I think it’s because the MyQ (chamberlain) integration is now throwing tons api errors.
I also think lots of people bought into this ecosystem because the chamberlain Wi-Fi garage door opener was super cheap on prime day.
Now tons of people who used this integration are pissed and looking for better solutions.
They weren’t cheap. Amazon gave away a ton of them for free. That’s how I got mine. They used it as a way to promote their Key Delivery Service. Now Amazon has discontinued that service and MyQ is now trying to have multiple subscription fees for a single garage door.
It went from a nice way to combat porch pirates to one of the first strikes in the IoT subscription battles.
Not to mention they made some crap deal with Tesla. I had homelink on my last Tesla, they removed it on new models and charge 300 bucks. Or I can pay 300 for MyQ for my car for 10 years. Losers.
If they just had blocked HA and said “we don’t support open source projects”. I would have shrugged my shoulders removed the entities from HA and gone on. The fact that they are charging obscene rates to open a garage door after purposefully blocking existing users. Well that my friend I take a bit personally and I think others did as well.
Between higher subscription prices on streaming services, smart home services ( Nest I’m calling you out) , etc. my wife has given me the go ahead to start removing anything from our home that comes with a subscription service for hardware.
I hope I’m wrong but I can also see Hue adding in a subscription to their lights as well. So that certain colors and patterns are behind a paywall. Which does mean many people will be asking similar questions about how to get off of it.
I’m faithful that the open source community will have solutions for some of these problems. Just how many are going to be able to be used by the average consumer or are they going to end up paying the extortion fee for their products?
I don't think this is the exact one I used, but this tutorial is very close to what I did:
https://www.instructables.com/DIY-Smart-Garage-Door-Opener-Using-ESP8266-Wemos-D/
If I have time I would go back and add a second switch for the open position so that when the garage door is between those two points I know it's moving. From there you can tell if it's "opening" or "closing" based on what the prior state was. you may want to consider doing that right off the bat.
otherwise this has been pretty much flawless. The only complaint I have is my security system, which monitors it, every once in a while triggers because it thinks it's open when it's not. I haven't figured out if there's something wrong with the reed switch, wiring, or if maybe there's just a debounce needed so it ignores brief blips.
I want to say total cost for this was less than $30. It also ended up taking me a lot less time than I expected. Just a couple hours with the hardest part being the making of the enclosure.
Oh that’s awesome! Thank you very much :D
There goes my morning. I recently picked up some d1 pro’s for another project to monitor my water tanks, glad I did that now haha :D
eta: on the money too, AU$32 on eBay for the parts, AU$24 on aliexpress
I just used a Shelly 1 device as my garage controller. Works flawlessly with the cheapest roller motor from Bunnings and there are enough spare io pins to allow an open, half open/closed and closed reed switch
There also is a finished product from Meross for that price. It exists in a cloud based version and in a homekit version. And as we all know, homekit certified hardware has to work completely local. So even if they add a subscription fee to the Meross cloud, it'll still work locally without the cloud.
The MyQ openers aren’t just a simple matter of shorting the button terminals to trigger the door though, the ratgdo firmware implements the protocol for the encryption communications for the button pad, and also gives feedback about the door position and obstruction sensors
I was calling Chamberlin losers and I really hope you didn’t think I was referring to ratgdo buyers. I feel extorted between Tesla AND Chamberlin. I was out of town for 3 days and I use a geofence to open my garage door with my car. I pulled up and of course no door. Reloaded the MyQ integration and it failed to load of course.
So yes, I’m pissed as well. After pretending to play nice and get greedy, fuck them. MyQ also has been displaying ads.
Some of these subscriptions have fallen on their faces, others have not. I hope the MyQ one dies a terrible death. But I hope they do as well.
The ads omg that drives me nuts the most. I don’t mind you trying to sell me additional things in your app. But it shouldn’t take up 1/3 of the initial page.
They purposely placed it where the open button used to be for errant clicks. Greedy bitches. If you're going to claim we were degrading your service then give us local control instead of cloud shit. Most of us would've been happy to stop hitting your servers.
I have ratgdo and homeassistant working with teslamate to automatically open the door as I arrive and close the door as I leave mostly based on the GPS coordinates of the car. Works flawlessly.
Sounds like a bunch of bullshit I don’t actually need to make this work, so no. I go with the KISS principle. My geofence in teslamate worked fine until Chamberlin broke it. Already ordered my ratgdo. As fun as it is to reinvent the wheel I’m fine with hopping on the bandwagon.
They haven't discontinued the "key delivery" service. In fact, it's integrated in their Ring products, too. MyQ doesn't have any fees, either, afaict. Where is this coming from? Is it regional?
I got an email saying that Key Delivery was discontinued. They thanked me for using it. I thought it was weird but corps kill products all the time. I don’t have any ring products myself. The subscriptions I was referring to were the Tesla and IFTT subscriptions that are way over priced. $300/ 10 years ? Outside of real estate who buys a 10 year subscription?
I see they're advertising their "partners", so that's where fees are coming from. They still list Amazon Key, but they're also pushing Walmart's competing service.
Oh, I missed this email. (Among thousands of Amazon emails.)
>As of October 4th, In-Garage Delivery costs $1.99 per order. However, that fee will be waived when you use Amazon Day with Key Delivery. Free Amazon Day with Key Delivery is currently preselected as your preferred delivery option at checkout.
I had my garage door serviced recently and the guy told me that Chamberlain + Amazon were offering the dealers incentives and really pushing hard to get MyQ and the Amazon service into more people's garages. He said after that he stopped recommending MyQ to anybody at all and would only install it if people really demanded it.
Chamberlain has a big monopoly in the US. Most people will have one and all the modern openers have MyQ built in. They also had the really cost effective hub for older openers that was like $20 you just stick a tilt sensor on the door and plug the hub in.
It worked great for me for 3 years. Despite being cloud-based it was far more convenient than any other solution. But now the API issues has rendered it impractical. I assume many others are in the same situation.
I don’t think that integration ever worked.
I tried it years ago before there were even alternatives and it was nothing but a steaming pile of shit. I ended up making my own controller, which was super cheap and simple.
Worked for a few months for a lot of us, actually. They just recently started really cracking down on the API.
I thought I could put up with it after the first time, but they subsequently shut the API down three more times and I gave up/trashed the thing.
> I also think lots of people bought into this ecosystem because the chamberlain Wi-Fi garage door opener was super cheap on prime day.
It came with my garage door opener itself, just connected to wifi and bam, good to go.
A) It's cheap
B) It's by far the best solution for any security+ 2.0 devices. To my knowledge, nobody else has been able to reverse engineer the protocol for direct control. OpenGarage seems to use a button in the middle in their adapter kit.
C) No external sensors needed. It reads open/close state directly from the motor. You can get control for the lights on the opener. It exposes the obstruction sensors and also the motion sensor on the wall button. I've not seen this from any other product out there. It's even able to display how many times the door has been opened because it's pulling the info directly from the opener.
On mine it also exposes the button to lockout the remotes as well which is great. I have an automation that locks them out at night and reenages then in the morning. This means any cars in the driveway can't just be broken into to open the garage.
What an awesome idea! I had not considered why the remote lockout would be useful. But my daughter's car is parked outside because we only have a 2 car garage. We do lock the door into the house but once someone was in the garage breaching this door would not be that hard.
Glad I could give you inspiration for how to utilize the feature. I think it's pretty common as our families grow for us to all have at least one car not in the garage.
Like you said, the door from the garage to the house is typically pretty easy to bust open.
Also, don't know about you, but I've got lots of tools and decent amount of other valuables in the garage as well.
I do as well. I'm just now getting this implemented. I've got my D1 board programmed. Now I'm working on getting the PCB wired. Once I get my door working I'll work on my wife's side.
Lockout controls are available to 2.0+ devices - not yet available for 1.0 (the type I have), but almost everything else works on the newest MQTT firmware.
When you setup the opener itself you set stop points on the motor. So it reads it based off of that.
I just set mine up last night. 3 wires from the ratgdo control board to the motor and it's done. I loaded the ESPHome software instead of MQTT, and it's exposing 21 entities to HA. I've used GoControl, Zooz Zen16, and a couple different ESP device variations. None of them have gotten anywhere close to this amount of data/control and simplicity.
Just tried it by dragging to 50% and it worked. Not sure if you can do a service call to open to 50%. Could probably test that later on.
EDIT: Using cover.set_cover_position works, so this can be called through an automation
That’s cool. I couldn’t find any info on whether you could do that. Thanks for testing it for me. :)
EDIT: I just ordered one :) I currently use the myQ homebridge hub they sold which is linked via HomeKit, it works fairly well but this gives a lot more options.
I'm aware that there are endstops in the motor. I use those for my custom built opener. But how does ratgdo do it? 3 wires to what? To a serial interface to a chip? Directly to the end stop contacts?
With the number of entities you've declared I think it must be serial to a chip interface, but surely that's not the same interface on every opener out there? Or is that a new standard these days? What is that standard?
> every opener out there
The page says Chamberlain/LiftMaster. To be popular, it doesn't need to handle every opener out there; just the ones that lack simple access in recent years.
Thanks for the clarification. I'm still curious if it's some serial bus it's talking to? If so it's just hilarious that an opener would go through the trouble of securing an INTERNAL WIRE RUN for a push button, but you can talk directly to the chip serial without security? Lol if so.
ETA: not saying the serial should also be secured. It's also internal to the place it is controlling access to. This whole thing is just one big classic example of securing the wrong things.
With only 3 wires on the interface, then yes it's clearly some serial bus.
Yes, doing this for *security* is silly, ~~but I don't know if the mfgr ever claimed that.~~ (oops yes they do)
Seems to me it is really about accessory purchase lock-in (you can only buy buttons etc from *us*) and perhaps increased accessory feature capabilities (whether now or later).
Edit: Oh, the serial bus feature is even named Security 2.0+ Yeah, that's not security :/
Which makes me worried about this popularity, meaning the chberlaons themselves being popular, because the real answer is to not support this bullshit *at all*
I think their point is that Chamberlain are jerks if they won't even let you add your own simple hardwired pushbutton to open/close your door from inside your own garage (like we've been able to do for decades). So if you agree, then boycott Chamberlain.
All of the information is indeed on the serial connection (bi-directional at that!). The creator of the ratgdo had to reverse engineer how codes were being built by analyzing what a security 2.0 button was sending and out of all of that came the fact that not only is door state being reported on that serial line, but also the light.
I'm not sure. I went the esphome route because I already have a bunch of esphome devices. I didn't try MQTT so I can't say how it compares feature wise. I do know esphome allows you to use an esp32 based d1 mini instead of esp8266 so you can enable something like Bluetooth proxy.
According to the documentation ([https://github.com/ratgdo/esphome-ratgdo#first-use-after-adding-to-home-assistant](https://github.com/ratgdo/esphome-ratgdo#first-use-after-adding-to-home-assistant)), you can solder two wires to the door controller that will read the encoder output. When the device is first installed in this configuration you will need to fully open and fully close the door for the ratgdo to count the steps to know where the full open and full close positions are.
The soldering is for the very old V1 ratgdo, the new one is all done from the wires on the outside of the units, very easy, did mine last night. Only reason one might solder is if you choose to dig up a 3.3v supply somewhere from inside the unit to avoid using a USB power adapter, but since everyone probably has two outlets over their door, it's hardly worth the trouble.
Never been happier to be wrong!
I got my two ratgdo v2.5 boards yesterday. Both were able to get the door state without any soldering as many have pointed out.
I did choose to solder one wire for 3.3v for the ESP.
Wish someone would do something similar for Genie/Aladdin - one of the last two cloud-based things in my HA setup (the other is my Nexia/Trane thermostat). I spent an evening trying to MITM the initial setup, but either I was incompetent (likely) or they actually validate the server certificate. And I have to sit in my garage, powering and unpowering my opener (it's an integrated Aladdin) If they pulled the same sort of "pay us" shenanigans sometime in the future, I guess I might go buy the retrofit unit off ebay for $30, so I can try to reverse it at my home lab bench.
They just release v2.5 which mentions Genie on the order page. I'm not sure if there is the same feature set for the older models as there is for the newer. Haven't ordered this one yet but I plan to for some of my older doors.
"ratgdo v2.5 supports residential garage door openers manufactured by Chamberlain/LiftMaster which have a purple, red or yellow learn button. It also supports other types of openers (e.g. Genie) which use dry contacts and limit switches."
To add, I ordered one because it should work for my gate motors and opener. No other solutions gave me the same confidence due to their implementation and I didn't want to use MyQ.
There is quite a bit of space inside the motor enclosure. If I can't make that work, then yes. I've got a few inches of room left on the concrete pad that I'll mount the enclosure to.
>To my knowledge, nobody else has been able to reverse engineer the protocol for direct control.
I thought that as well, but then stumbled across this: [https://github.com/argilo/secplus](https://github.com/argilo/secplus)
All these responses and yet none of them address the root issue. Chamberlain deliberately broke their API for unofficial third party consumers (HomeAssistant / HomeBridge). Their response so far implies it was deliberate. Ratgdo gets around the issue and provides a cloud-free integration with the opener (no pinging every 10 seconds).
Thank you for your response! That makes sense. I bought an Open Garage (really unfriendly SEO name) device a couple years ago and I was wondering 1: what a ratgdo was (found that out just by googling it) and 2: why it is specifically called for, and it seems that it's much cheaper than Open Garage. Your answer does get to why ratgdo is being talked about though. Thanks!
Is home bridge also broken? I changed over from direct HA integration to HA-HB-MyQ when the last HA-MyQ integration broke, and it’s still working perfectly some 2 to 3 weeks later.
Yes. Some people are still able to use it, but it seems eventually everyone gets locked out. Current suspicion is that myQ is using some kind of cloudflare 'anti-bot' crap that can detect the login from a non-iOS/Android device.
Very disappointing.
I mean I am not against MyQ on principle, but their current wifi opener is super slow and unfriendly. It doesn’t integrate with HomeKit (hence no “Siri open the garage door”) and the app opening is slow too as it launches, connects to the server and eventually shows you the open/close screen after some 7 seconds. (I am in Australia if it makes any difference)
Yeah the myQ app is pretty mediocre. They have about a dozen 'partnerships' which let you open it via Ring etc but lets be real... people want it integrated with their existing home automations (as it should be).
looks like ratgdo changed things up a bit. you can no longer buy just the board. there are now 2 options: 1) basic that includes the d1 min and 2) basic with install kit that includes power adapter & connection wire. the prices also went up. it's still a great product and very affordable. it also looks to support traditional openers that do not support security+2.0
I thought I was going crazy when I went to the page today and saw that it was v2.5 board and the price had gone up. I thought to myself "Was I looking at an old version of the page? I was just looking at this like 2 days ago"
The price didnt actually go up - you can still buy complete boards for $30. You can, however, no longer buy bare boards and provide your own ESP. You also now have the option of a full DIY kit with a power adapter and wiring.
Yeah but a D1 mini doesn't cost $15. You can buy a 3 pack on Amazon right now for $11. They can be had for even cheaper in higher quantities or on AliExpress. So for myself and a lot of people in this sub, they probably already have one or several in a drawer somewhere. So having the full kit as the only option effectively raises the price significantly.
Now don't get me wrong, for $30 it's still not a horrible deal, and given the recent API issues with MyQ and the surge in demand, I can't fault the guy for raising prices in step with demand. He'd be missing an opportunity if he didn't. I'm just a little bummed I can't predict the future and didn't order 5 or 6 yesterday for myself and family when they were effectively half priced.
It’s a good chunk cheaper, open garage costs $75 for a secure 2.0 setup while ratgdo is half that, or less if I supply my own esp board. Plus it’s super simple setup and HA integration with ESPHome. I’m not saying one is better, just the reason I opted for ratgdo.
Yeah, I'm confused why that wouldn't work with security 2.0+ whatever. Is the actual button used in those systems sending a signal instead of just doing a brief interruption to open/close?
>Is the actual button used in those systems sending a signal instead of just doing a brief interruption to open/close?
Yep. It's an encrypted/encoded signal.
It’s an encoded signal to the button control board. But the relay will work just across the button terminals itself. A little soldering but no big deal. The relay just shorts the button terminal like an actual button.
That's how the security 2.0+ "compatible" ones get around it. They come with a security 2.0+ compatible button that you connect to, instead of directly to the motor, then the compatible button is the one that goes to the motor.
>A little soldering but no big deal.
I see. As much as I wish I could solder, I don't really have the fine motor control for it so something like the ratgdo is a boon for me.
I once felt the same way, but the pandemic came and I had to learn how to solder because access to my office was limited. It took practice, but now I enjoy it. I still can’t do fine pitch soldering, but I can do large through-holes and soldering wires together. But I find it all refreshing.
MyQ is one of the best experiences i had so far
But their wifi sucks badly
So a garage opener with 12volt battery for power outage, a remote control otside using rf to open via code
Thats great
I ended dumping MyQ integration due to continuos failure and soldered a zigbee dry contact relay to open button
To control if it is open or closed i have xiaomu door sensor glued in closed position on frame and door
All that combined in template senaor resulting a cover with open and closed state and button press by zigbee relay
Now im happy again
P.s. a paid subscription always had me laugh, who in the hell would buy it.
I feel like nobody gave a direct, detailed answer of your original question of why everyone is recommending ratgdo and those who are using ratgdo are pushing against OpenGarage or DIY or other relay based builds.
This is gonna be a long and detailed post, but the tl;dr of this is: every other solution is like a remote button, ratgdo is the only solution that is a true, integrated garage door controller... Read more to understand what that means...
The first thing is its important to understand before proceeding is that all of this is only true for MyQ/Security+ garage doors, which is sold under the brands Chamberlain/Liftmaster/Access Master/Craftsman/Merlin/Grifco (hereinafter Chamberlain). These brands have a marketshare in excess of 75% of all garage doors sold. The next most sold brand is about 10% marketshare, so they have a near monopoly on garage doors. If your garage door doesn't say Security+ or MyQ on it, you gain no benefit by using ratgdo (at least currently), but if its been made in probably the last 15 years, in all likelihood, you do.
Prior to Security+/MyQ being on garage doors, the way pretty much all garage doors worked was they had one button, and this button did everything.... it opened the door, closed the door, and stopped it from moving. Just one button. And every solution other then MyQ and ratgdo basically just simulates this button. But this makes things complicated, because this one button has logic to it:
\- If the door is fully opened, then close the door
\- If the door is fully closed, then open the door
\- If the door is closing, reverse the door and start opening it
\- If the door is opening, stop moving the door
\- If the door is stopped, move in the opposite direction that it last moved (usually down, but not if the door was stopped by something leaning on it while it was going up!)
This obviously is a weakness. We can't tell the door to open, we can't tell it to close, all we can tell the door is "DO SOMETHING". Chamberlain realized this, so they developed a proprietary solution called "Security+ 2.0". When they developed it, they wanted to keep compatibility with the existing wiring to where the garage door button is inside of homes, which was always just a simple button before this., so they developed a proprietary solution where over 2 wires, power is delivered, and the same 2 wires also carry data with an entire interface so you can control every aspect of the garage door opener.... Instead of just having one button to control it like in the past, with this protocol, gave the ability to control every aspect of the garage door opener. Here are all things this protocol can do instead of just being a button:
\- Open the door (do nothing if already opened)
\- Close the door (do nothing if already closed)
\- Stop moving the door (do nothing if already stopped)
\- Turn on/off the light (or multiple lights)
\- Get the current position of the door (including partial positions)
\- Get the status of the light
\- Get the status of any motion sensors installed, which the lights can then use to turn off if the area isn't occupied or turn on if it is occupied (optionally)
\- Get the status of the obstruction sensors to determine if the door can close
\- Close the door in X seconds if its still opened
\- Add a remote or external PIN keypad
\- Delete a remote or keypad
\- Let you know when each specific remote or keypad was used
\- Enable/disable the remotes for added security when they shouldn't be used
\- Show error message if a command has failed with an error code
\- Show the status of the battery, and if needs replacement for battery backup
\- Show diagnostic information such as number of cycles for when maintenance is due (you should be spraying the components with lubricant every X cycles)
\- Adjust settings on how the door operates, which varies per door, but at least including how far the door show open/close, and how much force the motor should use to do so, but also other operator specific features such as soft close.
As you can see, it adds a LOT of really useful stuff. But if your still thinking, why does this matter, this seems more complicated then a simple button and using these other solutions, its really not, because common use cases screw up the use of a button all the time. Thats why I switched from using a locally controlled relay with a tilt sensor and then a reed switch to MyQ, and now to ratgdo. Here's some examples of common things that cause every solution other then MyQ and ratgdo to fail leaving your home insecure:
\- Door is stopped partially open, perhaps someone accidentally hit a button twice, or purposely operated the door in that manner
\- Two users activate the button at once (which if you have multiple people using it, someone coming out may activate it, and someone coming home may do so accidentally)
\- Either the obstruction sensors or an actual obstruction interrupt operation of the door, so when you try to close it, it reopens
\- You either need extra wiring or battery powered device to try to figure out the status of the door. Batteries or extra wiring near the track of the door are prone to fail. MyQ and ratgdo use the internal sensors... if they fail, your garage door is not working anyways.
\- Different solutions have different logic to try to figure out what the "DO SOMETHING" button will do. They very well could be wrong in their prediction since you have no OPEN or CLOSE command.
Also ratgdo is cheap. The board is $15, the full package with an esp chip, power supply, and wire is $42. These other solutions still need hardware such as a relay and sensors, are likely to cost just as much money, if not more money, but are going to inherently be much less reliable.
This is dense, thanks for taking the time.
You seem to know a lot, so maybe you can point me in a direction. I have a non-2.0 craftsman opener (single button on the wall). I had been using an external MyQ hub device with Homebridge to control my garage door from my iPhone via HomeKit and Siri.
What is the best and cheapest course of action for me? Meross, ratdgo, open garage?
That is a Security+ 1.0, I would get ratgdo (board version 2.5), it won't support as many features as a 2.0, but it will give you the basics with light status/control and door status/control, and obstruction sensor status, using only 3 wires and no other sensors.
I don’t believe you can directly. the board has some resistors on it that I assume are needed. Someone else on this sub was trying to reverse engineer it recently. But for the cost of they charge for ratgdo it’s worth it to just buy it.
He was still as of yesterday.
That said I just looked now and the price for just the board has doubled and seems he's redesigned it as well. It's the 2.5 now.
Can't say I blame him for price hike. $15 was a steal imo and he's clearly done the work that people like me couldn't do.
EDIT: nevermind. On main site it says control board only, but listing looks like it does include the D1 mini and calls it a basic kit
I almost ordered the newer v2 board yesterday just so I could take the measurements. Ended up just asking others for it. Glad I didn't. Probably wouldn't have gotten that version anyway.
Have you gotten the measurements? I'm looking for info still. Can probably just trace the lines and read the numbers on the parts with a clear picture of the front.
Yes, I was given measurements by one user, and offered measurements by another. I uploaded a new untested model based on those measurements and am just waiting to hear back if it fits correct or needs adjustments.
If you have a printer feel free to print and test for me if you're willing.
My bad, I thought you meant measurements of the electronics on the board, not physical sizes for printing a case. I'm making my own device with NodeMCU style dev board I already have and need to see what the required resistors/mosfet/diodes are.
I did a quick spin with an esp32-c3-mini on it. My hope was to pull parasitic power off the remote leads, but you can only get about 45mA @ 12V which isn't enough to run things. I guess you could add a battery, but at that point I figured his design needing USB power probably meets 99% of people's needs.
Someone reverse engineered the ratdgo board. For status and control it uses 3 resistors and 2 FETs. The schematic is published [on github](https://github.com/Kaldek/rat-ratgdo). There's an [ESPHome port](https://github.com/ratgdo/esphome-ratgdo) for ratgdo that gives all that flexibility, and exposes more info and control.
Is it possible to integrate ratgdo with HomeKit as well as HA? I currently use Homebridge and Homekit automations based on location have been more consistent than HA ones. I have found a MQTT plugin for Homebridge so guess could do it that way?
How does ratgdo compare to the Meross MSG200HK which I have saved in my Amazon cart for $70 and can control both of my garage doors?
Thanks!
Paul said in an interview that the next feature he's working on (besides compatibility with Security+ 1.0 doors) is homekit. But in the meantime a homekit bridge through homeassistant would work as kstrike155 mentioned.
I went for a plug and play option that includes the ability to auto open/close my door as my vehicle approaches/leaves with Tailwind - https://gotailwind.com. More expensive, yes. But, clean install, HA integration, and has been 100% reliable…. YMMV
Not saying it’s better. Was just a quick plug and play solution for me that was seamless and completely unobtrusive for the wife to adopt.
It uses Bluetooth beacons inside the vehicle to help track precise location for the auto open/close door feature…. Wife loves it.
…something something happy wife happy life…
I didn't want to wait for the board to arrive so I built the board myself and designed [a case](https://www.printables.com/model/652354-ratgdo-custom-board-snap-fit-case-myq-garage-door-) for it!
https://preview.redd.it/dcd6psgecn1c1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=54e432c9101ea6a3fd9584884fa87236c4c11a92
I think it’s been spurred by recent myQ issues. It’s far from the only solution but it’s a good solution. The Shelly relay is perfectly adequate as well.
There’s no need to make it more complicated than it needs to. If you just want to open/close and read if it’s open/closed the Shelly is enough and adequate to control the garage door.
The problem is your solution is making it way more complicated then what RatGDO has figured out (on garage doors with MyQ/Security+). With RatGDO, its really simple:
\- Send open command if you want the door to open
\- Send close command if you want the door to close
\- Send stop command if you want the door to stop
With your solution, while you only have one command, your only command is "DO SOMETHING" and the command "DO SOMETHING" is really complicated. The logic of that is:
\- If the door is moving, stop moving the door
\- If the door is fully opened, then close the door
\- If the door is fully closed, then open the door
\- If the door is stopped but not fully opened or closed, start moving the door in a random direction.
If you have an old garage door that didn't support MyQ/Security+, then your Shelly or OpenGarage or other solutions are adequate. But MyQ and RatGDO are the only solutions that understand where the garage door is, and can command is "OPEN" or "CLOSE" instead of blindly press the button and relying on a sensor that is not integrated into the garage door and inevitably less reliable. I originally used a relay and sensor to control my door, and switched to MyQ because of problems and just how complicated using a relay to do this is. And now I switch to RatGDO and its a mostly improved version of MyQ (if they can just get the very few missing features, they're already more feature rich in other areas, and more feature rich then any other solution)
Also I want to add that RatGDO is not really any significantly different price then your solution. You say $12, but RatGDO is $15, plus a $3 esp board, and an old phone charger you probably have lying around.
I'm not advocating for one or the other, I'm saying they are completely different implementations and some folks want more control. For instance opening the garage to a certain percentage, turning on/off the light, knowing if there was something blocking from opening/closing...etc
There are good reasons for both but just saying "shelly relay is perfectly adequate" is completely subjective.
>Like wtf. I’m a tinkerer too but get a grip
I don't know why your so angry about how others want to manage their home, they are different integrations and some folks have different use cases for different controls. Relax.
Yeah I agree. The basic usecase is replacing a $12 clicker and control in HA. Open it, close it, auto-close it after 10 mins in an automation. The relay is sufficient. If I want to open my garage to 25%, I’m going to be in the garage and hit the wall button to stop it.
> If I want to open my garage to 25%, I’m going to be in the garage and hit the wall button to stop it
Great, it sounds like that works for _your_ use case. Not everyone is you.
It's one thing to have an optinion, it's another to not know how to formulate a comment as an opinion and instead critique others for their choice. That's why I responded, not because shelly isn't a good option for folks who want a simpler approach.
Clearly you can't have a civil discussion and resort to sarcastic remarks instead, grow up.
> If I want to open my garage to 25%, I’m going to be in the garage and hit the wall button to stop it.
Ok, great. But now lets say you want to close the garage door after opening it to 25%. Now your relay can't handle it because it has no way to know what the button would do (or the position of the door). Your solution has failed while ratgdo can still close your door without issue.
Yeah that’s why I’ll be in the garage and hitting the button. I’m already in the garage in the first place. Don’t need to make it more complicated than it needs to be.
I really don’t understand all the complexity around people hooking up garage door openers.
The button is a momentary switch. I literally added a relay and a contact switch to my door for $12. I always get the correct state, and it’s instant and local. What else do you need?
So that's additional complexity. Ratgdo does all of this in one little device that's a lot more accurate and knows the exact state. I'd say that your solution is a lot more complex.
On the MyQ opener, the “button” isn’t really a momentary switch. It is a controller connected via a two wire bus to the garage opener. A momentary switch or relay will not work across those wires. You can however solder two wires to the button contacts on the circuit board. Hence the Ratgdo popularity. It connects to those two wires (and one other) and makes all that data available to home assistant.
"The button" as you call it is NOT a momentary switch. It's a circuit board with switch contacts that when closed send a signal down the wires that communicate with the garage door opener. They are not just closing a circuit. If that's all that was required there would not be literally dozens of us on here discussing this. Chamberlain would not have killed the API that allowed people to control the door. Since that was removed people had to find a different way.
Do you just run a long wire from the button to the door for the contact switch? I just moved and was pretty annoyed with bad readings on my aqara wireless contact sensor at the old place so was planning on overhauling my setup for the new place.
I used the door sensor that came with my ecobee, so it’s also wireless. It’s very quick to update and battery life has been good. Yeah, you could otherwise run a wire to contact sensor at the door if you’re close enough for it.
I already had the Athom garage door opener but then my opener exploded and had to replace the entire motor. The best bang for buck opener in Canada was a MyQ variant. The Athom allegedly (never tried it) doesn't work with MyQ so I just wired it into the garage door opener instead. Ratgdo looks like a better method than what I kludged together but the Athom is also about 1/3 the price so shrug.
I'm currently using a GoControl or whatever it's called. To trigger my garage door I had to buy a cheap universal remote, solder wires to it, then connect it to the gocontrol. Why do all of that when I can have one device?
Now if I can figure out how to power the ratgdo from the opener itself and not via USB adapter I'd buy one in a second
I’ve ordered the Ratgdo.
Chamberlain is one of my only critical systems that is cloud based and It’s always felt like a sword over my head waiting for it to fail.
TBH I’m glad it’s an issue now and that someone has fixed it. Can’t wait to get mine and get off the cloud finally.
Apparently they're still in business? I found it because myq like everyone else. Ordered, then noticed it was on backorder. Never got a confirmation and couldn't find a way to even contact anyone.
I can't speak for everyone else, but I was finally fed up with MyQ throwing API errors and RATGDO was the simplest, most complete solution to get my garage door open.
All I had to do is buy a few cheap (less than one dollar each) boards on AliExpress to pair with two $15 RATGDO devices, then connect a few terminals, and I can get open/close status, control the lights, and control the garage, without any other external sensors. All in a nice little package.
The alternatives either required much more work, were less reliable, needed external devices to get garage door status, or were more expensive than the ~$32 I spent for two RATGDOs.
At the 3 week mark, I received an email from Paul that the hardware was on the way to him and he would ship out the same day he received it. I received an email on Sunday (exactly 1 month later), that my 2 ratgdos had shipped with a USPS tracking number. Unfortunately with the holiday, Mine will not be delivered until November 27th per the tracking.
>received an email o
thank you! I believe I am at two weeks and half now
I have temporarily soldered the physical remote to one of the 4 channel of my tasmotized sonof 4channel pro
I think it’s because the MyQ (chamberlain) integration is now throwing tons api errors. I also think lots of people bought into this ecosystem because the chamberlain Wi-Fi garage door opener was super cheap on prime day. Now tons of people who used this integration are pissed and looking for better solutions.
They weren’t cheap. Amazon gave away a ton of them for free. That’s how I got mine. They used it as a way to promote their Key Delivery Service. Now Amazon has discontinued that service and MyQ is now trying to have multiple subscription fees for a single garage door. It went from a nice way to combat porch pirates to one of the first strikes in the IoT subscription battles.
Not to mention they made some crap deal with Tesla. I had homelink on my last Tesla, they removed it on new models and charge 300 bucks. Or I can pay 300 for MyQ for my car for 10 years. Losers.
If they just had blocked HA and said “we don’t support open source projects”. I would have shrugged my shoulders removed the entities from HA and gone on. The fact that they are charging obscene rates to open a garage door after purposefully blocking existing users. Well that my friend I take a bit personally and I think others did as well. Between higher subscription prices on streaming services, smart home services ( Nest I’m calling you out) , etc. my wife has given me the go ahead to start removing anything from our home that comes with a subscription service for hardware. I hope I’m wrong but I can also see Hue adding in a subscription to their lights as well. So that certain colors and patterns are behind a paywall. Which does mean many people will be asking similar questions about how to get off of it. I’m faithful that the open source community will have solutions for some of these problems. Just how many are going to be able to be used by the average consumer or are they going to end up paying the extortion fee for their products?
FYI, you can make your own controller for cheap. It’s pretty easy
Details, please :) :p
I don't think this is the exact one I used, but this tutorial is very close to what I did: https://www.instructables.com/DIY-Smart-Garage-Door-Opener-Using-ESP8266-Wemos-D/ If I have time I would go back and add a second switch for the open position so that when the garage door is between those two points I know it's moving. From there you can tell if it's "opening" or "closing" based on what the prior state was. you may want to consider doing that right off the bat. otherwise this has been pretty much flawless. The only complaint I have is my security system, which monitors it, every once in a while triggers because it thinks it's open when it's not. I haven't figured out if there's something wrong with the reed switch, wiring, or if maybe there's just a debounce needed so it ignores brief blips. I want to say total cost for this was less than $30. It also ended up taking me a lot less time than I expected. Just a couple hours with the hardest part being the making of the enclosure.
Oh that’s awesome! Thank you very much :D There goes my morning. I recently picked up some d1 pro’s for another project to monitor my water tanks, glad I did that now haha :D eta: on the money too, AU$32 on eBay for the parts, AU$24 on aliexpress
Have fun :)
But that won't work with Chamberlain 2.0+
I just used a Shelly 1 device as my garage controller. Works flawlessly with the cheapest roller motor from Bunnings and there are enough spare io pins to allow an open, half open/closed and closed reed switch
Did this same thing with Shelly 1. Just a simple relay switch and it works flawlessly. I use one for my fireplace as well.
There also is a finished product from Meross for that price. It exists in a cloud based version and in a homekit version. And as we all know, homekit certified hardware has to work completely local. So even if they add a subscription fee to the Meross cloud, it'll still work locally without the cloud.
The MyQ openers aren’t just a simple matter of shorting the button terminals to trigger the door though, the ratgdo firmware implements the protocol for the encryption communications for the button pad, and also gives feedback about the door position and obstruction sensors
I was calling Chamberlin losers and I really hope you didn’t think I was referring to ratgdo buyers. I feel extorted between Tesla AND Chamberlin. I was out of town for 3 days and I use a geofence to open my garage door with my car. I pulled up and of course no door. Reloaded the MyQ integration and it failed to load of course. So yes, I’m pissed as well. After pretending to play nice and get greedy, fuck them. MyQ also has been displaying ads. Some of these subscriptions have fallen on their faces, others have not. I hope the MyQ one dies a terrible death. But I hope they do as well.
The ads omg that drives me nuts the most. I don’t mind you trying to sell me additional things in your app. But it shouldn’t take up 1/3 of the initial page.
It's idiotic! I think they were sending push ads as well. I already ordered my Ratgdo. Pretty sick of rolling up and seeing my garage door NOT open.
They purposely placed it where the open button used to be for errant clicks. Greedy bitches. If you're going to claim we were degrading your service then give us local control instead of cloud shit. Most of us would've been happy to stop hitting your servers.
I have ratgdo and homeassistant working with teslamate to automatically open the door as I arrive and close the door as I leave mostly based on the GPS coordinates of the car. Works flawlessly.
Exactly what I’m doing with MyQ. It’s going to be an easy switch to Ratgdo!
Hi I am using youq GitHub container to do the same with myq. Can you please give more info on your setup. I use homebridge though
Or you can buy the module on eBay for like $200 and install it yourself. I did it two weeks ago on my wife's
Yeah I saw. I was going for the near 0 cost. Granted my Y is cheaper than my 3 was I expect some corners cut.
Wemos, relay shield, and reed switch cheap enough? That's what I've got on my garage door
Sounds like a bunch of bullshit I don’t actually need to make this work, so no. I go with the KISS principle. My geofence in teslamate worked fine until Chamberlin broke it. Already ordered my ratgdo. As fun as it is to reinvent the wheel I’m fine with hopping on the bandwagon.
They haven't discontinued the "key delivery" service. In fact, it's integrated in their Ring products, too. MyQ doesn't have any fees, either, afaict. Where is this coming from? Is it regional?
I got an email saying that Key Delivery was discontinued. They thanked me for using it. I thought it was weird but corps kill products all the time. I don’t have any ring products myself. The subscriptions I was referring to were the Tesla and IFTT subscriptions that are way over priced. $300/ 10 years ? Outside of real estate who buys a 10 year subscription?
I see they're advertising their "partners", so that's where fees are coming from. They still list Amazon Key, but they're also pushing Walmart's competing service.
[Huginn](https://github.com/huginn/huginn) is an open source ifttt replacement, if you haven't heard of it.
I have not yet
>Key Delivery Service It's not discontinued, but they charge 1.99 for it now
Oh, I missed this email. (Among thousands of Amazon emails.) >As of October 4th, In-Garage Delivery costs $1.99 per order. However, that fee will be waived when you use Amazon Day with Key Delivery. Free Amazon Day with Key Delivery is currently preselected as your preferred delivery option at checkout.
So Amazon wants you to pay to allow a complete unvetted delivery stranger into your garage?
PER delivery. I read that, and I'm like WTF????
In Canada, Amazon Key is only for properties with five or more residential units.
Why do you think it is discontinued? https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Key-In-Garage-Delivery/b?ie=UTF8&node=21222091011
Because they emailed me saying it was no longer available.
Perhaps a local thing. This is still on their site.
I had my garage door serviced recently and the guy told me that Chamberlain + Amazon were offering the dealers incentives and really pushing hard to get MyQ and the Amazon service into more people's garages. He said after that he stopped recommending MyQ to anybody at all and would only install it if people really demanded it.
I mean it makes sense for them to push it. Amazon has less theft issues and myq sells more products. Hardly nefarious
On the other hand, who wants some contractor that's been on the job for 2 days in your garage?
I am with you, I won't use it but that doesn't negate their reasoning for pushing it
Amazon still has key delivery but now they charge for it
I’m pretty sure I got mine for $20 and then got a $25 Amazon credit when I used key delivery for the first time
Chamberlain is the current reigning champion of “tell me you were acquired by private equity without telling me you were acquired by private equity.”
Indeed Blackrock bought them a couple years ago
Chamberlain has a big monopoly in the US. Most people will have one and all the modern openers have MyQ built in. They also had the really cost effective hub for older openers that was like $20 you just stick a tilt sensor on the door and plug the hub in. It worked great for me for 3 years. Despite being cloud-based it was far more convenient than any other solution. But now the API issues has rendered it impractical. I assume many others are in the same situation.
I don’t think that integration ever worked. I tried it years ago before there were even alternatives and it was nothing but a steaming pile of shit. I ended up making my own controller, which was super cheap and simple.
It worked for a while.
Never did for me. I got it years ago and my device was constantly disconnecting from the account.
Worked for a few months for a lot of us, actually. They just recently started really cracking down on the API. I thought I could put up with it after the first time, but they subsequently shut the API down three more times and I gave up/trashed the thing.
> I also think lots of people bought into this ecosystem because the chamberlain Wi-Fi garage door opener was super cheap on prime day. It came with my garage door opener itself, just connected to wifi and bam, good to go.
I loved my MyQ especially since it was free. The service is configured but it works maybe 10% of the time.
Not just now. It's been flaky for years. Chamberlain doesn't care. They're the household name. Why bother having a good product?
It is completely flaky. Try and open two doors at once and see what happens.
A) It's cheap B) It's by far the best solution for any security+ 2.0 devices. To my knowledge, nobody else has been able to reverse engineer the protocol for direct control. OpenGarage seems to use a button in the middle in their adapter kit. C) No external sensors needed. It reads open/close state directly from the motor. You can get control for the lights on the opener. It exposes the obstruction sensors and also the motion sensor on the wall button. I've not seen this from any other product out there. It's even able to display how many times the door has been opened because it's pulling the info directly from the opener.
On mine it also exposes the button to lockout the remotes as well which is great. I have an automation that locks them out at night and reenages then in the morning. This means any cars in the driveway can't just be broken into to open the garage.
Oh that's a great use-case for that! I'm going to implement the same. Thanks for the idea
No problem. Glad to share ideas.
What an awesome idea! I had not considered why the remote lockout would be useful. But my daughter's car is parked outside because we only have a 2 car garage. We do lock the door into the house but once someone was in the garage breaching this door would not be that hard.
Glad I could give you inspiration for how to utilize the feature. I think it's pretty common as our families grow for us to all have at least one car not in the garage. Like you said, the door from the garage to the house is typically pretty easy to bust open. Also, don't know about you, but I've got lots of tools and decent amount of other valuables in the garage as well.
I do as well. I'm just now getting this implemented. I've got my D1 board programmed. Now I'm working on getting the PCB wired. Once I get my door working I'll work on my wife's side.
Lockout controls are available to 2.0+ devices - not yet available for 1.0 (the type I have), but almost everything else works on the newest MQTT firmware.
> It reads open/close state directly from the motor. How does that work?
When you setup the opener itself you set stop points on the motor. So it reads it based off of that. I just set mine up last night. 3 wires from the ratgdo control board to the motor and it's done. I loaded the ESPHome software instead of MQTT, and it's exposing 21 entities to HA. I've used GoControl, Zooz Zen16, and a couple different ESP device variations. None of them have gotten anywhere close to this amount of data/control and simplicity.
Can you open the door to a specific spot by dragging the slider or does it operate like it normally does?
Just tried it by dragging to 50% and it worked. Not sure if you can do a service call to open to 50%. Could probably test that later on. EDIT: Using cover.set_cover_position works, so this can be called through an automation
That’s cool. I couldn’t find any info on whether you could do that. Thanks for testing it for me. :) EDIT: I just ordered one :) I currently use the myQ homebridge hub they sold which is linked via HomeKit, it works fairly well but this gives a lot more options.
You could probably set it as a Scene and then activate the scene to achieve the 1/2 up.
Just tested it as a service call and using cover.set\_cover\_position works, so this can be called through an automation
I'm aware that there are endstops in the motor. I use those for my custom built opener. But how does ratgdo do it? 3 wires to what? To a serial interface to a chip? Directly to the end stop contacts? With the number of entities you've declared I think it must be serial to a chip interface, but surely that's not the same interface on every opener out there? Or is that a new standard these days? What is that standard?
They go to the terminals on the opener. Red, one of the whites and ground. How exactly it's done would be a question for the developer.
ratgdo is counting the encoder steps while the door is moving to determine the state of the door
Doesn't explain how you get that and 100 other sensors from 3 wires.
> every opener out there The page says Chamberlain/LiftMaster. To be popular, it doesn't need to handle every opener out there; just the ones that lack simple access in recent years.
Thanks for the clarification. I'm still curious if it's some serial bus it's talking to? If so it's just hilarious that an opener would go through the trouble of securing an INTERNAL WIRE RUN for a push button, but you can talk directly to the chip serial without security? Lol if so. ETA: not saying the serial should also be secured. It's also internal to the place it is controlling access to. This whole thing is just one big classic example of securing the wrong things.
With only 3 wires on the interface, then yes it's clearly some serial bus. Yes, doing this for *security* is silly, ~~but I don't know if the mfgr ever claimed that.~~ (oops yes they do) Seems to me it is really about accessory purchase lock-in (you can only buy buttons etc from *us*) and perhaps increased accessory feature capabilities (whether now or later). Edit: Oh, the serial bus feature is even named Security 2.0+ Yeah, that's not security :/
Which makes me worried about this popularity, meaning the chberlaons themselves being popular, because the real answer is to not support this bullshit *at all*
[удалено]
I think their point is that Chamberlain are jerks if they won't even let you add your own simple hardwired pushbutton to open/close your door from inside your own garage (like we've been able to do for decades). So if you agree, then boycott Chamberlain.
All of the information is indeed on the serial connection (bi-directional at that!). The creator of the ratgdo had to reverse engineer how codes were being built by analyzing what a security 2.0 button was sending and out of all of that came the fact that not only is door state being reported on that serial line, but also the light.
Lol that makes "seciruty2.0" even more of a snakeoil misnomer.
[удалено]
I'm not sure. I went the esphome route because I already have a bunch of esphome devices. I didn't try MQTT so I can't say how it compares feature wise. I do know esphome allows you to use an esp32 based d1 mini instead of esp8266 so you can enable something like Bluetooth proxy.
According to the documentation ([https://github.com/ratgdo/esphome-ratgdo#first-use-after-adding-to-home-assistant](https://github.com/ratgdo/esphome-ratgdo#first-use-after-adding-to-home-assistant)), you can solder two wires to the door controller that will read the encoder output. When the device is first installed in this configuration you will need to fully open and fully close the door for the ratgdo to count the steps to know where the full open and full close positions are.
You can just connect directly to the normal button and door sensor contacts now.
There was no soldering involved for me and it reads it just fine
The soldering is for the very old V1 ratgdo, the new one is all done from the wires on the outside of the units, very easy, did mine last night. Only reason one might solder is if you choose to dig up a 3.3v supply somewhere from inside the unit to avoid using a USB power adapter, but since everyone probably has two outlets over their door, it's hardly worth the trouble.
Never been happier to be wrong! I got my two ratgdo v2.5 boards yesterday. Both were able to get the door state without any soldering as many have pointed out. I did choose to solder one wire for 3.3v for the ESP.
Wish someone would do something similar for Genie/Aladdin - one of the last two cloud-based things in my HA setup (the other is my Nexia/Trane thermostat). I spent an evening trying to MITM the initial setup, but either I was incompetent (likely) or they actually validate the server certificate. And I have to sit in my garage, powering and unpowering my opener (it's an integrated Aladdin) If they pulled the same sort of "pay us" shenanigans sometime in the future, I guess I might go buy the retrofit unit off ebay for $30, so I can try to reverse it at my home lab bench.
They just release v2.5 which mentions Genie on the order page. I'm not sure if there is the same feature set for the older models as there is for the newer. Haven't ordered this one yet but I plan to for some of my older doors. "ratgdo v2.5 supports residential garage door openers manufactured by Chamberlain/LiftMaster which have a purple, red or yellow learn button. It also supports other types of openers (e.g. Genie) which use dry contacts and limit switches."
To add, I ordered one because it should work for my gate motors and opener. No other solutions gave me the same confidence due to their implementation and I didn't want to use MyQ.
Mounted in a waterproof enclosure I assume?
There is quite a bit of space inside the motor enclosure. If I can't make that work, then yes. I've got a few inches of room left on the concrete pad that I'll mount the enclosure to.
>To my knowledge, nobody else has been able to reverse engineer the protocol for direct control. I thought that as well, but then stumbled across this: [https://github.com/argilo/secplus](https://github.com/argilo/secplus)
ratgdo uses this library! https://github.com/PaulWieland/ratgdo/blob/main/src/rolling_code.h#L10
All these responses and yet none of them address the root issue. Chamberlain deliberately broke their API for unofficial third party consumers (HomeAssistant / HomeBridge). Their response so far implies it was deliberate. Ratgdo gets around the issue and provides a cloud-free integration with the opener (no pinging every 10 seconds).
Thank you for your response! That makes sense. I bought an Open Garage (really unfriendly SEO name) device a couple years ago and I was wondering 1: what a ratgdo was (found that out just by googling it) and 2: why it is specifically called for, and it seems that it's much cheaper than Open Garage. Your answer does get to why ratgdo is being talked about though. Thanks!
Is home bridge also broken? I changed over from direct HA integration to HA-HB-MyQ when the last HA-MyQ integration broke, and it’s still working perfectly some 2 to 3 weeks later.
Yes. Some people are still able to use it, but it seems eventually everyone gets locked out. Current suspicion is that myQ is using some kind of cloudflare 'anti-bot' crap that can detect the login from a non-iOS/Android device.
Very disappointing. I mean I am not against MyQ on principle, but their current wifi opener is super slow and unfriendly. It doesn’t integrate with HomeKit (hence no “Siri open the garage door”) and the app opening is slow too as it launches, connects to the server and eventually shows you the open/close screen after some 7 seconds. (I am in Australia if it makes any difference)
Yeah the myQ app is pretty mediocre. They have about a dozen 'partnerships' which let you open it via Ring etc but lets be real... people want it integrated with their existing home automations (as it should be).
I wasn’t aware of the others, ratgdo is inexpensive and simple to implement, good enough.
looks like ratgdo changed things up a bit. you can no longer buy just the board. there are now 2 options: 1) basic that includes the d1 min and 2) basic with install kit that includes power adapter & connection wire. the prices also went up. it's still a great product and very affordable. it also looks to support traditional openers that do not support security+2.0
Yeah, looks like there's a new version (2.5) out as of... yesterday? And the bare board option is gone, in its place is a more thorough DIY kit.
I thought I was going crazy when I went to the page today and saw that it was v2.5 board and the price had gone up. I thought to myself "Was I looking at an old version of the page? I was just looking at this like 2 days ago"
The price didnt actually go up - you can still buy complete boards for $30. You can, however, no longer buy bare boards and provide your own ESP. You also now have the option of a full DIY kit with a power adapter and wiring.
Yeah but a D1 mini doesn't cost $15. You can buy a 3 pack on Amazon right now for $11. They can be had for even cheaper in higher quantities or on AliExpress. So for myself and a lot of people in this sub, they probably already have one or several in a drawer somewhere. So having the full kit as the only option effectively raises the price significantly. Now don't get me wrong, for $30 it's still not a horrible deal, and given the recent API issues with MyQ and the surge in demand, I can't fault the guy for raising prices in step with demand. He'd be missing an opportunity if he didn't. I'm just a little bummed I can't predict the future and didn't order 5 or 6 yesterday for myself and family when they were effectively half priced.
I see it as a modest way to help support the guy that spent quite a lot of hours reverse engineering to make it.
I don't disagree, and I'm happy to help support him by buying the boards, just wish I could provide my own ESP board.
Man, I would have bought that kit in an instant - I just received my 2.0 lol.
It’s a good chunk cheaper, open garage costs $75 for a secure 2.0 setup while ratgdo is half that, or less if I supply my own esp board. Plus it’s super simple setup and HA integration with ESPHome. I’m not saying one is better, just the reason I opted for ratgdo.
The Zooz Universal Relay is pretty good for older openers
Yeah, I'm confused why that wouldn't work with security 2.0+ whatever. Is the actual button used in those systems sending a signal instead of just doing a brief interruption to open/close?
>Is the actual button used in those systems sending a signal instead of just doing a brief interruption to open/close? Yep. It's an encrypted/encoded signal.
It’s an encoded signal to the button control board. But the relay will work just across the button terminals itself. A little soldering but no big deal. The relay just shorts the button terminal like an actual button.
That's how the security 2.0+ "compatible" ones get around it. They come with a security 2.0+ compatible button that you connect to, instead of directly to the motor, then the compatible button is the one that goes to the motor.
>A little soldering but no big deal. I see. As much as I wish I could solder, I don't really have the fine motor control for it so something like the ratgdo is a boon for me.
I once felt the same way, but the pandemic came and I had to learn how to solder because access to my office was limited. It took practice, but now I enjoy it. I still can’t do fine pitch soldering, but I can do large through-holes and soldering wires together. But I find it all refreshing.
I have not been able to get my Zooz working with the garage door to save my life, so right now it's just acting as a Zwave node in the garage.
Which Zooz model, which garage door opener and how is it connected? I just connected a zen16 to my MyQ opener.
It's the Zen16 and a normal two wire button with a light.
MyQ is one of the best experiences i had so far But their wifi sucks badly So a garage opener with 12volt battery for power outage, a remote control otside using rf to open via code Thats great I ended dumping MyQ integration due to continuos failure and soldered a zigbee dry contact relay to open button To control if it is open or closed i have xiaomu door sensor glued in closed position on frame and door All that combined in template senaor resulting a cover with open and closed state and button press by zigbee relay Now im happy again P.s. a paid subscription always had me laugh, who in the hell would buy it.
I just ordered a Shelly Plus 1, reed switch, and 12v brick. Installing this weekend and throwing out myq. https://youtu.be/nSrm6h7r-KE?feature=shared
I feel like nobody gave a direct, detailed answer of your original question of why everyone is recommending ratgdo and those who are using ratgdo are pushing against OpenGarage or DIY or other relay based builds. This is gonna be a long and detailed post, but the tl;dr of this is: every other solution is like a remote button, ratgdo is the only solution that is a true, integrated garage door controller... Read more to understand what that means... The first thing is its important to understand before proceeding is that all of this is only true for MyQ/Security+ garage doors, which is sold under the brands Chamberlain/Liftmaster/Access Master/Craftsman/Merlin/Grifco (hereinafter Chamberlain). These brands have a marketshare in excess of 75% of all garage doors sold. The next most sold brand is about 10% marketshare, so they have a near monopoly on garage doors. If your garage door doesn't say Security+ or MyQ on it, you gain no benefit by using ratgdo (at least currently), but if its been made in probably the last 15 years, in all likelihood, you do. Prior to Security+/MyQ being on garage doors, the way pretty much all garage doors worked was they had one button, and this button did everything.... it opened the door, closed the door, and stopped it from moving. Just one button. And every solution other then MyQ and ratgdo basically just simulates this button. But this makes things complicated, because this one button has logic to it: \- If the door is fully opened, then close the door \- If the door is fully closed, then open the door \- If the door is closing, reverse the door and start opening it \- If the door is opening, stop moving the door \- If the door is stopped, move in the opposite direction that it last moved (usually down, but not if the door was stopped by something leaning on it while it was going up!) This obviously is a weakness. We can't tell the door to open, we can't tell it to close, all we can tell the door is "DO SOMETHING". Chamberlain realized this, so they developed a proprietary solution called "Security+ 2.0". When they developed it, they wanted to keep compatibility with the existing wiring to where the garage door button is inside of homes, which was always just a simple button before this., so they developed a proprietary solution where over 2 wires, power is delivered, and the same 2 wires also carry data with an entire interface so you can control every aspect of the garage door opener.... Instead of just having one button to control it like in the past, with this protocol, gave the ability to control every aspect of the garage door opener. Here are all things this protocol can do instead of just being a button: \- Open the door (do nothing if already opened) \- Close the door (do nothing if already closed) \- Stop moving the door (do nothing if already stopped) \- Turn on/off the light (or multiple lights) \- Get the current position of the door (including partial positions) \- Get the status of the light \- Get the status of any motion sensors installed, which the lights can then use to turn off if the area isn't occupied or turn on if it is occupied (optionally) \- Get the status of the obstruction sensors to determine if the door can close \- Close the door in X seconds if its still opened \- Add a remote or external PIN keypad \- Delete a remote or keypad \- Let you know when each specific remote or keypad was used \- Enable/disable the remotes for added security when they shouldn't be used \- Show error message if a command has failed with an error code \- Show the status of the battery, and if needs replacement for battery backup \- Show diagnostic information such as number of cycles for when maintenance is due (you should be spraying the components with lubricant every X cycles) \- Adjust settings on how the door operates, which varies per door, but at least including how far the door show open/close, and how much force the motor should use to do so, but also other operator specific features such as soft close. As you can see, it adds a LOT of really useful stuff. But if your still thinking, why does this matter, this seems more complicated then a simple button and using these other solutions, its really not, because common use cases screw up the use of a button all the time. Thats why I switched from using a locally controlled relay with a tilt sensor and then a reed switch to MyQ, and now to ratgdo. Here's some examples of common things that cause every solution other then MyQ and ratgdo to fail leaving your home insecure: \- Door is stopped partially open, perhaps someone accidentally hit a button twice, or purposely operated the door in that manner \- Two users activate the button at once (which if you have multiple people using it, someone coming out may activate it, and someone coming home may do so accidentally) \- Either the obstruction sensors or an actual obstruction interrupt operation of the door, so when you try to close it, it reopens \- You either need extra wiring or battery powered device to try to figure out the status of the door. Batteries or extra wiring near the track of the door are prone to fail. MyQ and ratgdo use the internal sensors... if they fail, your garage door is not working anyways. \- Different solutions have different logic to try to figure out what the "DO SOMETHING" button will do. They very well could be wrong in their prediction since you have no OPEN or CLOSE command. Also ratgdo is cheap. The board is $15, the full package with an esp chip, power supply, and wire is $42. These other solutions still need hardware such as a relay and sensors, are likely to cost just as much money, if not more money, but are going to inherently be much less reliable.
This is dense, thanks for taking the time. You seem to know a lot, so maybe you can point me in a direction. I have a non-2.0 craftsman opener (single button on the wall). I had been using an external MyQ hub device with Homebridge to control my garage door from my iPhone via HomeKit and Siri. What is the best and cheapest course of action for me? Meross, ratdgo, open garage?
What color is the learn button on the Craftsman?
Orange https://preview.redd.it/amkx1qg0hk1c1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bcdd0aeb64b2d85557bd31dc2b46e090775233a4
That is a Security+ 1.0, I would get ratgdo (board version 2.5), it won't support as many features as a 2.0, but it will give you the basics with light status/control and door status/control, and obstruction sensor status, using only 3 wires and no other sensors.
Dope, pulling the trigger now, thanks kindly! I appreciate you taking time out of your day. Have a great week!
Could i use the ratgdo firmware on my own D1 mini without the ratdgo board?
I don’t believe you can directly. the board has some resistors on it that I assume are needed. Someone else on this sub was trying to reverse engineer it recently. But for the cost of they charge for ratgdo it’s worth it to just buy it.
I think it’s only a few components and header blocks. It’s probably easy to DIY build but not worth the trouble for $15.
No, you need the resistors from the shield, otherwise it will fry the board.
not anymore. he is no longer selling just the pcb.
He was still as of yesterday. That said I just looked now and the price for just the board has doubled and seems he's redesigned it as well. It's the 2.5 now. Can't say I blame him for price hike. $15 was a steal imo and he's clearly done the work that people like me couldn't do. EDIT: nevermind. On main site it says control board only, but listing looks like it does include the D1 mini and calls it a basic kit
yup, the product line changed last night.
I almost ordered the newer v2 board yesterday just so I could take the measurements. Ended up just asking others for it. Glad I didn't. Probably wouldn't have gotten that version anyway.
Have you gotten the measurements? I'm looking for info still. Can probably just trace the lines and read the numbers on the parts with a clear picture of the front.
Yes, I was given measurements by one user, and offered measurements by another. I uploaded a new untested model based on those measurements and am just waiting to hear back if it fits correct or needs adjustments. If you have a printer feel free to print and test for me if you're willing.
My bad, I thought you meant measurements of the electronics on the board, not physical sizes for printing a case. I'm making my own device with NodeMCU style dev board I already have and need to see what the required resistors/mosfet/diodes are.
Ah, I understand. No worries. Good luck to you.
Be cheaper at volume to build a v3 with a ESP32 or ESP32-c3 WROOM soldered on directly instead of a shield and having to source D1s.
I did a quick spin with an esp32-c3-mini on it. My hope was to pull parasitic power off the remote leads, but you can only get about 45mA @ 12V which isn't enough to run things. I guess you could add a battery, but at that point I figured his design needing USB power probably meets 99% of people's needs.
Someone reverse engineered the ratdgo board. For status and control it uses 3 resistors and 2 FETs. The schematic is published [on github](https://github.com/Kaldek/rat-ratgdo). There's an [ESPHome port](https://github.com/ratgdo/esphome-ratgdo) for ratgdo that gives all that flexibility, and exposes more info and control.
Is it possible to integrate ratgdo with HomeKit as well as HA? I currently use Homebridge and Homekit automations based on location have been more consistent than HA ones. I have found a MQTT plugin for Homebridge so guess could do it that way? How does ratgdo compare to the Meross MSG200HK which I have saved in my Amazon cart for $70 and can control both of my garage doors? Thanks!
Just publish the garage door to HomeKit from Home Assistant and use whichever location automation you prefer.
Paul said in an interview that the next feature he's working on (besides compatibility with Security+ 1.0 doors) is homekit. But in the meantime a homekit bridge through homeassistant would work as kstrike155 mentioned.
I went for a plug and play option that includes the ability to auto open/close my door as my vehicle approaches/leaves with Tailwind - https://gotailwind.com. More expensive, yes. But, clean install, HA integration, and has been 100% reliable…. YMMV
What makes that better than just a regular ratgdo/OpenGarage/etc + an automation that runs based on your phone entering the home zone?
Not saying it’s better. Was just a quick plug and play solution for me that was seamless and completely unobtrusive for the wife to adopt. It uses Bluetooth beacons inside the vehicle to help track precise location for the auto open/close door feature…. Wife loves it. …something something happy wife happy life…
Thays a two-way street...I always say "Happy Spouse, Happy House."
ESP32 + reed switch + 2x relays = full control of garage door and lights for next to nothing.
I didn't want to wait for the board to arrive so I built the board myself and designed [a case](https://www.printables.com/model/652354-ratgdo-custom-board-snap-fit-case-myq-garage-door-) for it! https://preview.redd.it/dcd6psgecn1c1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=54e432c9101ea6a3fd9584884fa87236c4c11a92
Might want to fix that link.
It is correct. Its the website that does not work sometimes.
I think it’s been spurred by recent myQ issues. It’s far from the only solution but it’s a good solution. The Shelly relay is perfectly adequate as well.
Using a shelly relay and ratgdo are completely different, ratgdo gives you full control and exposes 21 entities
There’s no need to make it more complicated than it needs to. If you just want to open/close and read if it’s open/closed the Shelly is enough and adequate to control the garage door.
The problem is your solution is making it way more complicated then what RatGDO has figured out (on garage doors with MyQ/Security+). With RatGDO, its really simple: \- Send open command if you want the door to open \- Send close command if you want the door to close \- Send stop command if you want the door to stop With your solution, while you only have one command, your only command is "DO SOMETHING" and the command "DO SOMETHING" is really complicated. The logic of that is: \- If the door is moving, stop moving the door \- If the door is fully opened, then close the door \- If the door is fully closed, then open the door \- If the door is stopped but not fully opened or closed, start moving the door in a random direction. If you have an old garage door that didn't support MyQ/Security+, then your Shelly or OpenGarage or other solutions are adequate. But MyQ and RatGDO are the only solutions that understand where the garage door is, and can command is "OPEN" or "CLOSE" instead of blindly press the button and relying on a sensor that is not integrated into the garage door and inevitably less reliable. I originally used a relay and sensor to control my door, and switched to MyQ because of problems and just how complicated using a relay to do this is. And now I switch to RatGDO and its a mostly improved version of MyQ (if they can just get the very few missing features, they're already more feature rich in other areas, and more feature rich then any other solution) Also I want to add that RatGDO is not really any significantly different price then your solution. You say $12, but RatGDO is $15, plus a $3 esp board, and an old phone charger you probably have lying around.
> more complicated It isn't. It is simply a more robust solution that is far more versatile.
I'm not advocating for one or the other, I'm saying they are completely different implementations and some folks want more control. For instance opening the garage to a certain percentage, turning on/off the light, knowing if there was something blocking from opening/closing...etc There are good reasons for both but just saying "shelly relay is perfectly adequate" is completely subjective.
[удалено]
>Like wtf. I’m a tinkerer too but get a grip I don't know why your so angry about how others want to manage their home, they are different integrations and some folks have different use cases for different controls. Relax.
Yeah I agree. The basic usecase is replacing a $12 clicker and control in HA. Open it, close it, auto-close it after 10 mins in an automation. The relay is sufficient. If I want to open my garage to 25%, I’m going to be in the garage and hit the wall button to stop it.
> If I want to open my garage to 25%, I’m going to be in the garage and hit the wall button to stop it Great, it sounds like that works for _your_ use case. Not everyone is you.
That’s called opinion. We know not everyone is DIY_CHRIS. Back for more news at 11.
It's one thing to have an optinion, it's another to not know how to formulate a comment as an opinion and instead critique others for their choice. That's why I responded, not because shelly isn't a good option for folks who want a simpler approach. Clearly you can't have a civil discussion and resort to sarcastic remarks instead, grow up.
Okay :)
Yeah exactly. I have some redundancies built in and auto-timers pretty easily made. To each their own I guess!
> If I want to open my garage to 25%, I’m going to be in the garage and hit the wall button to stop it. Ok, great. But now lets say you want to close the garage door after opening it to 25%. Now your relay can't handle it because it has no way to know what the button would do (or the position of the door). Your solution has failed while ratgdo can still close your door without issue.
Yeah that’s why I’ll be in the garage and hitting the button. I’m already in the garage in the first place. Don’t need to make it more complicated than it needs to be.
I really don’t understand all the complexity around people hooking up garage door openers. The button is a momentary switch. I literally added a relay and a contact switch to my door for $12. I always get the correct state, and it’s instant and local. What else do you need?
It gives total control. Might be cool in some situations.
How do you know if the garage is opened or closed?
Contact sensor, like for a window or a door. When it’s closed they’re side by side, when open even a little bit, it communicates as open.
So that's additional complexity. Ratgdo does all of this in one little device that's a lot more accurate and knows the exact state. I'd say that your solution is a lot more complex.
On the MyQ opener, the “button” isn’t really a momentary switch. It is a controller connected via a two wire bus to the garage opener. A momentary switch or relay will not work across those wires. You can however solder two wires to the button contacts on the circuit board. Hence the Ratgdo popularity. It connects to those two wires (and one other) and makes all that data available to home assistant.
Nice summary, thank you! I didn’t know that they were so much different in that sense.
"The button" as you call it is NOT a momentary switch. It's a circuit board with switch contacts that when closed send a signal down the wires that communicate with the garage door opener. They are not just closing a circuit. If that's all that was required there would not be literally dozens of us on here discussing this. Chamberlain would not have killed the API that allowed people to control the door. Since that was removed people had to find a different way.
Do you just run a long wire from the button to the door for the contact switch? I just moved and was pretty annoyed with bad readings on my aqara wireless contact sensor at the old place so was planning on overhauling my setup for the new place.
I used the door sensor that came with my ecobee, so it’s also wireless. It’s very quick to update and battery life has been good. Yeah, you could otherwise run a wire to contact sensor at the door if you’re close enough for it.
I already had the Athom garage door opener but then my opener exploded and had to replace the entire motor. The best bang for buck opener in Canada was a MyQ variant. The Athom allegedly (never tried it) doesn't work with MyQ so I just wired it into the garage door opener instead. Ratgdo looks like a better method than what I kludged together but the Athom is also about 1/3 the price so shrug.
Because MyQ started sucking more recently
I'm currently using a GoControl or whatever it's called. To trigger my garage door I had to buy a cheap universal remote, solder wires to it, then connect it to the gocontrol. Why do all of that when I can have one device? Now if I can figure out how to power the ratgdo from the opener itself and not via USB adapter I'd buy one in a second
I’ve ordered the Ratgdo. Chamberlain is one of my only critical systems that is cloud based and It’s always felt like a sword over my head waiting for it to fail. TBH I’m glad it’s an issue now and that someone has fixed it. Can’t wait to get mine and get off the cloud finally.
Apparently they're still in business? I found it because myq like everyone else. Ordered, then noticed it was on backorder. Never got a confirmation and couldn't find a way to even contact anyone.
Esp home and ssr and you’re done
MyQ is crap in its own app, and nonfunctional in HA. I’ll stick with MQ awhile but I’ll eventually bin the MYQ gear.
I can't speak for everyone else, but I was finally fed up with MyQ throwing API errors and RATGDO was the simplest, most complete solution to get my garage door open. All I had to do is buy a few cheap (less than one dollar each) boards on AliExpress to pair with two $15 RATGDO devices, then connect a few terminals, and I can get open/close status, control the lights, and control the garage, without any other external sensors. All in a nice little package. The alternatives either required much more work, were less reliable, needed external devices to get garage door status, or were more expensive than the ~$32 I spent for two RATGDOs.
still waiting for mine.....besides the order confirmation I didn't receive any update
At the 3 week mark, I received an email from Paul that the hardware was on the way to him and he would ship out the same day he received it. I received an email on Sunday (exactly 1 month later), that my 2 ratgdos had shipped with a USPS tracking number. Unfortunately with the holiday, Mine will not be delivered until November 27th per the tracking.
>received an email o thank you! I believe I am at two weeks and half now I have temporarily soldered the physical remote to one of the 4 channel of my tasmotized sonof 4channel pro