Opening Garage Door Options
Opening Garage Door Options
I figure I might as well post some stuff to the Fediverse.
I have a Meross MSG100 to add "smart" connectivity to my otherwise dumb powered garage door. To my pleasant surprise, Meross can be hooked up to Samsung SmartThings, and you can set a routine for when you arrive within a certain radius of home (100m is the smallest), it can then open the garage door. It can even be set to note if you've been gone long enough (I have mine set to 10 minutes).
For more precise location detection, you have to do a little finangling to get it to be hooked up to the Modes and Routines app where you can then also set a location setting that includes connecting to your home wifi.
The finangling involves setting up a virtual switch in SmartThings (as garage door openers aren't "supported" by M&R, but a switch is), and having a routine in ST linking the switch's state to the garage door.
If you don't have ST Labs (only available in USA and KR), then you can make a virtual switch using Samsung's own web ui: https://my.smartthings.com/advanced/devices
Anyway, we tested it this afternoon and it worked fine.
For those without a Samsung phone, this will be a lot harder to set up (if not impossible).
My backup options were:
- Getting my Cardo set up (whenever it arrives) and yelling Hey Google open the garage door, waiting for it to go 'sure, what's your pin', and yelling that at it... from like two roundabouts away from home.
- Buying and installing a Riders Magic Touch
- Buying and installing a Mo-Door
- Buying and installing the Garage Door Opener from Vizi-Tec (hooks up to brake line), apparently you do a zip-zip-zip-braaake on your brake and it activates it?
- Taking apart a garage remote and making my own version of any of the above, including like the FlashToPass/FlashToOpen (they don't exist anymore sadly) which activated when you flashed your high beams
- Tucking a remote into my tank bag and smashing the shit out of it
- Do what I've been doing which was stopping, glove off, open jacket pocket, fish out remote and press button, shove it back into pocket, glove back on, roll into garage
Anyone got any other unique ways of managing their garage door whilst on the motorcycle?
If you like to tinker you can accomplish the same and a load more with Home Assistant. I do not have a garage door but do have loads of automation that use multiple platforms together bundled in home assistant. The limit is really your own imagination with it.
Just to name a idea out of my head. I am not sure if the Meross MSG100 can be linked to home assistant but their is a high change it will. With the home assistant app on any phone for that matter. you can use anything as a trigger say distance, connection to wifi or even a wake word. then in home assistant make the automation to trigger the door to open.
Yeah I really should set up Home Assistant, especially as I have some other devices that would greatly benefit from it.
This will do me for now... until I want to really screw with more of my "smart" devices.
I used to use a regular garage door remote, with the clip modified slightly (bending with needle nose) to give it a snug fit on a piece of webbing on the chest of my motorcycle jacket. Just a quick tap on my chest to open/close.
Yeah sometimes simple is best. Certainly a lot of folks have suggested this. I tend to wear different jackets as the seasons vary wildly here, so not quite as easy an option for me.
Ditto on the regular remote. I have one if those keyfob sized ones that goes perfectly in the otherwise useless sleeve pocket in my jacket.
I have probably about a quarter million dollars worth of stuff in my garage between the bikes, tools, and machinery that I busted my ass working to afford. So I don't need to have my garage door connected to the fucking cloud, thanks. I sure as shit don't need any software trying to determine when to open the door automatically. One dumbass software glitch, one incident of the door being open and unattended even for a few minutes when I'm not home, and the methheads will be making off with most of everything I've ever owned.
Fuck that. When I press the button, or not at all.
I spent the money on the Tailwind smart opener. The app has a built in smart connection that will open/close the door on arrival so long as the phone is paired to a Bluetooth device (settings programmable in the app).
That said I don't actually use the app for my open/close function. I integrated Tailwind into my home assistant setup. For my garage door (we have 2) it opens/closes the correct one for my bike based on my phone being paired to my Cardo. I setup the same for my wife's bike. And for the other door it functions based on my wife's phone being paired to her car Bluetooth. Works perfectly every time, as long as the Internet doesn't fail me.
Looking back I know now there were definitely less expensive options to achieve the same thing. And had I had more time to tinker with it all I likely would have built something by hand. I just needed something that worked with minimal effort or tinkering. When it comes to home automation it has to work the first time or the wife doesn't approve. 😂
Yes, in more recent times I've seen comments about the Tailwind. Unfortunately it's not sold in Australia so I'd have to import it. It does rate really well, so you chose wisely!
I'm unfamiliar with the Meross device, but the webpage for the MSG100 mentions that along with being compatible with SmartThings and other apps, it also may work with generic opener remotes. Am I understanding this correctly?
Is there amy reason you can't simply attach a generic opener on your bars right next to your other controls, and once in range, reach over and press the button? Again if this isn't possible I apologize. It just seems like it'd be much simpler (if a bit less slick and automatic) than using your SmartThings setup.
Oh my regular door responds to remotes, the meross is just there to add internet capability. I'm one of those who keeps worrying they haven't closed the garage door and is already so far away it's a bit awkward to turn around.
I also don't want a remote attached to my bike that's easily recognisable as one, in case the bike is ever stolen. This is why my interest was in modules like the FlashToPass, as it's not easily recognisable as being a garage remote.