Smart Hub v2 and Presence sensors with Garage Door

Hi Guys,

Since the introduction of V2 this hub has gotten absolutely pathetic and the support has degraded quite a bit. The live chat is gone etc etc. I guess all the investors cashed out and now don’t care about customer any more. Anyways, that’s what the community is for!

I recently upgraded to V2 because the support rep said its the best thing EVER! Now I cannot get my basic automation to work

  1. I need to close my garage doors when I leave.
  2. I need to open my garage doors when I come.

So simple right? NOT! There is no easy way of doing this in V2. So if you guys have done something like this please let me know.

Regards,

Adwait

You’re gonna be sorry if you base the opening and closing of your door on the state of a presence sensor; you will eventually come home to your door being open all day.

@adwaitjoshi, The easiest way to do this would be with Rule Machine.

You can setup a Trigger that when a presence sensor arrives AND the contact sensor on your door is close, to turn on the relay that is controlling the garage door.

Likewise, set up a trigger so that if a presence sensor leaves AND the contact sensor is open, turn on the relay to control the garage door.

I’ve only had this happen once, and it was easily caught by a smartapp that monitors if my door has been left open for too long. Then I just closed it with SmartThings.

The bigger danger in my opinion is the phantom leaving/arriving that the presence sensors are known for. This could cause the door to open in the middle of the night, potentially setting off an alarm or leaving the garage exposed to anyone.

This can be mitigated by taking steps to ensure solid Zigbee communication in the garage (Zigbee repeater) or in my case I use a SmartApp that has a built in fail safe. The sensor must be gone 15 minutes before an arrival will trigger the door to open.

Once is too many. And I simply don’t find it convenient to sit there with the nose of my truck waiting for a presence sensor event to be received to open the door when I can touch a button at the street end of the driveway and have it open by the time I get to the garage.

I do have an app that reminds me when I leave if I have left the door open, but prefer to use the MyQ app to close it as it is simply more reliable.

BTW, I have a repeater within 5 feet of my truck and still have seen phantom events.

YMMV, but SmartThings is simply not reliable enough for me to use in this application.

Interesting… Once I put a repeater in my garage my phantom events disappeared. But, as you say YMMV. To each there own.

Still doesnt answer my question. I used to have this setup on V1 and worked just fine. The door closed 5 mins after leaving. Opened the moment I hit my drive way. I have LFM20 and a tilt sensor which used to work just fine. I just DO NOT see this option.

as for the phantom open and close, the v1 had an option to perform the operation during a certain time and I had it turned off from 11pm to 7am since I knew no one comes and goes during that time.

Is there anyway to do this on v2? I have very reliable and powerful signal all around, I have a grid that works nicely.

@adwaitjoshi,

In v.1 of the Mobile App there was a SmartApp called Ridiculously Automated Garage Door Opener or something thing like that. It was dropped in v.2 of the Mobile App I think primarily because of concerns about the reliability of mobile presence (both phone and sensors). Of course, you know this already cause you can’t set it up now that you removed the old app when migrating.

Two options here:

1.) Look at the Rule Machine SmartApp. It’s a bit complex to figure out first, but not impossible at all. It provides a TON of options like: “If this, then do this, but only if this, and only when that…” You can setup a trigger based on presence that will cause the relay for your garage door to turn on when presence comes or goes based on current position of the garage door.

2.) Find a copy of the old Garage Door app and install it as a personal SmartApp. I have a copy that I’ve modified for my own use and I’d be happy to share. But like I said it’s modified to work specifically for my needs and may or may not have all the options you want, or might have things in it you don’t want.

I’d really recommend option 1. Rule Machine is a better app than my modified app, plus it’s “supported” (that is, it’s updated as needed and currently worked on by the author).

@chrisb I downloaded that smartapp but I dont see a mode for presense sensor that says “arrival” also the garage doors dont show a open/close state. Do I have to have the garage door app installed or something?

it should be under trigger

You can set this in your Goodbye and I’m Back routines. Seems to work for me, ymmv lol.

OK I see it now. However, under open these doors I don’t see a garage door. Like I said I have a lfm20 and a smart things multisensor. What do I need to do for this?

sorry I don’t have directions for you how to use LFM-20 on your garage door, but FYI the hardware has been implicated in unrequested door opening.

bravenel and a couple others have removed the relay from garage doors for this reason.

Above is one recent thread but there are others. This problem seems to be in the relay hardware itself, unlike presence-driven events in the ST system.

Good luck.

Surprisingly I have not had this issue. So I would still somehow like to classify my sensors and lfm as a “garage door” so I can use the rule app. Ideas?