Overview
I bought a new house and I was delighted to find my garage door was electric.
The garage door opens & closes after pressing a key fob remote. This project’s focus is to retrofit a smart garage door opener and automate my daily routine of opening and closing the garage.
Objectives
Open/Close my Garage Door with Alexa
The first objective is to open/close my garage door with Alexa. To press the key fob remote buttons is inconvenient because I do not always have the key fob in the car or on me.
Alexa will also enable opportunities for automating opening & closing my garage door within routines.
Household Access
The second objective is to give my family access to the garage. Unfortunately, the previous owner only had one key fob remote. If I am out of the house (with the key fob remote), no one else can open the garage door.
Research
Broadlink RM Pro
As the key fob remote frequency is 433 MHz, I thought I’d be able to use my Broadlink RM Pro to learn the remote codes, create scenes and then voice control with Alexa.
I didn’t realise most garage door remotes use rolling codes for security which prevents exactly what I was trying to achieve i.e. cloning.
SONOFF Switch
I had a spare SONOFF switch that I hoped I could use for this project. It is possible but would have involved modifying the PCB to work.
I do not have any other eWeLink devices so whilst only a minor issue, I didn’t want to install and use another app either.
SwitchBot
I do not have a switch in the garage for opening & closing the door but if I did, I could stick a SwitchBot to the switch. I could have stuck a SwitchBot to the key fob remote, but it’s battery powered, and I would have needed more than one.
Plus, I wanted more than one method to operate the garage door.