Open garage door from mobile phone

[Harry Bloomfield]

I cannot think why phone control might be needed for a garage roller door at all?

My door's control came with two wireless remote controls. The push buttons became rather dodgy, so I added a centre off spring return switch to each. I fixed one in the house, by my outer back door and the other in my car. I then added a wired remote inside the garage as a third way to operate the door. I further refined it, by installing an IR beam across the opening to prevent the door closing on the car, animal, child or etc.. If something breaks the beam as the door is closing, it reverses and opens. To that beam system, I then added an LED which is lit when I drive the car in and it is just clear of the door opening.

As I go out the back door, I just flick the switch to 'open', as I walk in I flick it to 'close'. As I go down my drive, I just click the 'close' in the car. As pull up at my drive gates, 30 yards from the garage door, I can click 'open'. I just don't see a need for any greater range than that.

 

[75pete]

Being able to open via an app is handy. The old remote was used as another way to gain entry from outside after the house door was shut with no keys so locked out. So as an example, a family member wants to leave a parcel, your not home, he calls you, you open the garage...
Making use of a phone app to open the door is not an everyday occurrence when your not going to use it yourself, in my case it was a way of replacing a remote that had failed.

 

[ericmark]

My father-in-law had one remote in car, and one in house, he lived next door but one, so I would often go past the house and see door left open, and I would give him a ring, seems one day he captured a cat, he could hear the noise but could not work out what it was, I was called and decided it came from garage, it left like a bullet, but realised sitting in the car in front of garage opening or closing the door is one thing, but away from the door that is something else, the door has sensors so it would not close on anything, but could trap things inside, the button to open/close door was on the ceiling, so could not reach it when car was in garage without crawling over car, and a child could not reach it if can not in garage. His garage had no side doors.

I also have smart devices, they do from time to time work when not suppose to, would not trust them on a garage door.

 

[Jupiter01]

Thanks all. There's definitely more to this than meets the eye. Whilst it felt like a neat solution, especially when taking deliveries, etc., I am uncomfortable with the risks it presents with inadvertently locking someone in. Thanks for all your contributions

 

[foxhole]

I open my garage door with my left hand and keep the right hand as a backup, if either fails I can always kick it.

 

[shagster]

Most of these door openers are 433MHz (don't know about the OPs one). So if you had a wifi -> 433MHz gateway you could access a website to on your mobile to open the garage door. There is already a project for such a gateway:
https://github.com/1technophile/OpenMQTTGateway

 

[daveaspy]

I have remote RF fobs for my garage, and have opened it accidentally several times by leaning on the fob in my pocket I think any remote/app based solution needs to have auto-close after a minute or two. If you need longer then a manual "keep open" switch inside the garage feels like a better option, or you have a beam to stop the door closing on something under the door then just block the beam while needed

 

[Paul Bunce]

Fit a Meros garage door opener £30 from Amazon, easy to fit and comes with a smart app. The unit comes with a door sensor and will show on the app if the door is open or closed. It will also notify you when the door is opened or closed (even if the app wasn't used to open or close it). Its also compatible with Alexa if you so wish.