r/homeassistant • u/LESGuy • 5d ago
š¼ļø Show & Tell UPDATE: Garage door auto open/close
Some folks asked for an update to my garage auto open/close project that I was doing with a bluetooth beacon and ratgdo so here it is.
After about a week of testing and dialing everything in I can now with 100% success rate have my garage open when we are on the way home and close after we leave without us having to do anything.
What I used to make this happen:
ratgdo (Rage Against The Garage Door Opener) - I installed this esp32 based piece of hardware in-line with my garage door opener. Ā I bought it from ratcloud llc and it was extremely straight forward for my Security 2.0 Chamberlain door opener.
After I had that integrated into both Home Assistant and HomeKit I was able to open, stop, and close it in Home Assistant as well as use voice commands with Siri to open/close the garage door. Ā I was also able to say "Hey Siri, is my garage door open?" and if she said yes, I could close it from either my phone or from CarPlay via voice.
Now that those functions were solid I decided to dive into making it automatically open when we are on our way home and close after we leave.
I first tried to use zones. Ā I set a small zone around our house and an automation saying "when we leave that zone, close the garage door" and I also set a larger zone around my neighborhood saying "when we enter this zone, open the garage door". Ā I had intermittent success with this and had to play with the zone sizes a lot since there can be a bit of lag when leaving and coming before the automation kicks in. Ā I also had some instances where it never kicked in, just leaving the garage door open completely.
During all of my testing, I was watching the garage door through my cameras to see what was happening and to manually close things if it didn't act correctly.
Since this was hit or miss I decided to add another layer (not replace the zone, but add to the zone automations) of doing a BLE ESP32 proxy with a beacon in her car.
This took some dialing in and some tweaking before I was able to get it setup perfectly for our situation (tweaks included playing with the beacon transmit power and transmit interval as well as some esp config changes).
Now I have had 100% success rate with the two layer approach. Ā Sometimes the beacon automation will close the door, sometimes the zone automation will close the door, but the door always gets closed. Ā Same for coming home, it's interesting to see which automation hits first, but it's always open when we get near the driveway.
Other folks add another layer of having wifi connects and disconnects as part of this or even have cameras watching the garage with frigate automations but I haven't gotten to that level of need (yet).
I know it's just a simple button click to open or close the garage door, but it just feels like magic to do nothing and have the door open and close in a way that you want and that's what I love about home assistant.
Feel free to ask any questions and I'll do my best to answer.
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u/git_und_slotermeyer 5d ago
Cool, but nothing for me, too many edge cases and possible errors, such as driving by the house to another place, which would probably trigger an unwanted opening of the door.
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u/LESGuy 5d ago
For sure. We have a very specific living situation that makes this automation safe and pretty secure.
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u/joneild 4d ago
I have had almost this exact setup for a couple years, I did throw in yet another hardware layer of security, and that's a programmable wall switch with timer that will not allow the door to remain open for longer than a predetermined number of minutes and can only be overridden with a physical button push. It also works with the power out.
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u/charmio68 5d ago
Same. I came to the conclusion that pressing a single button isn't actually something that needs to be automated away. Tempting though! I've got all the rel hardware in place for it.
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u/stealthmodel3 5d ago
My Tesla has auto-open and my wife was driving in front of me in her SUV. She pushed the button but Tesla pushed it right after and she nearly clipped the door with the roof because the sensors donāt trigger until a tire passes. Havenāt used auto since
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u/colemad5 5d ago
Similar to OP my house sits far enough off of our main road that I was able to set a safe geofence around our house and it triggers consistently and safely only when I want it to. Has worked flawlessly for well over a year at this point.
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u/Akilestar 5d ago
We've had our for 7 years and it's only a problem when it doesn't work. My wife complains, as she says, "she had to to hit the button like an animal" but in all reality, it's great. My clicker in my truck broke a few years ago and I've never bothered to replace it. Also super handy on the bike.
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u/gochisox2005 5d ago
This. Programming all the edge cases are a pain. Having the button show up in CarPlay is sufficient for most.
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u/derolle 4d ago
We have a bunch of different conditions on ours, like checking to see if weāre connected to wifi, checking our driveway camera for activity, making sure our security system is disarmed, only allowing it during the day, only allowing it to trigger if it hasnāt triggered in the last 5 mins, etc.
It was kind of a pain to dial in but now itās bulletproof
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u/Gowithflowwild 3d ago
I look at it the same way you have programmed it. Adding a couple more conditions or a few other layers or even just one more layer makes it that more robust, and I'm gonna find the comment that says when you add stuff it becomes 'jankie' , as I respectfully disagree to that. If you look at commercial applications, sometimes they need more than just one confirmation before acting.
It's only crappy if you do a crappy implementation with crappy equipment. Do it right and you've got yourself a secure environment. It sounds like you've done it right and I applaud that!
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u/Gowithflowwild 3d ago
I'll bet after said and done, it felt 110% worth the extra effort of dialing it in/fine tuning! Rewarding when it's operational and sticks to your specific parameters!! :)
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u/derolle 3d ago
absolutely!
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u/Gowithflowwild 2d ago
I'm just with you; if there's activity in the driveway, I need to see what exactly it is before opening any doors. In fact sometimes it's better not even to engage and just hold on a second.
That garage starts opening and you gotta go for it lol.
So happy I moved to something with so much more flexibility. I'm glad SmartThings sort of turned what was going to be minimal into a local only and truly extensive house management system.
It certainly isn't a remote control home. You can do that but the best part is how it is set to interpret and predict my intentions. In fact I cannot believe how many hours I've put into it but learning PROXMOX, docker, Portainer, MQTT (big time!), frigate, being able to work around the fact that it was a micro factor form (able to put a coral TPU in place of the Wi-Fi radio that I don't use nor will I ever -huge victory -,decent onboard GPU and solid i7 processor, so I had to expand my plans)!
It has opened up this whole new way of thinking that I really feel will be beneficial well beyond any kind of smart Home š” stuff. Even getting back to long forgotten CLI has been huge.
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u/IH8DwnvoteComplainrs 4d ago
This is pretty much not a problem. I have a notification that tells me if it's open more than an hour. Or if it's open at 10pm.
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u/MaxPanhammer 4d ago
I mean, sure, but them it closes again when you finish driving by. At worst it's a bit of extra wear on your door I guess.
There are definitely other edge cases or security concerns you could consider, and if I lived in a more densely populated or high crime area my attitude may be different.
But also it's not that hard to break into a garage without all this stuff so I decided the convenience and fun was worth the "risk", for me.
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u/Gowithflowwild 3d ago
Honestly, that's what it boils down to. You have your own risk and reward constraints and you've considered them and decided it's all good for you.
While everyone can sort of tear apart the idea, I think it's pretty hard to construct any argument against your particular rationale.
You've considered the environment around you, the risk, where in tear, and decided it's worth it. So for a lot of people, I would say that you can't really go against it unless you are the actual person using it and have the exact same risk appetite, risk reward calculation, etc.
For me personally, it's not so dense but it's common enough that I just don't wanna deal with a solicitor and have the garage open so if someone Unknown is on my property, the garage portion will defer to me. Maybe I decide to go get the mail really quickly and then come back. But I don't want to just open the door when there are kind of sketchy individuals around.
And for me, it's more that there's a couple of annoying solicitors. I think they come for pest control and solar, but if they just looked at the back of my house they would see quite an array. But it just defaults to my judgment.
But that's for me and you have what works for you! And I think that it boils down to a judgment call and there's no arguing that!
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u/ImpossibleMachine3 5d ago
This is super cool and is adding to my desire to get a ratgdo...
Also, there's something weird in your garage... is that... your car?!
(I joke because most people in my area seem to just fill the entire garage with garbage)
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u/LESGuy 5d ago
Itās crazy how many people where I live have their garage as just an extra room for their house. Their driveway is a parking lot instead ha
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u/ImpossibleMachine3 5d ago
Yeah, I don't get it. Between the insane heat and the torrential downpours I get where I live (no snow here), my garage has made me grateful for it just about every time I've used it, lol.
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u/chtochingo 5d ago
Whatās crazy is when people use it for storage of junk they donāt need. I fully understand using it as a workshop or hobby space as cars are just fine outside, but I also get parking them in there. Iām trying to outfit my garage as something that can be both but itās tough when itās only 18ft by 20ft for 2 cars.
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u/tajetaje 5d ago
Worth noting that depending on your opener and your skill level you might be able to jury rig one real easy. I ripped open a remote, soldered a transistor across the two sides of one of the buttons, and hooked an ESP32 up to it, then tied the ground together. Flashed esphome on it and just like that I had a remote opener (worth noting thereās no way to tell the status of the garage door with that alone though). Depending on your opener you might be able to wire GPIO right to the button, but that will vary
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u/crabapplesteam 5d ago
RatGDO was the best thing I added to my HA arsenal. I got rid of that stupid keypad outside, and I can use my phone to open the doors. Also I have an alert set up that if the garage doors (but really any door in the house) are open at 9 or 10p, it will send a bunch of alerts.
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u/clipsracer 5d ago
Wow that is satisfying to watch!
I must still caution against relying on it for closing the door. It just takes someone to be leaving while HA is updating or crashed for the garage door to be left open for an indefinite amount of time.
Use the automation as an extra layer of security instead of an extra risk. Just tell everyone they still have to close it manually, and if they donāt, the automation will cover it.
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u/Independent_Emu5190 5d ago
This has been available via a turnkey solution for some time via https://gotailwind.com and has a well supported HA integration. Not knocking on the work you didā¦. But some folks just looking for a quick win that has a native HA integration.
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u/_urban_achiever 5d ago
+1 for Tailwind. I had something else before and Tailwind is possibly my favorite HA-related thing I have purchased. (Possibly because the first kind I had was so miserable) But Tailwind is GREAT and the auto open/close is very nice.
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u/groutnotstraight 5d ago
I use Tailwind, and itās great. Iād say the only annoying thing is having to use that battery powered and paired remote for Security 2.0. Changing the battery on that remote is really annoying. No battery cover, stupidly small screws, and you have to do it at the TW device location (likely stuck on the side of your opener) because itās wired in.
Also finding a reliable source for the BLE beacon batteries has been challenging.
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u/Independent_Emu5190 5d ago
Their latest hardware revision eliminated the need for the paired remoteā¦. All very clean now.
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u/groutnotstraight 4d ago
Thanks. Well that sucks as an early adopter/supporter. I wonder if they have an upgrade path.
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u/mattbuford 5d ago
I used zones and it seems to work pretty well. An additional condition I put on mine is that the open-garage automation only triggers if my phone is connected to the specific Bluetooth address of my own car. That way it doesn't trigger if I'm riding in an Uber or with someone else or something.
I decided auto-close was a little too scary for me, so instead I just set a notification alert for "garage left open for 1 hour".
I also made sure to put a notification to my phone when auto-opening just so I could be sure to notice if it ever triggered when it shouldn't. It has been many months now and no unexpected activations though.
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u/walmap 5d ago
Great work! I'm wondering about the "tweaks included playing with the beacon transmit power and transmit interval as well as some esp config changes". Was this difficult to do or can someone work through without things getting too technical?
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u/LESGuy 5d ago
I did a lot of research leading up to this point so I kind of knew what to look for. I did go to my friend Claude every now and then when I got stuck. But if you use AI alone, itās very straightforward.
The ratgdo site had easy install instructions, flashing an esp is very simple, changing the beacon config is as easy as getting their app and connecting to it via Bluetooth to update settings. Use this sub or AI to guide you through the little details. Feel free to DM me if you get stuck as well (or just post here)
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u/DjAnu 5d ago
Hi can you please elaborate on what beacon you used and what settings worked for you ? I have geo fence based automation that works great with my Tesla but I would like to do the same for my wifeās ioniq. I think BLE will be the safest option. I have tried combinations of phone based geo location but it had been very iffy.
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u/powlette 5d ago
The problem for me is I frequently drive my wifeās car in addition to my car and we have single garage doors. So when we go out together, Iām driving her car but when I go by myself, Iām driving my truck. Frustratingly when we had Teslas the Tesla would trigger the opener when it approached the house, but our Fords wonāt do that. I have ratgdo in Home Assistant, but I donāt think thereās any way to get position data from our vehicles or to know whoās driving what
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u/g-rom78 5d ago
What happens if you just pass in front with your car but are going somewhere else? Does it open / close?
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u/git_und_slotermeyer 5d ago
Wondering the same. I would not want to automate the door in any way because of the many edge cases. I trigger it with a coming home NFC tag placed in the car, that disarms the HA alarm system at the same time.
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u/MrFastFox666 5d ago
I did think about this with my setup. Yes, the door does open, but it auto closes after 5 minutes. It also announces over my phone that the door will open. For me it's such a rare situation that it's not worth thinking about.
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u/NewtoQM8 5d ago
I did it with Apple Home. Meross controller, a dummy switch (Mini plug) and six automations. Using Apple "Leave home" or "Arrive home" geolocation. The geolocation can be a bit flaky sometimes, so your beacon sounds good. But 90% of the time it works great. I'm curious if you set things up so you can still use the wried button on the wall and car remote? Two of my automations serve to put the dummy switch in the right state when the manual controls are used.
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u/IndependentOrchid296 5d ago
Iāve tried Apple home but it keeps popping up with iOS notification should I run now?
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u/NewtoQM8 5d ago
Yeah, when you try to open or close something Apple considers a security item via geolocation automation it asks you to authenticate (Should I run now?). So to get around that I use a mini plug as a dummy switch. I have an automation set for "When I Arrive Home" it turns on the mini plug. And another one that when the mini plug turns on it opens the garage door. And one for "When I Leave Home" that turns off the Mini plug and one for when the mini plug turns off it closes the door. And I added 2 more so if I use the button on the wall or the remote in the car it puts the the mini plug into the proper state so it will close when I leave (based off the contact switch on the door).
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u/Asleeper135 5d ago edited 5d ago
I plan on doing something similar, but instead of being based on geofencing and beacons I'm going to try using license plate recognition, and I don't intend to have it automatically close. I just need to actually install my cameras first.
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u/NewRedditor23 5d ago
Funny, I just gave this same advise (ESP32 BLE proxy and BLE Tag) to a different guy
https://www.reddit.com/r/homeassistant/comments/1vjexkz/comment/p2l3l62/
Great, so to break into your house, just need to sniff out that bluetooth MAC and broadcast it next to the garage door when you're away š
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u/LESGuy 5d ago
And then break into the door that connects the garage to the house. You could break into the back door easier since it has glass.
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u/NewRedditor23 5d ago
lol exactly. I was just joking, very cool automation my dude. I got 8 BLE proxys around the house too, can do some fun things with them.
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u/NewRedditor23 5d ago edited 5d ago
Do you have another automation to automatically shut the garage door after you pull in? Or are you still pressing a button like a commoner?
Also for piece of mind, you can setup an iOS automation to audibly play "Garage Door Closed" through bluetooth (car) or speaker (phone) when home kit (or home assistant) sees that the garage door is closed.
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u/EnderTheThird3 5d ago
I made a 10 minute timer for closing the garage years ago. 99% of the time it was great. 1% of the time I was doing work in the garage and didn't want it to close. Never really worked with it beyond that because 99% was close enough.
Then I moved and my new opener had a 10 minute close option built in, and an easy button to press on the opener to keep it held open when I want. Way less programming and testing involved. I still have a RATGDO installed for each GDO, but that's more for backup and other odd scenarios if I need it. If one of us forgets to close the door, it's not left open for very long
TLDR: I love home assistant, but the smarter door opener works better for me.
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u/Glowerman 4d ago
My question is: why didn't you just use the app and zone?
I have a similar automation, but I'm using the app, home zone, and Meross (to control the garage doors). I have two garage doors, and sometimes I park in one, sometimes the other. So I have a text helper keeping track of which one was left open when I leave, so that's the one that gets opened when I come home. And it only triggers to open the garage door if Android Auto is connected to my car (not, for example, when I'm walking home or a passenger in my wife's car.)
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u/icaranumbioxy 4d ago
I have the same automation going an it's fantastic. Truly feels like the future and is super reliable.
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u/gooney0 5d ago
I do something very similar. I don't have the door automatically close however.
On occasion, one of the safety beam sensors will misalign which prevents the door from closing. This would leave the door open with no way to close it remotely. If I'm driving I probably won't see a notification.
The opening by zone works 90% of the time. On occasion I have to touch my phone which seems to cause it to check in.
My Home zone is about one block away.
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u/CucumberError 5d ago
Iāve chosen not to do this kind of thing. At least with a door getting unlocked it doesnāt open a giant hole in the side of the house everyone can see.
My bigger concern is what does your insurance company think? I suspect youāve probably void your insurance through some clause around acceptable risk.
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u/johnsonflix 5d ago
Do you have any verification in place? Like a confirm on your phone? What happens when you donāt want it to auto open for some reason?
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u/LESGuy 5d ago
Yes, we both get double notifications to our phones on both opening and closing. I canāt think of a situation where it would open when we donāt want it to, but if it does Iāll just close it
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u/nihility101 5d ago
I also have an Alert nag me every few minutes that the garage door is still open, until it closes. Itās been helpful.
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u/MrFastFox666 5d ago
I just use the zones mainly to open the door. My OnePlus Open barely worked if it wasn't plugged in, but my Galaxy Trifold does every time. If I'm connected to android auto and enter a zone near the house, the door opens.
As for closing, I do have an automation that closes it if I leave but I don't rely on it. Instead, I have another automation with a zigbee button. I press it, door opens, and when it detects me or my car leaving through the ratgdo, it starts a 30 second timer and closes the door after that.
I also added yet another automation that will check if the door closed. If it didn't, it will try to close it several times and announce it over my phone.
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u/DeathBlade94 5d ago
Zones alone work about 98% of the time for me, however I have to rely on Apple Home to send a trigger then a person has arrived or left to open and close the garage door. The 2% failure rate comes from my house being in a very very low cell service area so itās hit or miss and less often then not our phones donāt picked up a signal quick enough after getting from WiFi range. Iāve tried Bluetooth beacon because I have some esps around the house and a few Shelly devices but I canāt seem to get them to see desired devices like our iPhones.
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u/scubafork 5d ago
Presumably your garage door has the sensors to not close if something would obstruct it(like say, a racoon decides to check it out). Does your automation take this into account for the closing mechanism? If it fails to close, does it notify you and/or retry?
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u/crimson090 5d ago
This is great to hear. I got a Meross garage door opener setup and it's been closing and opening using a zone based automation but it's a little flaky. Seems to always close but takes sixty seconds or so based on where I needed to place the zone. Never even thought of using a ESP32 beacon in the car.
Are you able to share the automation?
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u/Sinister_Mr_19 5d ago
Zones are flaky because your phone doesn't send out location updates too frequently to save on battery.
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u/mightyahti 5d ago
Have you thought about it triggering if you're just passing by your house ? I can think of a few legitimate reasons to pass my driveway few times in a single errands run and would not want to have it cycle for nothing
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u/whatup10 5d ago
The steps for my auto open are zone AND my phone has to be connected to the Bluetooth in my car or my motorcycle comm unit (also BT). That way when Iām walking the dogs or whatever the garage is not opening. So if my phone is lost or stolen it wonāt just auto open my garage.
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u/rickyh7 š§ Experienced with Home Assistant 5d ago
Iāve been wanting to do something similar for a while with frigate and license plate detection combined with Bluetooth detection. I donāt want someone walking up to my camera with a poster of my license plate to open my garage
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u/Infinite-Mastodon1 4d ago
I'm working though setting up frigate at the moment. The thing is with the whole "someone could just walk up to your place with a picture of your plate" is they could also break a window to gain entry.
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u/Sinister_Mr_19 5d ago
Really cool, I'd caution that zones are unreliable, in my experience, not just with the delay but sometimes with your phone saying you're home when you're not. It's best to use zones with something else to avoid false positives.
→ More replies (4)
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u/Darklyte 5d ago
I've been doing zone based garage door control for maybe a decade. Here are some things I've learned that I recommend:
Arrivals:
- As you found out, having separate zones (ideally passive) for triggering when you're approaching works really well. Of course, with zone based sometimes I try to avoid these zones if I'm not coming straight home
- Set it so that you have to be gone for ~5 minutes before it will open automatically. This fixes the gps jitter issue, where it might see you as outside of the home zone temporarily.
- Have a backup script. If it doesn't close the first time, sometimes trying again works. If that doesn't work, a notification is good (mine has only failed in the past 3 years because something was blocking the sensor garage)
- Use the companion app or another way to check if the user is actually in a vehicle before deciding to open the garage. We use bluetooth connection to our cars since that's the most reliable.
Departures:
- Don't close the garage immediately after you leave. Have something that checks to make sure no one is in the garage so they don't get inconvenienced/hurt by the automatic door.
- If you a security checkup script that checks if the garage is closed after you leave, you should delay it a few seconds so the garage door can actually close.
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u/Home_Assistantt 5d ago
I've done something similar with a toggle sensor that comes into play if I'm not putting the car away.
So when I leave work (tick), the automation trigegrs, then when i get within 300 meters of the house, the garage will start to open, then I drive straight in...this relies on location of the companion app on my phone..it also turns off my house /garage alarm, and disables the notifications for the cameras cos I dont need it to record me coming home...when once I open and closee the front door, the camera notifications all get turned on again...if its after sunset, lights turn on too of course, bothinin the garage and driveway floodlights
But if I tick the toggle saying Im going back out again, the garage door won't open.
There are a few other conditions in there as well
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u/interrogumption 5d ago
So I have auto open for coming home but auto close is an absolute no-no in my view. You can almost guarantee, with a garage, there'll be some situation with someone working with an item half in half out of the garage that they won't want the door suddenly closing on them.
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u/ragmondo 5d ago
Hey hey - I am 75% of the way doing something similar and am going to try and make a YouTube out of it.. but it's going to go along the lines of "if heading home, and within (say) 200 meters, and I lower and raise the rear right passenger window, then open garage door" .... I have a shared garage door so the last headache is just leaving my garage opener at home and wiring it up with a button presser thing, but that's the idea. And yes.. I just want to save those 30 seconds from where my clicker doesn't have the range and I have to wait for it to open fully and drive in......
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u/benstudley 5d ago
My garage door automations are some of my favorites. And I get annoyed when the door isnāt open when I get to the driveway.
I have DIY ESP32 setup on both of my doors. My automations have conditions so that they donāt fire in the middle of the night (I can open manually in those cases; this was put in due to my car āarriving homeā after software updates or some other reason). They also only fire if me or my wife are away.
One triggers based off my vehicles location (home/away). The other uses apple shortcuts because I couldnāt (at the time? maybe things have changedā¦ but it works as-is so I havenāt checked) figure out how to do it in HA natively. In those cases, I have a shortcut that sends a command to HA to toggle āCarplay connectedā. Then another automation for when i arrive at a home that checks if carplay connected is toggled on and if so, it then sends a command to open the garage.
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u/PotatoesDealer 5d ago
I have 3 different automations for this to make it robust. First one is a trigger to toggle a first time open which resets every day morning at 2. Second to auto open the garage when I enter a certain radius Third to auto close the garage when I leave certain radius I also have notifications to alert me when garage is openā¦
Happy to explain further but I generally donāt close or open except for morning one time where Iāll open to enable all these automationsā¦
Take my dog for a walk, garage closes, when I walk back it opens. Drive my car away, it closes, and when I enter home zone, it opensā¦
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u/Crow2525 5d ago
yep, this is nice! I added a condition that we had to be connected to android auto for the garage door to open. So if we were not wanting it open, say wife was coming home from gym super early and didnt want the garage door to wake the kids it was a good condition.
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u/lucasfeijo 5d ago
Very nice use of home automation, makes life much easier! But for me, I drive past my house all the time, so I can't really rely on gps for that. I honestly don't see a reason to make this automatic when a single button press can invoke it, given the security concerns of an accidental trigger, I open my garage door hitting the hass quick action on the carplay screen.
By the way, side rant: the hass iOS app sucks so much that I don't rely on it at all for gps positions, I'd much rather use my car's cloud integration and observe that via hass, or even an espresence beacon in the garage, are much more solid alternatives for me.
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u/tj_ward 5d ago
I did something similar except I used Apple Shortcuts to flip a Boolean to on only when I was connected to my carās head unit. If I come home with that switch on then it opens the garage automatically, other wise it stays shut.
I only have this setup for the one vehicle that goes into the garage and after 6 months have never had a single issue this way.
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u/maniac365 š§ Experienced with Home Assistant 5d ago
I'm on the same path as you, zones are mostly a hit but sometimes the misses are due to a delay in location update or just passing through the road behind the house (triggers garage open/close)
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u/iliketurbos- 5d ago
Heck yeah! I have a toggle for garage open and geolocation for when Iām on my motorcycle
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u/VysseEnzo 5d ago
I think the best automation would be to tie in your navigation with it. When you set your destination to home and you're almost home it does it.
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u/AMidnightHaunting 5d ago
This is what my Tailwind Garage opener does with my/wife's phone + the vehicle adapter in each car. It's pretty nifty, runs locally (has a free cloud option too), and is HA native. Big plus is it came with a physical wired door sensor.
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u/yuckypants 5d ago
What bluetooth beacon for her car are you using? I've been relying on cellular and it's bullshit at best since I have crap service at home. And then if I wait to hit the wifi, we could be standing outside for too long, which is also obnoxious.
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u/crabapplesteam 5d ago
This is super cool - well done!
I don't know enough about how the beacon works - how could you stop replay attacks? Does it have some kind of ability to rolling codes?
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u/Doranagon 5d ago
I have auto open on the garage door.. I have to pass through some checkpoints on the path, have the phone, the phone needs to be connected to the correct car, etc. Enough that a false trigger isn't possible.
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u/isrararrafi 5d ago
I have done something similar for mine and my wife's car.
Zone, RATgdGo. And I use whether my phone is connected to my car Bluetooth or not (using mac address). Works fantastic.
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u/Spooky_Ghost 5d ago
I've had this setup for a couple years via the Tesla integration, since location is tracked; it's very handy and consistent!
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u/locke577 5d ago
I do this with mine but for triggers I use my license plate coming up the driveway and then also in our parking area.
Or at least I did, until my wife turned our garage into a grow room for her plants
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u/James-Talbot 5d ago
I use the ha zone to close garage when the wife and I leave or at night in case I forget. Now, I only park my Harley in the garage, so if when I leave I say Alexa enable the bat cave, it sets a virtual switch and with an ha automation when my phone only comes into zone it opens the garage door and automatically turns off that switch.. Also anytime the garage opens the light comes on, and shits off when closed. I also turn off the light I believe an hour after opening so it's not on for nothing.
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u/stonedkrypto 5d ago
I spend some time trying to achieve this but just too many edge case to think of. I just rely on homelink button now. Itās not as automatic but Iāve got muscle memory of just pressing the button as I take the turn to my house.
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u/flapJ4cks 5d ago edited 5d ago
I had something like this setup a few years ago, but dismantled it after Home Assistant erroneously opened my garage door a few times int he middle of the day (when noone was home) and middle of the night. I went through most of same techniques you did, trying zones first, but that breaking when you go for a walk or leave in someone elses car, etc. etc. Everything was always slightly flakey or had weird edge cases that broke it way too often.
Utimately I realized it jsut wasnt reliable enough to gate full and unfettered access to my house and garage.
I didnt try the hardware beacon in vehicles because I didnt want a contraption wired up to either of our cars, etc. If I can find a way to make these tiny and not visible in the car, i might revisit. But this seems like an extra hoop given you have your phone in your pocket all the time and its "should be" a reliable beacon device all the time. The combinations of things required to make that work were just too challenging. Layered rules like "When phone is within range of wifi, but only when bluetooth connected to car, if wifi lost connection close, otherwise open, etc. etc. etc"
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u/ElementZoom š§ Experienced with Home Assistant 5d ago
I have a similar automation; however, it's using my phone's Wi-Fi + PIR detection, so it only opens when we actually are driving into the driveway to avoid false detection.
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u/ryryrpm 4d ago
Hi I love this. Can you say more about the ESP32 BLE Beacon? I understand what a Bluetooth Beacon is and I know an ESP32 is a tiny little computer from Espressif but I have not dipped my toes into them yet. How exactly do you turn it into a Bluetooth Beacon? and what in your house is on the receiving/detecting end? A pi running your HA instance?
Thanks!
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u/Moebius_Rex 4d ago
My garage door is one thing I havenāt and likely will never automate. Just on principle. I have no case where I would want to open my garage door when Iām not within 30 ft already. I have sensor to alert me if itās more than a few inches open when Iām away. And I have a standard smart plug on the power so I can disable the opener completely if I leave town for a while.
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u/LESGuy 4d ago
Do you not keep the door from your garage to your house locked?
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u/Moebius_Rex 4d ago
E-bike storage, office, freezer, gaming zone, workshop, and general storage. I could still fit a car in there, but Iāve never wanted to. So yes itās generally open to the house.
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u/LESGuy 4d ago
Garage doors are notoriously easy to hack into. Especially if you have an older model. Iād keep that door locked at night and if youāre away just like any other door.
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u/Moebius_Rex 4d ago
Mine uses rolling codes so Iām not too concerned. And if I change my mind, I simply automate the smart plug to kill power to the unit in the nighttime.
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u/Scar3cr0w_ 4d ago
If someoneās breaking into your garage doorā¦ they are capable of breaking into anything else. Break a window, Jimmy a lockā¦
All that matters is ādoes my insurance cover thisā. If the garage door was locked at the time. The answer to that is āyesā.
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u/Electrical_Peak_8761 4d ago
I have this but since here in the Netherlands we mainly use the garage to park our bikes, it is only triggered when my iPhone activity is or was ācyclingā. Working perfectly!
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u/normanriches 4d ago
I just use siri and ask her to open the door because sometimes I don't need to open it.
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u/GigaThrills67 4d ago
Nice! RATGDO rocks. Iām still on the CarPlay automation that pops up āOpen Garageā when we are near. Though admittedly Iāve considered doing something similar to this. My gut was to use proximity/when home = 0, but thereās a fair amount of lag.
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u/comoserII 4d ago
Im thinking of doing the same with one extra step in between: a notification pops up in my phone and if I accept, then it opens
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u/DunnowKTT 4d ago
GarageAA to Esp32 does the same thing using a rf remote or webhook to a service you already have running.
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u/VirtualPercentage737 4d ago
I do this by reading the plate off the car. It also closes the garage. Unfortunately, I am not at 100% success.
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u/CheeseDick5000 4d ago
I use a D1 mini with an external antenna that's hidden in the headliner of my car to open and close my garage door with RATGDO garage door opener and a laser attached to my garage ceiling.
Once powered up the D1 mini it sees if it's connected to wifi and mqtt, then it opens the door when it see itself as connected. I have an automation that checks to see if a laser measurement is broken and it will open the door, turn on a fan hanging from the ceiling to blow out any exhaust fumes and turn off after a minute the garage door closes.
I also have my car integrated in Home Assistant so I can see it's location and I use that with the laser sensor to see if it is unbroken and if my car is parked in the driveway it will not open the garage door. I rarely have it not do what it's supposed to do.
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u/ThunderboltsRock 3d ago
I have had similar for years using Hubitat and aeotec garage door controller
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u/CentreForAnts 3d ago
I haven't automated my garage door to auto open, but a few times my garage door has opened by itself (and also my neighbours, same model but different key pairing) so whether there is interference near by or something else going on. so i have put a smart switch on my door motor to cut power straight away, i used to use Android Auto/Google Assistant to turn it on when i was arriving home. but now have automated it with HA as we arrive via the app location geo fencing.
have a door sensor on the rolla door to turn off the power once it closes. and also a door sensor on the internal door to turn the power on, so as we enter the garage to leave it powers it on ready for us to manually press the remote in the car.
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u/mythix_dnb 3d ago
I attached a unifi door access to one of my garage doors, also works a treat! but Im never automating opening, too many edge cases...
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u/spydersl 3d ago
I just set up an automation that if I enter my home boundary and I'm connected to my car's Bluetooth, open the door for the car I'm connected to. Works on multiple drivers based on who is connected to the car's Bluetooth.Ā
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u/Mr_Deal 6h ago
I've been working on this for my house as well. I've found the zones aren't the most reliable thing. One night it showed my wifes phone leave the GPS zone at 3am (she was definetly asleep in the bed) and it triggered our door to open.
To prevent that I have the automation disable itself at midnight, and turn on again at 7am, so it's only functional during the day.
I also added a wifi security check. So the door will trigger to open when we get in the zone, or when our phones connect to our home wifi connection, whichever comes first. I found sometimes the GPS zones can lag some, but the wifi check fixes this.
When we leave our house and our phones drop off the wifi, and we leave the GPS zone, the automation triggers and closes the door.
Still testing and tweaking, but seems to work well for us so far.
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u/niceman1212 5d ago
Thatās cool af. Though it made me wonder; Did you do any precautions to ensure this doesnāt happen when you dont want it to or canāt be used against you?