Z-wave garage door controller/ relay

General Discussion
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1

Hi,

I’m looking to automate my garage door motor in the UK, has anyone managed to do so?

If so, what device are you using?

Thanks,
Brad

2

Hi Brad. I am in the US and purchased two GoControl garage door controllers from Amazon. These were easy to install, add to ST, and have since performed flawless for me. I ride a motorcycle to work so using a presence sensor the door opens automatically when I leave and arrive home, so no need to remove gloves and fumble for a remote fob… It’s also really cool when it opens as I enter the street.

Their website is http://www.nortekcontrol.com/gocontrol-detail.php?productId=1719 and they were about $90 each

If you can’t find anything in the UK that works for you, you could try one using a step-down transformer which you can get from Amazon. That will allow you to plug the US power unit into the UK system. I found one on Amazon at https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stepdown-240-120v-Transformer-100VA/dp/B000NIYF0K

3

Thank you for your help :slight_smile: appreciate it!

Will look into the device. Not sure it will work because the z-wave is transmitted through different frequency.

Thanks again,

Brad

4

Have you made any progress with this, Brad? I am trying to do exactly the same thing. I have wired a Fibaro FGS-222 via a relay to the relevant terminals on my garage door opener. This will open and close the door, but you have to press the app “button” twice each time. I am struggling to know how to move on from this point - sure it must be possible but it is beyond my figuring at the moment.

Richard.

5

Hi Richard,

Unfortunately not. I’m having to buy a new motor for the garage to also run through a relay currently have a aeotec about the house so will set up when the new motor arrives. It seems to be the only option in the UK at the moment annoyingly.

Thanks,
Brad

6

Hi Brad just about to buy a garage door and motor got any suggestions on what to buy we were going with Garador Sectional Door and a Garador GaraMatic 10 motor? should we get a different motor like a lift master? i have also seen this http://aeotec.com/z-wave-garage-door-controller

Cheers Juls

7

GoControl devices are only made on the US zwave frequency. They will not work with a UK hub.

The Aeotec device looks promising, and is available for the UK. Vesternet typically has excellent customer service, you might write to them and ask if they know if anyone has it working with smartthings yet.

http://www.vesternet.com/z-wave-aeon-labs-garage-door-controller-gen5

Looking at the conformance statement, it looks pretty straightforward except that it is using two Association groups and can use secure encapsulation. So it may require a custom device type handler.

http://products.z-wavealliance.org/products/1497

@tyler should know if the Aeon garage door controller is in the queue for official compatibility testing for the UK.

I don’t see any other zwave garage door controllers available in the UK at this time.

There are some cloud-based garage door controllers that some UK members have used. There is a custom device type handler for the garadget, for example,

But I would think the Aeon would be the simplest choice.

8

I now run my garage door with the Aeotec garage controller. It’s fantastic.

I’m no expert on motors, but it doesn’t really matter what motor you have, as long as you can wire the relay up.

Strongly advise the Aeotec device though.

Good luck, brad.

1 Like
9

@Brad_Storan jumping in on the thread a bit late but are you using SmartThings to control the Aoetec device?

10

Ive wired up FGS212 relays to work with the push button terminals on my garage door openers.

You need to set the appropriate parameters on the relays so that they turn off afeter a preset time (1.5 seconds in my case). That gets round the pushing twice problem.

It does however still leave the issue of knowing what state the garage doors are in, and only allowing the “open” command (that I use with Alexa) to work when the door is in the close position, and conversely only allow the “Close” command to work when the door is in the open position.

I have three doors, and if one is open and two closed - if I issue the close all doors command, it pushes all the buttons - and I end up with one door closed and two open.

So after getting these relays working to do the job of a push button, Im now in the stage of trying to figure out how to make it smarter.

Any thoughts greatly appreciated on the thread I made for it here:

11

@zetaadditive Using the garage door controller through smart things yes, works really well. although had to buy a z-wave extender to reach it as the hub was too far from my garage.

I’ve also set up a home bridge using my raspberry pi so i can use ios10 home kit and open from my lock screen on my phone.

here’s where i purchased: http://www.vesternet.com/z-wave-aeon-labs-garage-door-controller-gen5

Let me know if you need anymore info!

Brad

12

I’m considering buying an Aeotec garage door controller. Does SmartThings support it natively, or did you have to install a device handler?

13

Hello mate,
Was a while ago that I installed but I believe it was found as a switch, I run through this device handler: https://github.com/robertvandervoort/SmartThings/blob/master/Aeon%20Garage%20Door/device_type-aeon-garage-door-v0.1

Works perfectly! I Also had to run a z-wave extender to reach but has good signal strength just quite far away from my hub.

14

Has anyone used their garage door controller through Amazon Alexa ?

If so, are you able to say ‘Alexa Open Garage Door’

I have automated mine using a Z-Wave relay but I have to say ‘Alexa Turn On Open Garge Door’ and although this works really well I would like to be able to say just ‘Open Garage Door’

Any idea if this is possible ?

15

Hi,

Depending on how you’re talking to Alexa, you could set up a HTML cmd through ifttt then use the home bridge to communicate.

How I use my kettle

Brad Storan

16

Hi, Ive been away from the forum for a little while, but yes this is something you can setup fairly easily.

However, what you wont have without doing some extra work and installing extra devices is the ability to know the status of your garage door - is it open or is it closed.

To make it all a little neater, you need the following:

Zwave relaywith dry contacts for switching alternative voltages. I used fibaro FGS212 (do not get the 213 as this cannot switch a different voltage to the one powering the device)

Zwave door open/contact sensor

Smart App - Ask Alexa - see here: [RELEASE] Ask Alexa

LGK smart app to link virtual and real garage door - see here: New smart app to link the virtual/simulated garage door device with two actual devices

The instructions are self explanatory in the threads for the two smart apps linked above, however I’ll describe the resultant functionality:

The sensor is used to determine if the door is open or closed. The relay is wired such that it activates only for a moment and simply mimicks the button press on the unit inside the garage (you may need to find the wiring diagram for your particular garage door opener to discover which contacts are used to mimmick a button press)

The smart app linking a virtual garage door to a real one allows it to double check the status of the door after a command is given and set the virtual garage door indicator appropriately. i.e. You ask alexa to close the door, but it doesnt happen (door blocked or for some reason zwave is down etc). If the door sensor doesnt show the door as closed within around 15 seconds or so, then the virtual garage door is set to show open - so you can see the real status of your door, not just what you last asked smartthings to do.

The integration with AskAlexa allows you to use more natural commands, such as “open garage door”. It also gets you round the issue of Alexa by default not allowing you to open a gagare door directly with that sort of command. BTW, this is done for obvious reasons, as an intruder could easily shout “alexa open the garage door” through an open window.

Ask Alexa will also allow you to create a “report” so when you go to bed at night you can ask for this and it will tell you the status of any doors and windows (including the garage door/s if you wish). So you know if the door is open or not if it is not within sight of a window.

Hope this helps :slight_smile:

1 Like
17

Thanks for the info. I have looked at the LGK smart app before but couldn’t get it to work with my setup.

I have a Fibaro FGS-222 Double Relay Switch wired into the door controller. I use one relay for the open and the other relay for the close as my controller has two physical seperate switches.
I then used the Virtual / Physical Switch Sync SmartApp from erocm123 to give my two virtual swicthes - One for open garage door and one for close garage door.

I have already got Ask Alexa installed and was hoping to use this to allow me to say ‘Alexa open garage door’ but I don’t think this is possible is it ? Would it still be ‘Alexa ask Smartthings to open garage door’ ?

18

What garage door opener model is it? Im surprised there isnt a single push button set of terminals which would make the whole setup a lot easier. My box inside the garage has separate open and close buttons, but inside the box there are two terminals that when shorted just cause the door to either open or close depending on its curren/last state. It took a bit of digging around finding wiring diagrams for the circuit boards, but many use the same or simalr boards.

Having effectively two different switches for open and close is going to make it tricky, but yes using Ask Alexa I believe you would have to go the route of “Alexa, ask smarthings to open the garage door”. Having said that, when it comes to close, its going to want to look at a different switch, which may not work.

I think the easiest option for now is to see if there is a way of having your opener work on a single set of pins.

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19

To be honest I only tend to open the door with Alexa. I normally close it by pushing the physical close button as I walk out.

I will take another look at the wiring to see if it can be done with one relay.

To go back to my original question. If I use a proper garage door controller like the Aeon Labs Garage Door Controller, would that allow me to use ‘Alexa Open Garage Door’ ?

20

Its unlikely Im afraid, as I believe Alexa cannot directly interface with locks/garage doors and you cannot use the “open” or “close” feature with any device it consideres to be a lock or method of access due to obvious security reasons.

The AskAlexa app is the only way I have seen that gets you round this limitation, and while it is neat, I would agree its not as simple as simply asking “alexa, open the garage door.”

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