If you live in a home with a garage door opener, you may have experienced one or more inevitable moments. You pull up to your home, you press the button on the garage door opener, and… nothing. Or you can’t find the garage door opener. Or you have to mash the button repeatedly to get a response. Or… you get the idea. Thanks to [Core Electronics] however, you now have the basis for using a much better device to control your own garage door: Your phone. You can see the tutorial on the web or in video format below the break.
[Michael] at [Core electronics] was tired of dealing with the inconsistencies and inconveniences of a poorly built remote for his garage door opener. When he inspected the controller board on the garage door opener itself, he found that it was already configured to allow three buttons to be connected: Up, Down, and Stop.
Realizing that a MOSFET can be configured as a switch, [Michael] built a circuit with three such devices and then connected them to the Raspberry Pi Pico W. Some MicroPython code does the needful, and now [Michael] can access the controls from a website on his phone. Nifty!
We also appreciated that the tutorial gives a full view of the project so that a beginning hacker can decide whether this is the project for them, and it discusses some of the security aspects of making your garage door and IOT device. Well done!
Given the warnings in the video, we wonder if [Michael] also saw the Hackaday article “The Trials And Tribulations of Building An IOT Garage Door Opener” from 2019.
Thanks to [Graham] for the great tip!
This is my version, using an Arduino nano, and an Android app.
http://enginemonitor.blogspot.com/2015/08/garage-project-update.html?m=1
On our opener one push opens, push again while opening and it pauses and pushing it a third time closes.
I’ve done this, but with a single button activated by a relay. It works as Terry Jones describes above. However, I have put a switch in line with the relay output which is always off because I don’t trust hackers not to hack my home automation and open my garage door. Of course I have no defence against a crowbar.
ESP32 and a few dollar relay board here. Local address for web interface so you have to be on our network or VPN in. That’s good enough security… the window in the door is the real weakness.
I was going to do something like this but I bought a unit for like $20. Has an app and even tells you when the door is open or closed thanks to an included magnetic sensor. You can also set time restrictions so say you forget the door is open and 11PM comes around it’ll close it automatically.
$20? What is the make and model?
Lookup myQ from Chamberlain garage door. I have one. I paid < $10 for mine.
myQ is cloud based… a showstopper for some of us. My newest opener is a myQ model but I use an ESP32 and relay board instead.
Did same…used an esp8266 and an optocoupler. Linked it to my Home Assistant and ran a reed switch with a magnet to detect door position.
I used a Malouf board (https://maloufelectronics.com/), a reed switch for a security system, and ESPHome/Home Assistant:
esphome:
name: garage-door
esp8266:
board: esp01_1m
# Enable logging
logger:
# Enable Home Assistant API
api:
ota:
password: !secret ota_password
wifi:
ssid: !secret wifi_ssid
password: !secret wifi_password
# Enable fallback hotspot (captive portal) in case wifi connection fails
ap:
ssid: “Garage Fallback Hotspot”
password: !secret ssid_password
captive_portal:
binary_sensor:
platform: gpio
pin:
number: GPIO16
inverted: true
name: “Garage Door Sensor”
device_class: garage_door
switch:
– platform: gpio
name: “Garage Door Relay”
id: garage_door_relay
pin: GPIO14
restore_mode: ALWAYS_OFF
on_turn_on:
– delay: 1000ms
– switch.turn_off: garage_door_relay
I just took apart the remote and wired the switch to an ESP, installed FauxmoESP. Loaded it up in smarthings and alexa. Added a tilt switch on the door for open/close status. Closes automatically at night if kids accidentally left it open.
You can add a alarm in it and set a timer, after some time interval, it will do alert you.
Here’s an off the shelf version that uses ESPhome, provides a website, a reed switch, a usb power supply. Out of the box, you can get it to work via WiFi with Google or Alexa. You can reflash it with ESPHome or Tasmota to take it out of the cloud. It works with Home Assistant. https://www.athom.tech/blank-1/garage-door-opener-for-esphome
I made one of these with a Watch Dogs style web interface a few years ago.
It worked flawlessly for six years until lightning struck a few meters away and fried it. I took this as a sign to be happy with the remote I had., because the original opener was unharmed.