For those getting Alexa to close garage door with “close” command, how did you get that working? I can only say “open” and it opens and closes my Chamberlain MyQ system. It has been like this from the start using these instructions for Logitech Harmony and adding the MyQ as a switch:
Door is open, I have to say “open garage door” for it to close, as it doesn’t know how to “close” for some reason. ST sees it as open or closed, and when added to Amazon Echo, it should translate it but doesn’t. Works great other than that!
bamarayne
(Jason "The Enabler" as deemed so by @Smart)
42
Do a good search of the forum for the Chamberlain system.
I use the nutone gd00z system with my genie garage door opener.
With echo it works amazingly well.
I’ve seen this issue a whole lot with the Chamberlain and I’m not sure of a 100% way to fix it.
My setup sees MyQ as both an on/off toggle and a momentary switch. Turning the on/off to ‘on’ activates the garage door to either open or close depending on its current orientation. The momentary does the same - if momentary pressed while the door is closed then it will open the door and vice-versa. So when you say “Alexa, open the garage door” it interprets that as “Turn on the garage door” which starts either the open or the close process depending on the state. “Close the garage door” does not emulate the momentary button push, so the garage door does nothing.
There multiple different ways you can go about getting this to work, but I will explain it with the native Smart Lighting smartapp.
Setup the following as a New Lighting Automation from within Smart Lighting:
Which lights do you want to control?
{select MyQ momentary button}
What do you want to do?
Turn on
How do you want to trigger the action?
Switch Turned On/Off
Which switch?
{select MyQ garage door on/off switch}
Looks good so far, but doesn’t the trigger “Open/Close” seem like a better option for this issue I’m having? I’m not at home to test, but I’ve set up the Smart Lighting automation as you suggested. Anything needed to do with the Amazon Echo SmartApp after setting this up?
bamarayne
(Jason "The Enabler" as deemed so by @Smart)
45
My two cents… Fwiw…
If you can get the gd00z unit n
Using Alexa, mine works like this…
Door closed and I say open door, it opens.
Door open and I say close door, it closes.
Door closed and I say close door, it does nothing.
Door open and I say open door, it does nothing.
Door opened via Alexa and I close it via wall button or remote and I say close door, it does nothing, and vice versa.
Alexa sees the state of my door and operates accordingly. This is done via the device handler code, not via Alexa.
I have had no problems and it works great almost always.
The only problem I ever have is Alexa thinks I want to know what a garage door is, vice operating the door.
I don’t know if that’s an option, but if it is the unit cost about 90 bucks.
Home and it isn’t working as advertised - I can’t get it to close still when opened using the “close garage door” command. Alexa says “okay” and does nothing, as others have said too.
Starting to wish I didn’t buy the Chamberlain CIGBU MYQ system and went with the Linear even though I have a MyQ enabled opener based on the results others have had with the Z-Wave, but I’m also hopeful that ONE day Chamberlain will work with IFTTT, at least… On the Chamberlain forums, it isn’t looking very good, but with that many people complaining, something is bound to happen
I’m trying to get my myQ garage openers to work with SmartThings. I followed the instructions above to create a “switch” and now have that created. But how do I associate it with my physical garage opener? Any basic instructions would be greatly appreciated!
This is a pretty old thread and a lot has changed. I just got my confirmation that my Echo was delivered today so i’ll be playing with it the next few days. I could be wrong, but I don’t think you need a virtual switch any more. Try here:
Would you be able to point me to where you learned how to not need to say, “turn on” or “turn off” for something like the garage door? And can this be applied to other commands? Like right now i have to say “Turn off Goodnight” for one of my evening shutdowns.
Now that Amazon allows Echo users to create routines, you can use natural language “open/close the garage door.” It’s a small thing, but man it’s better than having to say the derpy sounding “turn on/off the garage door.”
Strange when I go to http://alexa.amazon.com it does not show “routines” only Smart Home but if I go to my Alexa app on android it does show routines.
So I created a simple routine in SmartThings to close my garage doors but the Alexa website under Smart Home show this error
Close Garage Doors SmartThings Routine - Disabled because it contains device(s) unsupported by Alexa
In the Alexa android app devices it does not show my garage doors at all but it does show the SmartThings automation Close Garage Doors I created and lets me add it but will not allow me to run the Alexa routine. saying garage doors are not supported by Alexa.
I am able to use “ask Alexa” to open or close my garage doors but I am not home to make sure that still works I haven’t used it in awhile
If you use the @rboy universal garage door opener device handler, it will work with Alexa and not be restricted. There may be similar device handlers available. I think you could also set up a virtual switch to trick Alexa.
