1 - First I did the wiring as described in the manual
2 - Plugged the LFM-20 to a power outlet outside the garage and paired it to my smarthings router
3 - I was able to control the unit from the application, and I could hear the “click” on it when switching it on and off
4 - I made sure it was configured as "Z-Wave Virtual Momentary Contact Switch"
5 - Connected the LFM-20 to the two wires the wall button was connected to, the two left contacts out of 4 the garage controller has
6 - Left the garage closed, and tried two switch on and off on the relay
7 - Garage Opener would not work, it was showing one blink up and three blinks down, which is the liftmaster code for:
Up Arrow Flash: 1 Down Arrow Flash: 3
Symptom: The door control will not function.
Solution: The wires for the door control are shorted or the door control is faulty. Inspect safety sensor wire at all staple points and connection points and replace wire or correct as needed.
8 - I left the LFM-20 for one day connected, and after that it stopped working, and would not connect again to the smarthings, the light on it was off all the time.
9 - The seller of the device sent me another one, looks like the first LFM-20 was defective. This time, I would like to know what could be wrong with my installation, or if it was the device.
Please find the pictures for the wiring I did here:
I connected the LFM-20 blue wires to the first and second contacts on the Liftmaster from left to right, they are the red and left white cables in the picture. The security sensors are connected to the white and black contacts
Any ideas? Anyone ever installed this relay with the Liftmaster I have? This is a brand new garage controller.
If you’ve wired a Z-Wave relay like the Evolve LFM-20 or the FortrezZ MIMOlite to your garage door opener you can add it to your SmartThings Dashboard to control and automate it. If you are looking for help in hooking one up, be sure and check out our blog post on how to control your garage door with SmartThings. We try to avoid giving direct wiring device as we’re not professional electricians and all of our forays into the field have resulted in unfiltered rips in the fabric of space and time. Last week we had a Tyrannosaurus Rex inside the office and it was just…mountains of paperwork explaining to Animal Control why we had an unregistered extinct reptile inside the city limits. Bad news.
Back to your garage door: Start by opening up the SmartThings Dashboard.
Scroll down and tap the (+) icon.
From the “Things” category, select “Switches and Dimmers”
Scroll down to select the “Evolve Z-wave LFM-20”
Select “Top Alerts and Actions”
Select “Control your Garage Door”
Give you door a name and change the door type to “Garage Door”
Tap “Connect and opener?”
Select your relay from the list devices or tap “Connect New…” if you still need to connect it to your hub
Tap “Done”
Tap “Next”
Tap “Done” again
Tap the “Doors and Locks” module on the SmartThings Dashboard
Tap the gear icon
Select the garage door you just created
Tap “Know if it’s open or closed”
Select a Multi Sensor or Connect a new one if you haven’t connected one to your hub yet
(Optional) Select “Notify me when the door is…” to receive push notifications when the door is opened or closed
Tap “Next”
Tap “Done”
Tap “Done” once more
Voila! You now have a shortcut available that will allow you to remotely open and close your garage door as well as monitor its status.
It’s important to note that the device you select will be reconfigured to allow it to safely control your garage door. If at a later time you would like to reuse the relay for a different purpose, please contact support@smartthings.com for assistance.
That’s it!
I read the following feedback response on Amazon for the LMF-20 that might help. I would check to see that the LMF-20 is providing a momentary response.
One needs to program ‘ON’ for 2 seconds and then ‘OFF’ to simulate a button press. Including this in the ZWave is different than the enclosed directions. It is not a single tap – it is a tap-tap (not tap-tap/hold). By default the green indicator light means the LMF-20 is ‘OFF’. Make sure you start with your garage door is closed. For programming, the door is closed and the LMF-20 green LED is lit. The regular garage door button should be lit. Press and hold ‘ADD’ on your controller (HomeSeer ZTroller in our case) and immediately hit tap-tap (do not hold the LMF-20 button). The controller should say ‘ADDING’ right away. The regular garage door button will be off (meaning the LMF-20 is solid on). Once the ZWave controller has added, then hit the LMF-20 button to turn off. The LMF-20 LED will come back on and the garage door button should light. Your door should have been already opening. To use remotely build a macro or event to turn ON the 2 seconds and then turn OFF. This simulates a momentary contact switch. Being able to close your garage doors remotely is one of the most sought after features in Home Automation. The LMF-20 allows you to do that with some simple programming
I do not own a LMF-20, just trying to be helpful in case you did not know these articles existed. Please do not shoot the messenger.
Didn’t your opener come with an 882LM controller?If so, this is a data controller, and simply shorting its wires will not actuate the door, hence the error you received.
Your options for SmartThings integration is either hacking into one of the switch contacts of a wireless remote using the lfm20, or adding the internet gateway and installing one of the MyQ device types floating around here. Obviously, the latter is the preferred method.
BTW… @Ben any traction on the “official” MyQ integration from SmartThings?
Thanks a lot for the suggestions, what is the MyQ device I should buy to integrate with SmartThings later? @Ben, which one should I be planning to get?
The aforementioned ‘internet gateway’ should be documented in your opener’s user guide. If you want to start using it before the official integration using my device type (available here), you’ll also need an acceleration sensor like the SmartSense Multi.
with garage door openers that have a data controller (if theres several buttons usually including “learn” on the panel on your wall) then you cant short the contacts to open the door. I have a myq but hated it so i got the LFM-20 and because most newer homes have cat5 run for the garage door opener I used two of the left over wires and soldered them to the open button contacts on the wall panel. then found the same wires at the motor and connected them to the relay. this method has worked great for me. much much better than the myq!
I have a NuTone NGD00Z z-wave opener but can seem to find out where to connect it to the Opener or the Wall Control.
The instructions that came with it say that I need to hook the wires to the “Pushbutton” terminals on the back of the opener but there are no such terminals.
I read also that someone had soldered those wires to the circuit board on the wall control and it worked that way.
Can you give me a little direction as to where to hook these two wires up from the MuTone NGD00Z?
