Problems controlling garage door

I have just bought my Smart Things hub. So new to automation and Smart Things. I thought I would try something simple to start with … or I thought it would be simple. I installed a GD00Z-4 Garage Door Opener as featured on the Smart Things web site. I would like the garage door to close when I drive away. And open, when I arrive home. Should be simple right? I created a routine that should close the door when my phone is no longer present. But I drove half a mile away and it still said my phone was present. Eventually, it did say not present but the door stayed open. Also just operating the door with the smart things app is intermittent. It says closing, but nothing happens. Have to press it several times to make it close. At other times it opens and close just fine with the app.

Seems the app doesn’t know when my phone is present or not. I can leave and it says it is present. Other times it says my phone is not present and I am sat at home next to the hub. Very confusing.

Did you adjust the radius of the when it says your away in the app?

I made it as small as it would go … which I think is 500 feet.

I am not finding the SmartThings app very user friendly. I thought that maybe if I cannot get the door to close as I drive away, I could get it to at least send me a notification if it is left open. I do not see how to do that. Is there a beginners guide somewhere on line?

It looks like your main issue is with the presence detection, where the system is not recognizing that you’ve left to close the door. This could be because of a myriad of things, sometimes it’s your phone not been set to high accuracy in location settings, sometimes it’s just plain random – if you look at the presence detection threads here you will see plenty of people with no issues, and plenty of people with problems.

With regards to the notification, there is a SmartApp you can install called “left it open” which will notify you when you leave a door open for x number of minutes. This has come in handy often as the wife often forgets to close one of the garage doors… :slight_smile:

With regards to responsiveness, you could have a few other issues there as well. If you send the command for the door to close, it should close. You should be able to use the IDE to view the logs and see where the problem is… either you could be seeing bad coverage or some weird hiccup that prevents the command from being sent to the cloud and back to the hub, and eventually to the door.

Or it could be that all that is working, and you have some issue with the door itself. Plenty of posts around here on troubleshooting that device (including some of my own growing pains as I have a couple of those openers myself).

All I can say is that today, for me, everything is working as expected, with the same garage door openers that you have. It might take some detective work to find out where your issues are or how to get everything going, but don’t give up on the whole “look at how cool this is” dream just yet :slight_smile:

Thanks Amauri.

I had an image of the garage door closing automatically as I got in the car. And opening as my car entered the driveway. It seems it is not sensitive or reliable enough (yet) to be used that way. I have set it up to text me if the garage door is left open, so I can close it remotely. That is a good thing.

Looking at the logs on the IDE, it took the device an hour to recognize that I had left. I drive away at 5:21 and the it recognized I had left at 6:18 … not good!

I was also going to install a front door lock. Wanted that to do the same, unlock, as I walked up to the door. But I doubt that is possible either? Would one of those key fobs do that? Can they be set to activate from a few feet?

I am new to Smart Things. Still trying to understand how it works. About the IDE. I need to learn how to find and install smart apps. Eventually I want to be able to integrate with Tasker - which I already use a lot. And eventually write my own smart apps.

I am getting a Google Home for Christmas. I will see what that brings to the party :slight_smile:

I would not trust it to close it. But I have used it to open. I had to make my geofence a little large though and it would open when I was halfway down my street.

I would check the device settings though, particularly if you have Android. As I said, you can find threads going back YEARS regarding the location accuracy / timeliness in reporting when it comes mobile phones. I had a really, really tough time getting mine to behave, then the wife’s phone – and even switched the Tasker and virtual presence devices for a while – and now all of the sudden they seem to be behaving.

I still don’t trust them fully to do anything “weird” though, because I know how bad things can be. A couple of months ago my device reportedly “left” and “arrived” about half a dozen times in the middle of the night, all while sitting comfortable in the nightstand. Had I scheduled any door open / close / announcement automation around that, it could have yielded interesting results.

When you are logged into api you should be able to change the amount of time you are away before status changes to away, alternatively you could set it to close x number of minutes after disconnecting from Wi-Fi.

If neither of those seem to work you could use CoRE to create a piston that goes something like this:

When presence changes to away close garage door,
Then poll status of door
Then if open close door
Then after x number of seconds poll status of door, if open
send notification then close the door

The second polling and potential notification allows you to be sure of the status of the door, and if it is still open go into app and close it

Presence isn’t changing to away, that is the problem. I want to see the door closing as I back out of the driveway. And open as I enter the driveway. I do not think even one of the key fob arrival sensors will do that? I was trying to think of another way to do it. Maybe a multipurpose sensor on the car door. So when I shut the car door the garage closes. And when I open the car door it opens. But even that could have problems. If I just go to my car to grab something, it will open and close the garage door. Also from a security point of view, anyone opening my car door could then get into the house.

I do not see how it could be made to fit all circumstances. Shame, was one of the things that attracted me to it. For now I will shut the door manually I think. And use the SmartThings to tell me if I it didn’t shut fully.

Maybe I missed it but Android:grinning: or ios:poop:?

I have an Android phone

Try opening app and removing your phone, restart phone, then adding again. I had 2 phones I had to do it with and after that no issues.

Also just to be sure double check SmartThings app has location permission and GPS accuracy is set to high.

Did you try setting it up some when phone disconnects from home network, instead of basing on location/presence?

Thanks. Worth a try. My phone has accuracy set to high. How do I set high accuracy on the SmartThings app? And how do I set actuate when my phone disconnects from Wifi? I am new to SmartThings … just got it at the weekend.

If your phone is set to high then that’s all you have to worry about with that part. What version Android are you using?


Go to settings>application manager>SmartThings>Permissions and make sure location is allowed

SmartThings app is set with high accuracy for locations. I have an old Android phone with version 5.01. Do you think I would have more luck with the key fob arrival sensors? Appreciate your help.

I still do to see how to make the door shut when my phone disconnects from Wifi. Only setting I see is if not present.

No, they are a real pia. Using IFTTT you can set up an applet (just something that completes a designated action when the defined trigger , like disconnecting from wifi, ovvurs) to close door via a virtual switch (link to instructions below) when you disconnect from Wi-Fi

To use IFTTT download app from play store, create an acct then in SmartThings app go to marketplace, smartapps and add IFTTT and give it permission to use switches.

Go back into IFTTT and create an applet which will look something like this:





For the network you would just type in your network name and the switch just use the name of the virtual switch you created.

It might look like a lot but its actually not very difficult, most of it is already done for you within apps

Great thanks. I think I will play with the basics first for a while. As I said, I only bought the hub 2 days ago. So still very much learning the basics. I will try IFTT when I understand more what I am doing with the basics. I already use Tasker and I see that can be used as well. But again, that is for the future.

The garage controller is the first thing I have installed. I also have two GE dimmer switches yet to install.

Good luck and remember it was designed to frustrate the piss out of us

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