Not beeping is illegal in some jurisdictions. And disabling a built in safety feature will void at least part of your warranty with the garage lift company in most.
A motorized garage door should have four possible states: Open, Opening, Closing, and Closed. It’s not a contact sensor.
If you’re not using the two “in motion” statuses, you likely won’t get the beep–which again, would be a violation of code in some places. In fact, in many places you’re supposed to put a warning sign on a garage door that is “broken” (not beeping, not reversing, etc).
This is why many home automation systems just put a wrapper around the lift operator’s code and let that company keep up with al the various consumer safety laws regarding the device.
Mine (Craftsman 1998) has no beeping from the factory. Looked at a few other manuals and the only beeping I can find for their brand is for low battery on models with a backup battery and TTC/Gateway closures. Craftman’s parent company Chamberlain and LiftMaster manuals and design seem similar, if not identical except for the stickers. Mine did not beep at all until I installed the Gateway Kit which comes with a new Wall Controller/Interface, the controller would only beep for 10 seconds prior to a remote (App) closure, not during a normal wall controller or car remote closure. Seems wired this way because no one may be there to warn others on a closure via the Internet/Gateway.
I only noticed it did not beep with this code, others have said they are glad it didn’t, I was hoping for at least an option to have it. I looked up the code for our area, only mentions you need to have a safety device that will halt closing of the door to prevent possible entrapment, probing a few other random areas seems to render the same.
The only references to beeping in any of the MyQ/AssureLink manuals I looked at are similar to the attached. Doesn’t mention the beeping on remote closure, only timer controlled (TTC) and low batts.
The Chamberlian/LiftMaster/Craftsman line is probably the most purchased line of openers, thus I would think they would have their products compliant with all areas, not different models that are area specific. Do you have a copy of some local code requiring some type of alarm for closing or any other actions?
I’ll check for a specific example. Safety codes are different in different places, California cars being the obvious example.
You’re definitely right that the beep is usually associated specifically with Internet controls.
The concern, as can happen with SmartThings, is that you initiate unsupervised closing when you’re not there to see if a child/pet is nearby. Not necessarily your own family, either.
In my area, kids, often wearing headphones, have those shoes with built in wheels and roll down other people’s driveways all the time.
If closing the door via SmartThings removes a safety feature that the lift manufacturer does not let you turn off in their own smartphone app, then that raises multiple issues.
Does Chamberlain let you turn off the beep once you have it?
Edited to add looks like Chamberlain makes the beeping required if Assurelink is used.
Can I turn off the beeping sound the garage door opener makes when the internet gateway closes the door or can I change its volume?
No, the beeping sound from the garage door opener is an alert for persons near the garage door to stay away from the garage door while it closes. You can not turn the beeping off and you can not change its volume.
Not seeing an option in the manuals for MyQ or Assurelink, but there are many other undocumented options for syncing lights and a few other nice features, so officially none that I can find.
Heard from a friend who collects this kind of stuff (legal codes for device deployment), he says he’s got a couple of HOA agreements that require operational closing alarms on garage doors. And one of them lists Chamberlain as an acceptable example.
Just one of those things to be aware of if a smartapp fails to deploy a safety feature the device manufacturer considers mandatory.
It tends to jump out at me because quads tend to rely a lot on automatic door openers and people are always trying to get around manufacturer safety throttles so the doors will close faster.
I’m not sure what sparked the legal discussion of warning devices, but I have a few points I’ve been thinking over the last couple of days that I’d like to make. Most of them non legal
Thank goodness I live in a state where they don’t have a rule against everything
When I was initially purchasing MyQ before I had ST, I read somewhere in the liftmaster literature that the beeping was a compliance with some standard(ANSI maybe?).
If I ever did move there would be no evidence of the lack of a safety features as the MyQ gateway and the ST hub would be coming with me.
What would be the difference between installing a non MyQ garage door kit consisting of a relay and a tilt sensor and a MyQ keypad that doesn’t beep prior to closing.
As I noted earlier in the form, you have failsafe photo eyes designed to detect someone standing in the path of the door. This should prevent the door from being closed remotely on someone standing in the way. A person who was not in the path of the door would certainly see the door start to move before they were in danger.
I can’t figure why HOAs would want pre-closing alarms on garage doors. The beeper is so loud, all your neighbors will know your door is closing.
Furthermore, the beeper gives you very little indication of what is happening. The first couple of times the beeper went off, my wife and kids were not sure what was happening. A better system would also flash the lights with the beeper so it was a little more apparent that it was the door opener and not an errant smoke detector. In a worst case scenario the beeper scares a young child to run through the closing door. However even in this case the photoeyes would stop the door.
To summarize, I can see the point of the beeper. I’m certain that it’s needed and appreciated in a commercial environment. I’m sure there are people that need/want the warning in a residential area. If such is the case, you should probably not use this smart app. As @copyninja has stated, he’d like to be able to have the beeper function but hasn’t figured out how to make it work. I for one like not having it as I feel it’s unnecessary and is too loud. I don’t know if liftmaster was worried you might not hear the warning over a running lawnmower, or maybe during a gunfight. Perhaps they wanted to ensure the closing door awakened everyone in the house. In any case I wished they would have put a little more thought into their warning device perhaps making the lights on the opener flash and including volume control.
What would be the difference between installing a non MyQ garage door kit consisting of a relay and a tilt sensor and a MyQ keypad that doesn’t beep prior to closing.
Garage doors still kill or injure a few people every year. We could try to figure out why in each case (teenager wearing headphones? Small child fooling around while waiting for a school bus?) but the main point is the the Consumer Product Safety Commission (government) and Underwriters Laboratories (trade association) have agreed that certain safety features should be built into UL approved devices.
many of these safety features are built on the premise that a door that closes out of sight of the person controlling it needs extra safety features.
For example, it is a UL requirement that if the power goes off, a person must complete a manual door reset before a smartphone app instruction is again accepted. This is why the manufacturer sets the device to only respond “status unknown” after a power outage until a manual cycle is completed. (Manual cycle doesn’t mean physically lifting the door, it means operating it with a control permanently installed in line of sight to the door.)
If your smartapp disables a safety feature the manufacturer considers mandatory, it raises a lot of issues. But at least you should know you’ve done it.
FWIW, any code that treats a device that self identifies as an automatically closing door as a generic contact sensor is likely to run into these kind of issues.
Fully agree, everyone is spending more $ on all these sensors vs a gateway or new unit, thus there is more backdooring going on anyway.
Ha, Ha, agree, we opened the door and thought there was a fire or???
That’s why I mentioned if he ever got it figured out, to add a checkbox to the setup for the alarm.
I’m still not seeing anything mandating this type of audible alert for remote closures or any type of closure. Checked all the ANSI regs, only talks about the entrapment protection devices that all units made after 1991 must have, although most mfg’s were already installing these systems voluntary back as far as 1982.
To be clear, the audible closure warning applies when the garage door is closing in “unattended mode,” meaning the person is not necessarily line of sight to the door.
Whatever else there is, chamberlain does not let customers turn off the alert-to-close in their own app. (See MyQ link above.) So if ST is going to do an official integration, they’re likely going to have to preserve the beep.
The standard is UL 325. Garage doors are usually class 1 of 5 for homes intended for 1 to 4 families, class 2 for homes of 5 or more, even if the garage stalls are exactly the same. There are also requirements for all classes for audible alarms in chapters 32 and 34.
You won’t find the text free online, you have to buy the books or web access. (It’s a UL thing.)
This standard has recently been updated and the new standard will take effect next year. Pretty sure that one has expanded specifics for out of line of sight controllers, including zwave and smart apps. But the current (2010) standard does have an alert-to-close beep requirement. See below.
Linear’s 2014 press release about UL certification for their zwave-enabled lift controller mentions the UL-required audible warning for unattended closures.
Does the UL text get into specifics about the warning (e.g. What sound, how loud) ? As stated my primary complaint is that beeper in the MyQ panel is so loud that no one would want to be in the garage during closure. I’m sure if ST ever accomplishes an official integration I’ll be putting some tape over the beeper to muffle it.
CES 2015 Smartthings Summary… Not seeing much progress or support on on an official release of Chamberlain MyQ Opener integrations?
“The new third-party integrations include compatibility with Netgear Wi-Fi cameras, Honeywell thermostats, Philips Hue bulbs, August locks, Chamberlain garage-door openers and all Samsung smart appliances.”
Thank you for creating this! I am experiencing two error messages after tapping Done on the second screen of the SmartApp on my phone:
Failed to save page: prefListDevices
Error: An unexpected error occurred
I have tried going into the web-based IDE to configure the app with the same settings. That also produces an error:
physicalgraph.app.exception.UnknownDeviceTypeException: Device type 'Garage Door Opener' in namespace 'copy-ninja' not found. @ line 139
Does anyone know if this is a temporary server issue, or a mistake I may have made? I believe I correctly followed the instructions in the first post on this thread.
@Homeboy,
Just as an experiment, have you tried recopying and pasting the RAW Smart app code from @copyninja github site a second time? Could be it didn’t take right the first time? Service Manager
did you already add the smartdevice codes in step 2?
Installation:
Load MyQ Service Manager145 in SmartApp57 section
Load MyQ Garage Door Opener96 and MyQ Light Controller63 in SmartDevice44 section
Publish all of the above
In your mobile app, tap the “+”, go to “My Apps”, furnish your log in details and pick your gateway brand, and a list of devices will be available for you to pick
@Homeboy. Hmmm. When I’ve run into this problem setting things up, (and I admit I am still REALLY new to this) but I usually just wipe out the Smart App and Smart Device and restart from scratch. @copyninja replied as well with the steps. (He beat me to it!) I hope you can get it set up, it really works great once it’s implemented. Thanks to everyone who worked on it!! Still wish it showed up under the Door & Locks though. Still haven’t figured out why the one did and this one doesn’t.
Shrug
I know ST is working on a lot of IDE (background/cloud) stuff, thus I’ve had devices that have been operating for days all of a sudden quit for a few hours or days and then just come back on their own, so tuff to say right now, a lot of things moving fast for the system…
All I could suggest is if you are following the directions very carefully, to either:
Wait a sort time longer for the official ST integration for these openers that has been promised by ST at the 2015 CES.
I hate to say it, but give someone a temp password to load the code for you, then change the password back right after it’s loaded. I don’t think support will load this for you, since its community/unapproved code.
I think the only thing that I see might have changed is the Tabs are gone, you’ll get a blank screen to paste the code into, so it’s even a little easier.
