I recently connected my GDO to a Zen16. I also drive a motorcycle and have a steep driveway, so I've been trying to think of a good way to automate the door opening in a way that is a little more secure. I think I'm going to make a virtual switch called "coming home" and not give any access to something like Google assistant so no voice commands. When I leave work, I can turn the virtual switch on. If the switch is on, then use presence to open the garage door. The virtual switch will turn off after the door is opened or after 2 hours, which should give me plenty of time to get home even if there is a traffic jam.
I haven't tried it yet, but I'm hoping this works well. It would be especially nice when it's raining.
Along the same lines of forgetting to close the Garage and having it close automatically, I have setup the mudroom lights to go red when the garage is open. We then know the garage was left open and correct it sooner, but the main reason was so our dog did not escape when we take him out to do his business.
I have a couple of virtual presence devices set up. One based on this. And I also have been trying to work some BLE beacons into that same sort of approach, but the results are sort of mixed. And I also use the Hubitat mobile app presence sensor, but it can be flaky. I use @jwetzel1492's Combined Presence app to help combine and dither out inconsistent states between all of those.
I wouldn't have even bothered getting into home automation in the first place if the fam could turn off a light. I got tired of coming home to every single thing that could be turned on being on. My electric bill was regularly over $400. Now its usually around $100. Most of that savings came from turning off the AC units while the doors are open and scheduling them off while we're away.
I use auto open mainly for safety incase my car's auto start is trigger and the car is running in the garage with the doors closed. It will open up the doors. This doubles as an added bonus of opening as I arrive home.
I was a little concerned about security of the auto open.
so I wired my zigbee arrival sensor (an Xbee3) to the usb ports in my car so they are only powered on if the car is running.
Oddly..that's what started me down the home automation path. I have 3 garage doors and then a man door into our house. It was pretty common for someone to leave a garage door open, especially in the winter. So I wanted something to auto-shut them. I started with finding the Garadget on Amazon...that led to smartthings...yada yada now I'm here.
I still only use HE to shut the doors if they are left open...and let me know if they are open when no one is home or when we go to bed. I used to do the whole open when I got home things but with 3 doors and 5 cars...and the cars sometimes shuffle between where they are parked...that didn't work out so smoooth.
I automated mine because we would frequently forget to close it, sometimes when leaving home, but primarily when going to bed at night. Years ago (before home automation) we left both the garage door and the door into the utility room open. One of our neighbors got home around 2AM and actually called the police, concerned about us. So we woke up to really loud banging on the front door and calls of "This is the police!"
I don't have any automations that automatically open or close the door when I come or go, open doors, etc. I just don't trust HE or any consumer home automation/presence system that much. I wouldn't do that w/my front door, so not going to do that w/my garage door. Also, an automation that closed the door when I leave would be a problem if someone in my family is in the garage (son is a bike fiend and is regularly out there working on them) and needs the door open. I could set up some motion-based rules to not close, but if he's sitting on the garage floor cleaning parts that's just not reliable. Neither my son or wife want presence trackers on their phones.
So my main uses of the garage door automation and open/close status are:
Check open/close status when I'm away from home: If I start to wonder "Shoot, did I close the door???" I can check in HE, and if it's open, I'll take a look at the camera I have in the garage to confirm the garage is empty/inactive, and then close it remotely. Since my family is usually home when I'm not, having a notification that the garage door is open when I'm away is not much use, as it could be any of them going somewhere after I've left, one of them already in the garage when I leave, or them doing something in the garage while I'm gone, or just opening the garage part-way for a breeze through the house. Too many indetermite situations, all of which are relatively common.
Check door status when I'm going to bed: The garage door is tied into an Event Engine automation that tracks a bunch of my doors/windows and sets a light to red in the evening if any are open. If it's open I'll go to the garage so I can see it's clear and push the button manually to close it. Not leaving it open when going to bed (our most common "oops") is the most valuable part of the automation for us.
As usual, YMMV, and the nice thing is that each of us can come up w/automations and options that meet our personal situations/concerns.
The Liftmaster 889LM saved me many times. Installed it and the 828LM a few years ago after leaving door open too many times over night, and making too many trips home to check if I closed the door after leaving.
More specific: Picture tying the garage door to arrival and departure on presence. No one’s home, automatically close that thing if open. When you arrive inside the geofence open up for you.
i do it for convenience. instead of stretching up to reach my garage door opener, i can use voice to open it. i've also teamed my garage door with my garage light and have that turn on, so i'm not just using the dim bulb from the motor, but the LED light i put in the ceiling (this can just be done with a tilt sensor, no need to control the actual door with it). as others have mentioned, i've set an alert if it's been opened for too long as well. again, this would be from the tilt sensor and not the action door control
for me i did it on the top on the inside. i added a tilt sensor (thanks @aaiyar) to a WADWAZ-1 external sensors, and turned the contact sensor into a tilt sensor (i had the sensor previously or else i would've gone with a z-wave plus device). this way when the top panel starts to tilt back, it'll alert the garage door is open
Other possible practical application would be to control the door for a limited opening in order to allow for the delivery of larger packages or/and ventilation for limited periods of time and without compromising the security of the house.
For security reasons I haven’t gone down the presence rabbit hole to automate the garage, I had tried this years ago on SmartThings and my garage opened in the middle of the night because of some cloud issue. On HE I did automate it for 2 use cases.
Like others I have left it open overnight by accident so when my hub changes to night mode it will close the garage if left open.
My kids tend to leave it open in the afternoons and I cannot see the garage door when pulling up to the house. While pulling up the driveway I hit the button to open the garage, but it closes instead, super frustrating. Lutron makes a Pico remote visor mount so I now use the Pico instead to open the garage since button controller is set to only open it, if it’s already open nothing happens. Picos have pretty good range too.
It is easy and cheap to do, if one avoids the expensive products sold to the unwary consumer.
I have a door sensor mounted on the garage door below a hinge that swings down and closes when the garage door panel is closed, and hence, vertical. A magnet is mounted on the hinge, so the door sensor always knows the correct state of the garage door, even if the motor is disengaged, and the door opened manually. Even the cheapest door sensor can do this job.
(When the garage door is open, the door panel is horizontal, so the hinge swings open downward, and the magnet swings away from the sensor.)
To operate the door, I have a SonOff relay, running Tasmota, and electrically rewired to be a "dry contact" relay, per the many YouTube videos and web pages that explain how. The SonOff is wired in parallel with the momentary-contact wall switch that operates the garage door, so there is no need to buy any new add-ons for the garage door opener.
So, for literally about $5 total (a Lowes Iris door sensor and a SonOff), I am managing the garage door as well as those who spent hundreds, and I can avoid the sinking feeling about leaving the garage door open. I also have a cheap pocket fob remote to close it when I pull the lawn mower or other gardening tools out, which has a handy sliding cover to cover the buttons when it is in my pocket 4 Buttons Sliding Cover Garage Door Remote Control Fob For LIFTMASTER 433MHZ US for sale online | eBay , as we dislike having stray feral cats poking about in our garage, and "marking" their territory.
I tend to make clear to them "what I think" with a Tippman 98 paintball gun. I just wish I could buy some of those "pepperballs" used by police on protestors, as plain paintballs aren't as emphatic as I'd like.
