Thanks for the reply. I haven’t noticed any connectivity issues as my door is very responsive to commands from the app. Sounds like maybe the states aren’t working great. That’s good to know. Bummed that this may be as good as it gets because I was really looking forward to having more light than just the bulbs attached to the opener when the garage door is activated.
Not to put too fine a point on this, but who do we have to lean on to get this working again? Is it Nabucassa or Aladdin? It seems to me that this should not be THAT difficult to resolve.
It’s Aladdin. They dropped the ball on getting the licensing changed to be compatible with Home Assistant’s requirements.
Last I check they went non-responsive to a couple inquiries on the GitHub PR.
When the whole myQ fiasco happened, I asked Aladdin support about their policy that allowed access to their cloud. They replied stating, they “had no plan to prevent 3rd-party applications from using their API”. Then 6 months later they effectively shut-down their API. Disappointing as that was, I’d still buy Genie over anything myQ. At least their openers can be triggered with a relay, unlike myQ which has a proprietary circuit board preventing that.
That’s interesting! I’m not sure why, but I thought there was something special about the signal between the wall switch and motor.
Can you tell me anything more about what the relay set up is?
I might keep the hacked integration around for status / position, but use the relay to trigger the door. That avoids the situation where the opener gets out of sync and refuses to move without a local control.
Does it vary from one model to another? So the only way to be sure is to check your own garage door opener: Supposedly there is one cable with 2 wires between your wall switch and 2 terminals on your opener. So you take a bare wire or paper clip, and connect those 2 terminals… does your garage door open and close each time you do that?
Alternatively you can open the wall switch and see if you can achieve the same via 2 of the leads in the wall switch.
I suppose they have no plan to block 3rd party integration, and evidently, it’s also true they have no plan to maintain and keep things going.
I agree. If that’s the only 2 choices we have got.
They promised and didn’t give. They licensed their API under a non open license. Fuckers.
Just found this little tid bit after your suggestion and some searching. I’m encouraged and will give shorting the terminals a try. What relay are you using?
At the time I couldn’t wrap my head around how they were getting all of the additional functions on two wires, and I think I assume they were using some type of secured protocol
Genie Series II Wall Console
Two Wire, 5V, White is Neutral
R1, 121 Ohms
R2, 82 Ohms
LEDLocked = R2
Unlocked = R2 + R1 + LED
Light (Push Button Toggle) = R1 + R2 (push button shorts the LED)
Open/Close (Push Button Toggle) = (push button closes the circuit)
Definitely do your paper clip tests. And if shorting the terminals works, there are many options for you.
- You can still do RATGDO, and following the dry contact wiring instead.
- You can find zigbee or z-wave or wifi dry contact relays of your choice, and use that to simulate clicking the wall switch.
2.1) Ideally you can find something that offers the momentary switch feature, where the relay would engage for, say, half a second, and automatically disengage, just like what human finger would do to the wall switch. If not, that’s less ideal but fine also, because you can setup the relay to behave that way via automation.
2.2) So tuya has maybe two dozens of zigbee options out there - here are some examples I googled. I personally did z-wave and shared my project here in this forum. And then you have wifi options such as Meross, Tailwind, NEXX, OpenGarage, Shelly 1, Shelly Uni, … I like Athom also. With many of those packaged options, you might be able to get door status locally without relying on any Alladin cloud. - Or you can build your own ESPHome based solution, there are tons of examples here in this forum or on Youtube. Taking full control of your garage door locally. (And have fun! )
- Not recommended but still a feasible option: check whether Aladdin talks to Homebridge and how well that works. If yes, a convoluted way to approach this would be to get Alladin to talk to Homebridge instance in your home server, and then get your Homebridge to talk to HA via this integration. A lot of hoops to jump through, and you will have to know what you are doing, so not for everyone; plus doing so still would not help you if/when Alladin changes or breaks something again / would not help you break free from Aladdin. Hence not recommended.
I use this connected to the “doorbell” button wires. It’s Zigbee and setups up easily. It even resets the relay automatically. So don’t have to command it back open after triggering it. You’ll hear two clicks (closed/open).
Yitouniu Zigbee 1CH DC 7-32V USB 5V Relay Smart Switch Module,Wireless APP Remote Control with Inching/Self-Lock Switch modle,Works with Tuya Zigbee Gateway,Alexa,Google Home (Required ZigBee Hub) - Amazon.com
I use a Shelly uni to short the terminal briefly. It has a setting for that.
Shorting the terminals works, so we’re good to go there.
Thanks for all the great suggestions. I was looking at the new two pole Shellys as I’ve got two doors, just hadn’t confirmed that the zwave version could do 12v which is what I’d gathered we needed to do for the door. (Thinking about it though, not sure it matters what the garage is putting out, as that’s just getting a relay opening or closing).
As for homebridge, I’d assume that still works as that was the base for the temp integration above that Andyrak put together. Going back to that is an option too, only issue I was having was it wouldn’t always keep the state updated and I had to make a workaround based off updating the device triggered by a camera detecting motion.
Make sure your device has a “dry contact” mechanical relay. A dry contact relay has separate terminals for both sides of the “doorbell” garage wires. It is electrically isolated from the 12V terminals that will power the micro.
Correct. I guess not all Shelly would work. Some (or most?) of the relays / switches would actually do 120Vac or 240Vac at the relay… which you probably would not want because it could “energize” your garage door openers, while at the same time also understandable given some (most?) of the switches are designed to turn on/off lights.
So what you actually want is a smart dry contact relay.
If you are in the US, given you have 2 garage door openers, Zooz ZEN16 or ZEN17 could be a good candidate.
ZEN16 VS ZEN17: What’s the Difference - Zooz Support Center.
(I likely would pick ZEN16 if I’m in your shoes - because there is also the flexibility to add door sensors to go completely local.)
Otherwise, DIY an ESPHome could also be a fun project.
10-4, thank you.
Have definitely been enjoying some DIY with ESP home. I have a bunch of Sonoff S31 that I flashed. That said, I think I may go turnkey and the ZEN16 is what I had my eyes on. I like keeping a device off the Wi-Fi too just for clutter. (Haven’t actually investigated if ESP home works with Z-Wave.)
It doesn’t.
Hey all literally created this account to offer up my solution that seems to be working.
- Add your garage to your Google Home. To do this you will have to use the Aladdin Connect app on your phone (or at least I did).
- Add the GH integration to your HA. Will have to setup some extra stuff, just follow the docs.
- Pull in your garage via GH into HA.
- Insert opens and closes here
Hope it helps.
There is another thread on this using home bridge. Very easy.
Thanks for the tip.
I’ve got fed up with Alladin and bought a ZWave relay box from Zooz that triggers the garage doors directly. It’s not a solution for monitoring door state though, I would need to buy tilt sensors for that which I haven’t done yet. Currently I’m running the Aladdin integration that was removed, as a custom integration (see above #62). It still works for control and door states, usually.
One of the biggest advantages to using a relay box to override Aladdin is that in the event that the door states get out of sync with Aladdin itself, it disables remote control for safety. You have to toggle the garage door a couple times from the wall switch to get it to work again. With an external relay box like a Z-Wave unit, I can do that remotely.
I’m going to look into trying the home bridge solution that you mentioned in the other thread which incidentally originated in the current thread up around #18 +/- a few posts.