GoControl GD00Z-4 question

As an engineer I gotta say there are too many unknowns here for this to mean much. Ironic for me to be saying this as I was the one who brought it up but as JD points out there are lots of these sold so the failure rate is probably actually pretty low; it’s just that human nature means the one’s you’ll hear from in reviews are the ones who have problems. Also, w/out knowing the cause, it’s entirely possible that those who are experiencing failures, especially multiple failures, are inadvertently using the device in a way that contributes to the failure - maybe a really hot location, or their power spikes, or is actually a bit higher than 120V … hard to know without analyzing the failing devices to root cause.

Bottom line I’m going to take a flyer on it and hope for the best. If I remember I’ll report back in a couple of years if it’s still working. :smiley: Of course you’ll hear from me sooner if it dies early.

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I recommend you get it.

I look at it this way… If I can afford home automation, I shouldn’t be worrying about if it last 2 or 3 years.

I guess I’ve been lucky…

(Knock on wood)

All of my devices are between two and three years old. I have never had a device fail. I have had them fail out of the box, but once installed, never.

My system contains approximately 180 - 200 devices.

Yeah for $100 it seems like it’s worth a flier … not sure I’d dive in again w/the same device if it only lasts a year tho. At $100 I expect to last a lot longer than 1, or 2, or even three years.

FYI I’m still less than a year into this smart home stuff. Right now I’ve got a whopping 10 devices tho I am about to add 4 3 more, plus the GoControl (probably). No failures yet, out of the box or otherwise. Fingers crossed …

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get it from Amazon and purchase their optional 4 year warranty

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Hmm. I don’t normally do warranty’s but in this case maybe not a bad idea. It’s only $5 so pretty cheap for extra insurance.

Interestingly Amazon lists both the Linear and the GoControl, but the Linear is $12 more. They are actually the exact same design right? Is there any reason to get the Linear over the GoControl?

See the FAQ. It’s a couple years old, but still applies: :sunglasses:

No idea of course what the exact failure rate is but I will gladly place a bet that it’s higher than normal, it’s the exact same issue every single time, there’s an obvious component issue with the relay or whatever is used internally to temporarily short the connections together which is what fails in pretty much all instances where someone has a problem with it.

Like I said, I’m most likely still going to buy it, in fact I’m likely to buy another two right now but if you shop carefully on Amazon, you can often pick it up for ~$70 or less and that tip about the “Amazon Warranty” is actually a great idea, I think that’s the path I’ll take:

But like I said, expect it to fail. I had one last just over a year, I had another last ~3 or 6 months, I can’t remember exactly.

Clearly I didn’t do enough research before posting! This thread:

makes it pretty clear this is a design flaw in that the LED fails consistently and doesn’t sound like it’s a good selection for a garage environment where temps and humidity will get high. Also sounds like there is a pretty easy fix. Still no idea what the real failure rate is; 100% of those reporting failures are failing, but how many just work?! Seems to be available at Lowes for $75 right now so I think I’m going to drive over and pick one up tonight. I’ve got a Lowes CC, maybe I can get a better warranty with that?

Yeah that’s basically it though I’ve not seen people mentioned the LED stops working, as far as I remember, it beeps, it flashes like it’s going to do it, but then it never shorts the connections to trigger the garage door opener.

That’s the exactly failure mode of pretty much everyone I’ve seen that has had issues with it.

Just read that thread, interestingly it looks like someone finally found a fix and if I’m reading it right it seems that the processor has some sort of sensing on the piezo and LED and if one of those aren’t working properly then it won’t trigger the door, probably due to some UL safety requirements…

Hmm. So bypassing the LED with some resisters bypasses the safety requirements, no?

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Yes I believe UL requires that any garage door opener that can be operated remotely has to have a buzzer and a flashing light, so it kinda makes sense that they may have checks to make sure those safety features are working…

@JDRoberts generally knows more about this kind of thing I believe.

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That makes sense … and also makes be feel better about bypassing it.

Ah, so you made a claim as though it were a fact, when it’s actually just a guess/assumption/speculation on your part.

No, I made a claim, one which I stand by. There’s a very consistent failure mode. There is a fault with the design, of course it’s going to lead to higher than normal/expected amount of failures.

As though it were a fact…which you later backed down to conjecture that you were willing to “bet” on. The difference between the two things is rather significant. Remember that the point of this sort of thread is to provide information that people can use to make reasonably informed decisions. Claiming to know for a fact that a given product “has an unusually high failure rate”, when all you really know is that you’ve experienced failures and have heard/read about some unspecified number of other failures experienced by others, is misleading.

I claim that you’re the internet’s greatest pedant :slight_smile:

No, I didn’t claim anything “as though it were fact” nor did I even use the word “fact” with regards to anything except to suggest that the Amazon warranty was a good idea.

Once again, I made a claim, I stand by that claim, I will bet on that claim. The are facts that we know:

  1. The internet is full or issues with this device.
  2. The issue is the same in almost all of the cases you can find.

Now, just so you’re not misunderstanding or misrepresenting what I am trying to say which is, just a warning about the same, common failure that a lot of people are seeing and if you are going to purchase this product, expect the same outcome, anything else is a bonus.

I’ll await your need to have the last word.

Lowes has it for $75 right now and I get 5% off w/my Lowes card. I’m going to take a flyer and see if I get lucky. I’m also going to see if Lowes offers any kind of extended warranty. I’ll report back in a year.

That’s pretty funny, considering that you immediately follow it up with…

Stating something “as though it were fact” does no require explicit use of the word “fact”. Pedantry, you say?

It’s always amusing when someone claims that having their own exact words quoted…verbatim…means that they’re being misrepresented. Here, let’s try it again:

Here you’re claiming…quite clearly…that anyone who has a GoControl unit that hasn’t failed is either extremely lucky (“a golden egg”) or simply hasn’t had it for long enough. You also state, unequivocally and without qualification, that the failure rate is “unusually high”. This statement is meaningless unless you’re claiming to know not only what the GoGontrol’s actual failure rate is, as well as what the normal failure rate is for a device of this kind.

That’s not me misunderstanding/misrepresenting you. That’s what you said…your tap-dancing to the contrary notwithstanding.

Let’s try something, here’s two statements:

“The failure rate, and for the exact same reason every time is unusually high.”

“The failure rate, and for the exact same reason every time is unusually high, this is 100% fact and true so don’t even try and dispute it”

Which of the two statements is “as though it were fact”? Yes, it DOES require the explicit use of some definitive word like “fact” to change my sentence from just a mere internet claim (based on my experience/research) into an indisputable statement.

My claim was that the failure rate was unusually high, I didn’t ALSO claim at the same time that I am 100% correct. Do you understand the difference?

Dan Parker Pedant Mode On: I didn’t explicitly say that everything you have said is misrepresenting everything I have said, what follows from that statement is merely a clarification of what I was trying to express just in case it was being misrepresented through misunderstanding what I am saying.

Man, I like using your needless pedantic aggression against yourself. :smiley:

Are you able to disprove the other way? Are you able to disprove that it WON’T fail after a long enough time? Because your assertion is that I cannot claim that it will fail after long enough, meaning that you can disprove my claim and that it won’t fail after long enough.

And that’s the final little nugget, fortunately for me, we’re not friends or related, which means you haven’t the foggiest idea what I do and don’t know factually.

I do love your need to be Internet’s police on what’s correct and what isn’t, I see you getting aggravated all over various Facebook groups and on here. It must be tiring, I used to be as angry as you and felt the need to “set everyone straight!” but then I realised I was just being an angry little man and causing myself unnecessary stress over pointless Internet posts. I recommend you re-evaluate some life choices and perhaps don’t take everything so black and white, allow a little forgiveness and wiggle room and you’ll find yourself being a much nicer person to everyone else who will in turn respond to you in kind much better.

Anyway, I KNOW you’ll need to have the last say in this so say your piece and this will be the last I speak to you specifically on this.

Back to the point.

Good plan, don’t forget the Lowe’s coupon codes to get it even cheaper than that! Would you mind doing me a favour and letting me know what hardware/software rev it’s installed with when you get it? I want to know if there has been changes since mine which hasn’t failed yet but it does randomly lock up and become completely unresponsive, I have to power cycle it to get it to start responding again, it’s the only device in my Z-Wave mesh that I’ve had behave this way.