Smartthings Multi on Garage Door - identifying open/closed

Hi folks -

I think I’m being a bonehead, but I’m just checking here to make sure :wink:

I have a ST Multi on my garage door - it’s mounted in a way where I can use the magnetic open/closed sensor or the angle of the door as a sensor. My goal here is to have it notify my Evolve LFM-20 to shut the door if left open for too long. (The Evolve works great, btw.)

When I tell the sensor that it’s a “regular door” it, of course, used the magnetic open/close sensor…which has worked fine in the past correctly identifying the door being in an open or closed state. However, I’m trying to be a good ST citizen here, so I’ve categorized the multi to be a “garage door” so that it uses the tilt sensor instead.

The problem is that I am no longer notified when the door is open or closed. I don’t have it connected to the LFM-20 right now, I just want to see if I can get open/closed notifications, and I am not seeing them.

When I look through the log for the sensor, I can see “Garage door sensor active” and “Garage door sensor inactive” whenever the door opens and closes…but that’s it. I don’t see anyway for the multi to notify me of the door remaining open.

Should I go back to using the magnetic sensor, or can some ST folk out there tell me what I am doing wrong? The ST instructions on using the sensor this way are pretty weak, so I can’t really tell how to set it up properly.

I should mention I am doing this all thru the built in macros on the ST App, I have not rolled my own app to control.

Thanks in advance

Just an idea - what SmartApp are you using?

My multi uses “Door Garage Open Close”, my plain old open/close device uses “Door Open Close”. Perhaps you need to remove the app you were using and install a different one?

Hi Dave -

Thanks for this…I was using Garage Door Open Close… still no joy.

But correct me if I’m wrong, shouldn’t I be able to setup the multi to inform my app via a push notification that “The Garage Door has been open for 5 minutes,” or some such thing? Or do I have to immediately jump to the "shut the garage door if it’s been open too long?

The way it is right now, I can’t even tell that the door is open by looking at the icon for the multi sensor. It’s very odd.

R

Well, you should be able to. I can, but then I configured the thing as ‘garage door, no magnet’ from the start.

From the dashboard, go to doors and lock, hit the gearwheel, select your door. You should see a lot of application possibilities, including ‘know if door is open or closed’ and ‘alert me if left open or closed’.

Failing that, I’d probably uninstall the multi device and start over.

2 cents: Just get the Telguard GDC1, it is made for this and you’ll be up and running in a couple of minutes.

http://www.telguard.com/gdc1

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You have to configure it as “SmartSense Garage Door Multi”

Hi Gang - I’m writing on my thread again because…it’s been 1 year, and the multisensor has never worked as a garage door. When it’s on the basic multisensor contact open/contact close type setting, it shows the door open or closed state. When it is on SmartSense Garage door multi, or SmartSense virtual open/close…no dice.

The device is clearly working - the activities stream shows consistent activity with regards to acceleration, tilt and temperature – but the door is constantly in close mode.

Please help - looking thru the forums its pretty clear I am not alone in this issue, but no one seems to have gotten a satisfactory response.

Did you talk to support@smartthings.com ? Since that’s a smartthings branded device, they ought to be able to answer the question once and for all.

Hi JD

Doing that now, actually. I tried this last year when the problem first arose, and it never went anywhere, so we’ll see what happens this time

R