s]” (Garage) { http=”<[opengarage:10000:JS(opengarage-door.js)]" }
Number Garage_Door_Distance "Garage Door Distance [%.0f cm]" (Garage) { http="<[opengarage:10000:JS(opengarage-dist.js)]" }

/etc/openhab/configurations/transform/opengarage-dist.js:
JSON.parse(input).dist;

/etc/openhab/configurations/transform/opengarage-door.js:
(function(i) {
if (JSON.parse(input).door == 0)
return 'CLOSED';
return 'OPEN';
})(input)

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