We were in bed and all of a sudden SmartThings tell us the garage door is open, at 10:47pm.
This was an Unexpected action. It should not have opened. I looked at all the push notifications and did not see any reason for the Garage door to open. In fact the only action to open the Garage door when entering the GPS fence was disabled (that is another story).
We were leaving for a weeks vacation so I disconnected the Z-wave relay switch until I can figure this out.
The SmartThiings system took a BIG “Wife Approval” hit when this happened !!!
Has anyone else had false or unexpected actions like this one opening a Garage door or unlocking an exterior door?
This is a very serious security flaw. Hard to use a system that randomly opens your garage door, leaving everything in the garage exposed.
@greg_j_powers what relay? I’m using mimo’s and never ever had those or ST do anything like that, especially without something in the device’s event logs.
You are not alone. I have been working with support for at least six months on this issue. I not only have my garage door opening at any time but also two other lights that just turn on by themselves. I suggest you contact support and let them know. Also make sure you tell them others are having the same issue. If they can study multiple sites perhaps there will be a pattern to the problem
Does your Garage Opener also have a RF remote that you used before SmartThings? In a neighborhood I lived in about 5-6 years ago someone had driven down the street and used a RF blaster that opened about 60% of the doors on the street. You can build these things with a few parts and a few minutes of googling. We all had the same non code-shifting openers installed by the contractor from when they built the houses. Make sure that if you do use a RF opener, that you have a code-shifting remote and receiver.
Also, if you live in a rental, or someone used the openers before you, they may have programmed in the codes into their car. So you may have gotten the remotes, but they still have the codes. My Chrysler 300C has a learning remote. I think it still has the codes from the house I lived in two years ago. I could probably go open their door at 10:47. Sorry, bad joke.
Anyway, my point is, is to think outside the ST box too. Your security depends on it.
l’ve wondered how to disable the original receiver, either nondestructively (shield antenna), or destructively (remove rcvr or maybe crush a crystal). Did not identify rcvr quickly and then I saw a shiny thing so it’s a loose end.
Funny because a couple times of unexpectedly open garage door was an initial motivation for my ST installation.
I have had two garage doors connected for about a month now with zero issues or false commands. Provided this is a custom integration and I closely monitored all comms for about 3 weeks before installation to verify everything behaved correctly. In general, the only time I have seen any strange behavior out of smartthings is associated with apps that are triggered off of presence. Since the presence based on geo fence sometimes has the tendency to arrive and leave I have had the alarm system disarm after someone left the house thinking they had “arrived.”
Was there no entry in the Device Log showing a command was issued to the relay to open the door? Is there a chance it is a relay issue and not the base station?
@ero4444, so this happened as well before you integrated the opener with SmartThings? If that’s the case I would not say this is a serious security flaw in ST, but something else is going on instead.
There was another thread about this garage door issue and I experienced it but only in connection with presence detection. I have had great performance with garage door relay and “warn me if its open” stand alone. When I tried using it with geofenceing (iphones) it worked pretty well but had a phone turn off once and trigger and happened a few times with ST fobs loosing connection and triggering. I just stopped using the arrive and away as triggers. .
Yes the unexpectedly-open-door incidents were before ST installation. The open garage door is not an ST problem since I chose to not integrate the opener to ST.
ST has worked well to notify if the door is open more than X minutes - that was the first reason to install.
I have had ST on my Garage door for 7 months, luckily no issues. I don’t use presence on it though. I use ST to monitor the garage, let me know if it’s open/closed, and to close it automatically if left open after a certain time.
I agree, when we left for Christmas vacation I disconnected the relay. Smartthing has got to fix this if we are to control the locks on doors. What would SmartThings do if they got sued for opening the garage door and the whole house was cleaned out. I think they could be liable. Especially if it has been a know problem for SIX months…
We own the house, been living here for 30 years. Never had a problem with the opener before. Even when it was connected up to a Stargate home automation controller. The Stargate has a bunch of relays and we had both Garage doors connected to then since 1999, never has a unexpected opening.
All great things to check thanks for, Thanks for thinking outside the box…
The log does not show any other action before the garage door opened. I had already disabled the “Open Garage door on arrival” based on the GPS fence.
I had problems with the GPS fence. When leaving our house you drive north and exit the GPS fence. The street then curves east and connect to the main north/south street. When going south on the mail N/S street you cross the GPS fence again (sometimes). This would cause a FALSE arrival and the Garage door would open. SO I have tried moving the GPS fence to the west, it is already at the smallest setting. But still for now this feature has been deactivated until the false opening can be sorted out.
It would be useful to also check the mode convo screen and see if the systems thinks it was doing something you “asked.” I have yet to have ST issue any unsolicited commands, I have had several commands be delayed or not get issued, but not the other way around. Any time I have seen unexpected behavior it was because I had told it to do something without fully thinking through the implications of what I asked.
@greg_j_powers, This is really odd. If you look at the LFM-20 device in the IDE, nothing under “In Use By SmartApps” is listed? Sorry, but I’m not sure what else to check other than the device logs you’ve already looked in to. I know all the MIMO’s I’m using on garage doors and other relay needs have been great. Just curious, but you didn’t happen to loose and regain power to the LFM-20 shortly before the door opened?
The issues I’ve had with my MyQ Garage Door opener was with the Ridiculously Automated Garage Door Smart App. When the garage door opened out of no where at 2am, my wife’s finger was on the removal of smartapp button very fast! Since then, I’ve just used native ST actions to open the door upon my arrival, which has worked well. However, my wife has serious geofencing issues with ST and this would not work out well for her.
Already been down this path. The garage door control device was disabled as a test. The problem still exists. Because this has been going on for a long time I am thinking outside of ST. I also have two other z-wave dimmers that turn on randomly so I know it is not someone playing with a garage remote. What I am trying to find out; Is it possible for RF interference to actuate Z-wave devices? Because these devices run in the 900MHz band they are sharing it with a multitude of other devices such as, electric smart meters, water meters, gas meters. I also have a wireless weather station that operates in this frequency band. This problem can happen 3 times in a day or go months with no issue. I do know the problem is NOT due to defective switches, power surges, wiring problems, etc. Because z-wave is supposed to be encrypted and error correcting I don’t know how RF could cause it but who knows?