Garage Door Switch Question

I am looking for an easy, inexpensive, garage door opener switch that will work with my Smartthings hub. All I really need is something like the Digital Ant switch but it is bluetooth and obviously not supported. I want something I can just run in parallel with my push button wall switches. Both of my garage doors have the proper safety features to prevent it from closing on something or someone. I also already have a security camera focused on the doors. I have two SmartThings sensors for monitor the status of the doors. I have looked at the Chamberlain MyQ, Iris, and several others but each has its negatives. I just want some simple momentary contact relay switch. I also looked at the GoControl. It seemed to do what I wanted but the reviews suggested that the unit has significant reliability issues. I could stomach buying a new $20 switch every year or two but I don’t want to have to pay the price of the GoControl unit and have to replace it at that price. Surely someone makes a simple, inexpensive Zigbee or Z-wave momentary contact switch.

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Take a look here

I followed the instructions in this video but used a plug compatable with ST instead of wink. But the rest of the details are the same.

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I made a similar setup but I used a smart outlet with a USB wall wart (AC Charger) plugged in to it and ran the 5V output (Low, safe voltage) to a 5V relay. Just cut the end off of an old phone charging cable and wire it to the relay. Everything is UL listed except for the 5 volt dc that runs to the relay. I did end up buying a 10 pack of relays and a dual channel switch in case I want to control both garage doors. The whole setup including door contact sensors cost me just under $70 USD.

I then wrote (actually borrowed) an app that turns the z-wave outlet off any time it is tuned on effectively making it a momentary switch and further wrote some custom code to make the door do some automated opens/closes for specific situations (like when I come home open, when EVERYONE leaves close).

I had a tilt sensor and didn’t like it. I adjusted it the best I could but it would still have to opened more than a foot before it registered as open. I solved that buy using a Xiaomi Door/Window Sensor. Its a fraction of the price or a tilt sensor and if the door is opened not even 1" it shows as open.

This one was just a quick concept that I threw together over the winter that I used scraps to make. I will most likely re-do this spring and make it look a lot better.

One issue that I had with contact sensors was the fact that I’m in the northeast and my garage routinely gets down below 40 degrees in the winter, and near the door it gets down to just about freezing all the time. So, batter operated devices were out of the question. What I ended up using was a wired contact sensor tied to an ESP board using the ST_Anything project. You may also want to consider different, easier mountable contacts that are made for garage doors like this one:


I had a heck of a time mounting my contact sensor and wish I had bought something like this. Would have made it SOOOO much easier.