Just automated my dumb garage door opener!

After listening to last weeks episode with Shane Whately I paid a visit to his YouTube channel and was amazed at how much good stuff is there. Was sorting through his product reviews and found a video titled “Make Your Dumb Garage Smart!” In the video Shane reviews the Meross Smart Garage Door Opener. I have a less than positive history with Meross, but I wanted to automate my 23-year old garage door opener so bad (1998 version of the Overhead Door Legacy) that I ordered one from Amazon yesterday ($43) and it was delivered today. Had it installed and working in under 30 minutes. Granted it has only been an hour, and I have endured the expected laugh and eye rolling I get from my wife when I automate things she does not think is needed (she will come around because she always has her iPhone in her hand and looses or cannot find her garage door opener all the time), but at least for the moment I am really happy. We are going out for a bit this afternoon where I will test it when I am on cellular. I will report back after I have run it for a bit longer.

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Anticipate that you will soon be getting messages …

This is your son/daughter/neighbor/cat/dog/… I know you are out for dinner. I forgot/misplaced my house key. Would you please open the garage door so that I can get out of the rain/leave a package for you/…


JJW

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LOL! Both kids and spouses live on east coast (I live in Oregon), no dog, no cat (not a cat person), so perhaps I am safe!

I installed something similar - the Chamberlain MyQ and it’s been great. I get notifications if the door is left open. I can open it remotely for someone. I can check to see if I actually closed it without turning around.

I have a HomeKit garage door attachment for our dumb garage door openers, and it’s so unreliable that I’m planning to switch it out for another one. Best Buy discontinued the ones I have, so I guess I wasn’t the only one who had issues with it.

I have the Refoss version, which like other Refoss/Meross products, seems to be the same as the Meross one mentioned above. It works perfectly.

It was not directly compatible with my Chamberlain opener, but they sent me an accessory to (cleverly) work around it as described on the product page.

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Yeah, as I was reading on this Meross version saw a lot positive comments on the MyQ. I am just excited that thus far it has been flawless. Have tried opening with Siri while on cellular and that has worked as well. Time will tell.

I had the Insignia version as well. Try the Meross controller and your life will be vastly improved. Two months in with zero errors. Your mileage may vary, speak to your Dr, etc etc etc

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So being me, I had a little fun with the family. Every time I open or close the garage door automation runs to blink all the lights repeatedly in the house at 100%. There are, of course, more practical uses but damn was it funny listening to them bitch. :joy:

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I have the Tailwind version hooked up to our ancient openers. It has great features (even a watch app) and the developer is very engaged. Unfortunately, it has not been entirely reliable.

Glad to find this topic. I was hoping to make our dumb garage door openers smart as well. We have two garage doors (one for each car). This Eufy Garage Control Cam Plus controls two doors, has a camera and a microphone/speaker to allow conversations via the app with those in the garage. It is not HomeKit compatible, though. Is that a deal killer?

Is there a better one? Is the camera overkill?

I have a Chamberlain Smart Door Opener with built in camera. I bought the Refoss model mentioned above to make it compatible with HomeKit. The Refoss device has been flawless, and having a live camera that also automatically captures when the door opens/closes is nice and also cool/nerdy. I’ve used it a few times, and hav been glad to have the feature.

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Meross makes a version of what I have that will control two doors. Nothing fancy, just controls the doors but it is Homekit compatible. Been using the Meross for 8 months now without a single issue and works great in automations. Not bad for $40.

Is there a Homebridge plugin for it?

My garage door opener is a Chamberlain with MyQ built in (my apartment complex installed it for me when the previous opener died). It isn’t natively compatible with HomeKit, but I run Homebridge on a Raspberry Pi, and there’s a plugin. It works great.

I ordered the Meross MSG200 from amazon, which will control 1-3 doors. I installed it and initially it worked through the Meross app on the 2.4 GHz WiFi, but not the Home app. I have tried various permutations of:

  • restarting my phone,
  • resetting the Meross garage door controller,
  • cutting and restoring power to Meross device
  • reinstalling the Meross and home app
  • putting the WiFi mesh device right next to the device in the garage
  • bringing the Meross inside next to the internet router

and I cannot get this to connect. The errors messages I get come from the Home app. Each attempt I get a different error.

  • Device is already added, reset it and try again
  • Unknown error
  • Accessory not reachable

I’ve spent 8 hours on it today, up and down the ladder. Any thoughts on how I can make this work? I’ve watched YouTube Videos (1, 2) and read Reddit threads.

Ugh, that is so frustrating. So I had a similar problem but with the Meross outdoor plug. Initially, I skipped the Meross app and put the device straight into HomeKit. For some reason I later thought it a good idea to put it in the Meross app #fail.

Unplug / sit / plug in = nope

Reset plug = nope

Remove from Meross and HomeKit = nope

What finally worked was I wondered if the little bugger was still latching onto the WiFi and not fully resetting:

Reset plug

Unplug the plug

Remove from list of devices in Orbi router.

Restart Orbi router

Restart ATV for HomeKit

Plug in the plug / it restarts from scratch and add the device like normal #success

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Hopefully a checklist for success. Thank you, I’ll try this.

I (of course) took apart my whole wi-fi system and replaced the Orbi’s (of which one was broken) with Eeros (that I got on an amazon deal). So I’ll need to set that up first. I didn’t even think to look at the Orbi.

I didn’t restart the AppleTV (we have two, should I restart both?). I can’t find any mention of Meross, garage doors or even a home app on the AppleTV, though. Just unplug it and plug it back in?

I couldn’t get it to work, so I just bought another Meross Collie unit, swapped them out, and it worked fine. Then that 2nd new kit and old Meross Collie went back to Amazon.

Is setting up HomeKit devices always this finicky?

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In “theory”, you would only need to restart the ATV designated as HomeHub. I personally choose to restart all of them. For some reason the past couple updates for ATV have caused a lot of hang ups. #idk

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Glad it got sorted. Generally, no issue adding to HomeKit. It is usually an easy process.

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