Nothing EVER Works!

[seanbisepic]

Why not use Homeseer & plugins such as this one?

[fisaquartz]

11 hours ago, Mike Storms said:

One solution that maybe would've solved this issue midway is to use electromagnetic shielding for the wires to the relay board.

As an electrical engineering student we learned a lot about EMI (electromagnetic interference) and a quick and easy solution is to:
- make your wires as short as possible,

- twist your wires to create a twisted pair, which solve the majority of lower frequency interference.

If this doesnt work, use a shielded cable and it should be good.

(for a more thorough explanation, I can send some interesting reading material)

Just made a forum account to comment this exact thing lmao, choked you got here first

 

In addition to Medhi's filtering, I thing using a twisted pair from within a chopped section of old Cat 5e with the shielding affixed to ground of some sort (or a metal shim repurposed as a grounding plate) may have done the trick.

 

But maybe not, I'm sure the Sebastien/Ho household has much more EMR flying around than typical

[fisaquartz]

6 hours ago, Sarah_Six said:

Ok so Electro boom is right about the long wires being an issues.  But hes wrong about the solution.  You don't want a filter, you just need a either a transistor or a mosfet depending on the signal the board is using.  I'm going to assum you have an extra board for the controller as you had it out while the system was on the wall?  So DM me for the address and send it to me.  I'll rig up a micro circuit that the relay can trigger and send it back free of charge.  Its SUCH and each fix! I can even build it with a jack in the housing if you have a spare housing you can send.  That way the relay just plugs into it.

 

To be clear I would been the control board for the garage door with the button, you know where you added the wires.  I wouldn't need the relay board.  

 

Oh as evidence of my bonofides I give you my gaming/engineering deck at home......  See attached

dream setup, onto the vision board 

[Sarah_Six]

2 minutes ago, fisaquartz said:

dream setup, onto the vision board 

Look me up if you need help with anything.  XD  I know board level electronics is scarry on paper.  but there are a few tricks that are super easy.  In this case its jsut the same old trick the relay is doing but smaller, and closer.

[Sarah_Six]

Wait I know what to do  Lets Derp the poop out of this!  Take apart the car fob and wire that into a wall power supply then solder it to the relay board!  

 

 

[Sarah_Six]

43 minutes ago, Reactor89 said:

I would 2nd bubsterboo's build as a solution. Putting an optocoupler between the relay and garage circuitry will solve your stability issue:

 

https://i.ibb.co/jLZQMS2/Opto-isolator-garage.png

 

A Lite-On LTV-817 Optocoupler will work well.

 

 

This!  simple and effective

[bubsterboo]

1 hour ago, Reactor89 said:

I would 2nd bubsterboo's build as a solution. Putting an optocoupler between the relay and garage circuitry will solve your stability issue:

 

https://i.ibb.co/jLZQMS2/Opto-isolator-garage.png

 

A Lite-On LTV-817 Optocoupler will work well.

 

 

The solid state relay I used has an integrated optocoupler. The driver end is an LED like an optocoupler. Looks like a similar part, I believe mine has a mosfet on the switch side, but I'm sure either work for this application!

https://www.mouser.ca/ProductDetail/Omron-Electronics/G3VM-61A1?qs=FGnoE8EzQwuo0pqKalkj6w%3D%3D

 

Interstingly. I first started this project like Linus, thinking I could just use a relay on the wires going to the wall unit. I quickly learnt that's not the case. So I thought "Oh this must be some clever serial 2 wire w/ power protocol then, no worries, i'll use the ESPs UART and send the bytes needed". After hooking it up to an osciloscope and learning what it's doing. It is a serial protocol over the 2 wires, It's not actually wireless like Linus was told. But it uses Liftmaster's "Security+ 2.0" protocol which has a rotating code. So it's rediculously complicated crypto for a internal wired switch!!! This seems totally overkill and made me pretty frustrated, which led me to this solution.

[caincha]

6 hours ago, Emily123 said:

At one point he said that he couldn't change the settings on the Chinese wifi relay because it wouldn't connect to the new access point and there was no way to change or reset things without connecting to it.

 

Couldn't he have just temporarily used the old access point to connect and update the network settings or set it up to just repeat the signal from the new AP? Seems like it would have saved a lot of money and time on things that were later abandoned.

Or just buy another Chinese wifi relay. That was my first thought.

Sure could take a while to be delivered but a lot cheaper and simpler. Then again where's the video to be made by doing this way…?

 

Also Arduino maybe?

I would have thought that you could keep the old school garage opener - which I am sure is more reliable - and just put an electronic motor to 'push the button' - so to speak.

And I would not rely on anything that is integrated with Google I'd rather have it activated by proximity: wifi connects to phone when in range, that triggers the system to open the doors. Same system would keep doors closed while phone is connected to wifi - wanna open it when at home just turn off phone wifi after all if you are opening your garage while at home it means you will be working on something not procrastinating on social media. Or you know, click the darn button by hand…

 

But alas that's not how things are done by them apparently… Perhaps too cheap for someone who clearly can afford to spent a lot of money to swap systems on a whim whilst whining about $1/month subscription so…

[Granular]

The reasons I can think of for the old opener not connecting to the new AP are

1. The opener only supports 802.11b data rates, while AP is configured to not allow them
2. The opener only supports TKIP wireless ciphers, while AP is configured to not allow them
3. The opener was locked to BSS (MAC address of the old AP). It would be weird if it was, but so is the inability to reset it.

1 and 3 are simple to fix with AP config changes, but enabling TKIP is a security liability, which you seem to take seriously.

[James Joy]

Why not look at using RFID instead? Could have an antenna either at the side on across the driveway, one in the garage and stick a chip under the car. This way no voice commands you drive up, it detects the chip and as they are unique it opens the correct garage door. When it detect the chip in the garage it closes the door.   

[JannickNL]

F yeah! HOME ASSISTANT! Great video from this tech channel. Really covered the cloud and terms of service issues with ‘smart’ home products very well.  Like

[TechJonno]

Hey Linus and Jake, hate to repeat myself but you really need to talk to DrZzs on Youtube, (https://www.youtube.com/c/DrZzs/search?query=garage) He got me into HAS.io on a Raspberry Pi which is easier to setup, faster and more secure than running a docker or virtual env. You could also mod your little 4 way sonoff device with Tasmota from its web interface and do alot more with the device and HomeAssistant including running your garage doors.

HomeAssistant is a great opensource software, very fiddly to use first off but extremely powerful for all automation and smart home setups. DrZzs would more than def collab on a few videos with you, he's a nice guy and always willing to help people.

[Cowboy1968]

Hey Linus, you could have gone with the Tailwind Device ( https://gotailwind.com/). Its a Canadian company and the owner/creator is very quick to provide assistance and delivers a quality product.  The main unit allow you to connect with 3 separate doors (the single door unit cost 70.00 us) and you can buy more door connectors for 20.00 us each. He has amazing software with auto close after x amount of time, auto close after a certain time of day, auto open when it detects your bluetooth connection to your vehicles audio unit (Iphone requires a vehicle sensor which costs 20.00 us) AND you can use google to open and close the door, when you ask google to open the door it asks for a pin code you create so you just say OK google open (the name you give your door) door, it will ask for the pin and boom it opens.  I rarely use that from my car though as it just auto opens for me once I am within the distance I set from my door everytime.  The awesome part is it is also IFTT (free) compatible too and I have set my alarm to auto disarm when the door opens (seeing as the door wont open unless it detects the bluetooth connection from my phone to my cars audio unit it is very secure).

[Elsie H.]

Regarding EMI, my parents have a similar problem with their doorbell system being randomly triggered. (It's an extremely sensitive relay-based trigger rather than a traditional bell that sounds for the duration of a momentary contact.) The solution I came across—in an Amazon review for an obscure discontinued digital doorbell chime, of all places—was to attach a ferrite bead at the receiver end of the wire in order to filter out EMI noise coming from the wire acting as an antenna. The ferrite bead wouldn't solve the problem of Liftmaster's "Security+ 2.0" protocol, but it might solve other parts of the issue and at least allow Linus (or anyone else on this forum) to proceed further in dealing with relay-based triggers. The ferrite bead recommended by the review was the Fair-Rite 0443164251, which can easily be purchased online for under USD 2.00 (plus shipping).

 

Another option I was surprised Linus didn't try is the classic SwitchBot, which circumvents the issue of proprietary protocols by literally just physically pressing a button (such as the one on a Liftmaster remote). SwitchBot apparently has a Home Assistant integration, but mainly it works using the SwitchBot app and directly connecting from a phone using BLE. (I believe the Home Assistant integration uses the Switchbot BLE-to-WiFi bridge, which is sold separately.) I personally wish SwitchBot supported ZigBee, even if it required a bridge, but what can you do.

[YellowJersey]

Linus' experiences with this crap are the ultimate indictment of the IOT philosophy.

My friends are getting Nest thermostats and so on, but I staunchly refuse to get into the smart home / IOT thing. Between subscriptions, companies going under, tech no longer being supported, and stuff just not working, I'll keep my "dumb" home.

[Elsie H.]

1 hour ago, YellowJersey said:

Linus' experiences with this crap are the ultimate indictment of the IOT philosophy.

My friends are getting Nest thermostats and so on, but I staunchly refuse to get into the smart home / IOT thing. Between subscriptions, companies going under, tech no longer being supported, and stuff just not working, I'll keep my "dumb" home.

The biggest exception to these issues is almost certainly ZigBee, especially ZigBee 3.0. While it does have its own issues, ZigBee 3.0 is specifically designed for cross-vendor interoperability. The other big exception is Home Assistant, and indeed you can buy ZigBee radios specifically designed to be used with Raspberry Pi devices such as those running Home Assistant. So if you want to avoid the problems of vendor lock-in, probably the best solution is a Phoscon RaspBee with Home Assistant.

 

That said, you could also just automate everything with RS-232, which is almost certainly older than you are. (I would still use Home Assistant, though.)

[slothonmeth]

bro, you should have just flashed tasmota on the sonoff and used home assistant...

 

edit nvm at least you feature home assistant

[slothonmeth]

6 hours ago, YellowJersey said:

Linus' experiences with this crap are the ultimate indictment of the IOT philosophy.

My friends are getting Nest thermostats and so on, but I staunchly refuse to get into the smart home / IOT thing. Between subscriptions, companies going under, tech no longer being supported, and stuff just not working, I'll keep my "dumb" home.

not if you run home assistant

[Elsie H.]

8 hours ago, slothonmeth said:

tasmota on the sonoff

Ooh, I hadn't heard of that. Cool!

[snoogit]

I know I'm new here, but has anyone heard of beamlabs? no subscription, but it does run "in the cloud" and AFAIK isn't tied to "big garage door company"

 

https://www.beamlabs.io/

[TubaHorse]

Something he could have done, if his vehicles had it installed, was use HomeLink. HomeLink removes the need for having a handheld remote in the car. It wouldn't allow control from anywhere around the world, but it would allow control when approaching and leaving his house. I couldn't tell from the video if his cars had it or not.

[Pepino-CH]

@jakkuh_t - I have an idea which may help Linus to automate whole home. Even relays for Garage doors.

The answer its named - HOMEMATIC and HOMEMATIC IP.

I don’t know how common its Homematic in Canada. But give it try. I Believe Linus will Love it. And after he try their products, he won’t want anything else.

Believe me they have everything – Linus problems with floor heating – Garage doors and many more 2021: Garagentorantriebe von Hörmann mit HmIP-MOD-HO Homematic-Modul steuern. Genial. - YouTube

Homematic - eQ-3

You can even run on Raspberry - it called RaspberryMatic

Home – RaspberryMatic

 

[papajo]

Why to use IFTT in the first place why not just have an Arduino or a raspberry pi clone handle the logic for you? you wouldnt even need to use your phone just use an RFID tag which would be in your car lol

edit oups sorry didnt notice that the video was a year old