I would like to ask some help with regards to my garage door.
Currently I have the following setup
Sliding single garage door which takes 17.5 seconds to fully open.
Shelly BLE window/door sensor to determine fully closed position or open position.
Shelly 1 plus relay switch to control the opening and closing by means of a button press. (button press being a switch with auto off function, setup within the shelly webinterface)
What I’d like to do is create a way to determine the position of the door based on timing which resets itself ones the door is closed. I know there is lots of info out there and I have also read through the template documentation but I can’t really make sence of it. If there is anyone with a similar setup i’d be intrested in a helping hand?
Here’s what you should do and i strongly recommend it!
First thing is in the future you really should first do your due diligence/researching prior to buying components and attempting to put something together in a rush.
Take those Shelly devices and put them away in storage for a future project and then go check out the Esphome Cover documentation here
With this single Shelly device, it will allow you to control an AC or DC motor and has 2 channels for both forward/up and reverse/down, plus it uses power metering sensors to both track and report back to you the direction of door travel, it can calculate the position and it can determine fully open/closed all with just a single Shelly 2.5 and its very simple.
Another option that is very popular among users here is the Ratgdo board and it does everything your current door opener does including reads the safety obstacle sensor on the ground between both tracks, it can access the light bulb and will create a new switch for it. These are really the way to go if you want or like all those bells and whistles available in HA.
You don’t want to do it through HA, thats backwards and just adds unnecessary risk for failure potential.
You have those same benefits available using Esphome too. Well maybe not the wifi extension part but if you’re seriously putting a lot of stock into using Shelly devices to expand your wifi network then no offense but, you probably need an MRI brain scan. The wifi stuff is mostly for maintenance/admin tasks or other simple tasks and its not a substitute for a real network device and wont give you high speed or bandwidth through it. Other than that the BT part does all work the same and just as good whether default Shelly firmware or Esphome firmware.
Thanks for your advice. the best solution for my older garage door was the shelly. So after due diligence/researching that was the most efficient and viable option.
The end stop sensors are probably the easiest part of the whole thing
But i’ll look at that component. It’s a little bit like three dee printing if you think of it someone has probaly thought of it before. And while I do appreciate figuring things out for myself it just helps sometimes to learn from others experiences. thats what the quesions was about
Why do you need to know the position of your door? How often is it not fully opened or fully closed?
If you regularly leave it “cracked” to allow cats in, etc I think the easiest solution is to simply add another magnetic switch at the desired “cracked” position. It would be pretty easy to add some logic to stop the garage door opening process when this “cracked” switch was triggered which would automate the process of opening the door just a little bit. It might take some tweaking to get the position of the sensor where it would stop the door at the desired height (because the door isn’t going to instantaneously stop at the switch position), but nothing out of the ordinary.
I hear you and in some way your totally right. On the other hand I thought it would be neet (is that correct) to be able to have some code to determine the position of the door.
I indeed thought of another door-sensor but I really like the idea of being able to convert speed to time.
Although for garage door weighing about 550KG it maybe not feasible. At least not for control. maybe for measuring revolutions
The shelly plus 1 gen 4 cost me about 18€ after lowest price guarantee. a third of the RATGDO which had my preference but given the installation I have, not so ideal.
I dont think the desire to have it is for randomly checking the position level or whatever else. Just like for most things and some of them, i’d be making the same comment you just did too like to people who want to track the cycle of a washing machine and ve notified when its finished… People just need to lay off their wives and stop micromanaging how they use the washing machine ya know?!? ; )
If i dont always have specific needs for adding some state sensors then ill just do it and if i end up needing them for something later on then ill have them available. Its like they say… “Never pee while facing the direction of the blowing wind!”
No, wait thats the wrong ancient wisdom! What i meant was, “Its better to have and not need than need and not have”
Something more specific to me is i have a light between and above my door tracks and its a pain to have to change all 4 bulbs and it would really suck if someone accidentally opened that door while im 10’ up on a ladder and then get knocked off by the door opening! Making a simple automation to set an Open limit of X% will allow someone in if they pressed the button and it prevents me from falling on thr ground head first once agaih! Who else knows what other kinds of whacky scenarios people might really find it useful to hacve the capability too.
The answer can be quite short, though:
“because I CAN !”
I have many sensors which are basically “not needed”, but they are there, because … well, because they CAN BE…
Some of them are there because of my laziness - like trackers, most of them could be disabled, since i really don’t need the position of my router - i know “him” that much in all these years that i know it won’t go anywhere , but some are there just because HA allows them to be.
