RATGDO and HE functionality

Interesting. I have all of my community-contributed HE cloud integrations for which the developer/porter has left HE, or for which there is no HE support, running on HA and brought to HE through HADB. Works fine, minimal load on HE. And, one of those integrations (SureFlap) would continually bring down HE when the SureFlap server had issues. Now everything works perfectly, and the integrations are supported and developed on HA.

I guess if I have to store MQTT somewhere Iā€™ll use the cloud or buy what is necessary. Can it go on a computer or (not sure if it would work) is there a spot for a thumb drive in the router? Iā€™m guessing neither of those will work :rofl:

@Darby you can host MQTT on a computer as long as it's always on. A raspberry pi is a cheaper alternative if you're starting from scratch but requires some linux knowledge. Most routers wouldn't be able to run MQTT though Firewallas or OpenWRT would. A NAS like a Synology or a QNAS could as well.

i haven't gotten mine yet, but would like to avoid MQTT server, it just doesn't make sense
to use another box... or computer on all the time... and have a Hubitat... does the ESPHome firmware give us anyway to do it without external server?
course the firmware for the Ratgdo is opensource... so at some point could maybe add what would be needed for direct control.

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If you're averse to setting up MQTT or wading into ESPHome, why are you interested in ratgdo versus something like a basic tried-&-true relay/sensor solution instead?

Sincere question - not trying to be snarky or instigate anything.

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Besides the door operation ratgdo gives access to the light, motion sensor, obstruction sensor and can lock out remotes. It's easy to physically install and potentially a few $ cheaper than relay/sensor method. But there's a squeeze to get the juice.

You'll have to modify the build files for Hubitat limitations. And then figure out drivers.

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Right on, I know that ratgdo can give access to add'l bells-&-whistles if your opener has said goodies, and that's pretty darn cool.

Just seems like there've been a couple folks here so far that don't seem much interested in jumping thru the MQTT/ESP hoops necessary, so I'm simply curious if those additional capabilities are worth that much to them?

Again, I'm genuinely not trying to stir any pot here (I got no dog in this hunt!), I'm just curious.

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I love this. I'm able to lock out the remotes when we're sleeping now for a little more peace of mind.

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Yeah, that's a nice one, no doubt!

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I'm currently having analysis paralysis when it comes to my garage door opener. I had an old one with a go-control that died from a lightning strike and I've been without a GDO for a couple months. I've looked and I can't seem to find anything I can confirm doesn't have security 2.0. I already have hubitat, a lutron hub, and broadcom hub, an old macbook running homebridge, and a ring lighting hub. I really don't want to add another hub or something like a raspberry pi just to get my GDO connected...
Like others here, the idea of the ratgdo sounds appealing (I've always wished I could control the light on the GDO) but don't want another bridge type piece of software to have to think about.
I'm hoping at some point some firmware or other solution for the ratgdo is developed that direct allows local control via HE.
At this point I'm thinking about just doing something like the garadget dry contact adapter, or going with a genie GDO with their OEM dry contact adapter.

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Konnected just announced a new product that is based on ratgo and can control the light and knows status of the beam sensors. A bit pricey and estimated ship date in March:

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Curious how you have the door open/close button setup in HE? I have the ratgdo setup in HA and added to HE with the home assistant bridge. All the HE entities/buttons work except for the open close. HE sees it as an unknown binary sensor. I tried a few options, but none seemed to work.

Part of the setup in Hubitat Package Manager when installing the HA Bridge is choosing the generic drivers that will be available. You want to make sure that you selected the Generic Garage Door driver. It should look like this when it's working correctly...

Go into HPM and View your existing Apps and Drivers. It SHOULD list a bunch and include one for the garage door..
image
If you don't see that, you may have to re-install or update the app to make sure those drivers are available for you.

Do an HPM Repair. Changes were made to HADB that need a Repair.

I am using the ESPHome driver for ratGDO, itā€™s available in HPM (though not the latest version) and works directly with the ratGDO device locally. Look for ESPHome and install it along with the ratGDO driver

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I tested that out just now and it works well though it's a bit confusing since it's just a driver and not an app. You have to go and add a virtual device under Devices, then choose the ESPRatgo driver, then put in the IP Address of the device in the parameters of the virtual device, then Save. Once you save, you can control the garage door natively. Pretty slick!

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Yeah, there really is no reason for an app, though one could be easily addedā€¦ Should I?! Not sure how itā€™d be delivered, since the driver is part of the ESPHome library.

Really, the only thing the app should do (if it needs to exist at all) is allow a user to create a given ESP32 device, ask it what the IP of the device is and what they want to name it, then just create the device for the user with the IP already configured. That way the device is already ready to go without having to add a virtual device and configure it (which is unintuitive for novice users).

Agree it is confusing but there are many inbuilt integrations that require the same steps of creating a virtual device first: Denon and Onkyo AVRs, Twilio SMS, Pushover, etc. So nothing unique with this driver and I would say an app is unnecessary overhead.

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i recently worked on the HOMEKIT version of RATGDO, i added sec+1.0 to it
still sitting as a PR (for some reason) but I gotten very familiar with the code.
i improved the issues with SEC1.0 and have another idea that will make it perfect
(but it required some hardware improvements)

there is webserver on the esp8266(which now serves the config), could use that to directly control GDO
i dont know the HE platform well enough to make a driver really quick...
could do it via simple HTTP Gets
http://ipaddress?GDO=open
I just need to work with someone on the Hubitat side