Garage door automation only runs when triggered from app

So confused. I have a genie garage door opener with Aladdin connect running on a custom integration. I can control the door and see the door status from HA and everything works great. I set up an automation to turn on the garage ceiling lights when the door is opened or closed and turn them off after 10 minutes. It works great if I open or close the door from the HA app, but if I open or close the door using the remote that came with the opener, or from my car, or the wall mounted remote in the garage, the automation doesn’t run. I’m new to HA so not sure if this is just user error or what. Anybody have any ideas?

I tried a few different automations to see if I could get it to work. I used the cover entity and that didn’t help. Tried using different states. Nothing is working. Help me please!

Sound like the way you have integrated the garage door into HA is not providing state feedback (optimistic mode). So HA only knows if the door changed state if it is controlled from within HA.

Please share how you configured the garage door.

Or, the integration might be pulling the data from cloud regularly (let’s say every minute) and it doesn’t have the current state from the controller until it is refreshed internally.

Thank you for your replies. I just started using HA when I bought my new house recently and I’m having so much fun with it!

I think I misdiagnosed the issue with the garage door. The automation works so intermittently that it seemed at first that it only worked from the app but after playing with it more it seems it just doesn’t work sometimes. I have a very strong WIFI connection to the garage doors and they are immediately responsive to open and close demands from the app and HA so I’m sure I’ve just done something wrong. I read that I should use entities for automations rather than devices so I switched the trigger to the cover entity associated with the garage door and that may have helped a bit but we’ll see.

The other problem now is that there is a delay from when I open the garage door to when the light turns on. The light doesn’t turn on until the door is fully open, which is probably because I don’t know how to set up the automation correctly. Here is what I did:


I’m assuming that since the trigger is based on when the state has changed from closed to open that HA turns on the lights when it receives notification that the door has fully opened? How do I set it up so the light turns on as soon as the door starts to open (or close)?
Also, is there anything else in my automation that could be done better?

Thank you for your help!

Also, here is a log of the most recent opening and closing of the door it that helps.

Can’t help unless you do this:

Which integration?

How is it configured?

Sorry, misunderstood. I’m running this custom integration since there is no Genie support for HA anymore.

Here’s the thread where I found it:

Here’s the link I downloaded it from:

curl -Ls ‘https://api.github.com/repos/home-assistant/core/contents/homeassistant/components/aladdin_connect?ref=2024.6.4’ | jq -r ‘..download_url’ | xargs -n1 curl -O

Here’s what it shows in HA:


Not sure how to show you the configuration?

Thanks again

Your link is malformed. I can’t tell what you are using.

I think this is it

Did you not see the big warning on the front page?

If you look at the thread this is the only integration that works for Genie garage doors. The June 6 release did not work out as planned so everyone with these openers is still using this integration from what I understand.

Looks like there was an issue open for this that never got addressed.

As this 3rd party integration is depreciated you probably won’t have much luck opening a new issue. Might be worth trying though as the core integration never happened. There is also a hack in that issue to get around the problem you might like to try.

Got it. I’m not sure what opening an issue means. I’m assuming there is a place you can submit issues you’re having and they might try to fix them? I’ll have to look more into the hack. Do you see any problems with the way I built the automation? Any suggestions on how to maybe improve it? Appreciate all the help!

Yep that is what it means. Unfortunately it looks like the repository is not accepting new issues. There is no “New Issue” button here Issues · andyrak/hacs-aladdin-legacy · GitHub

Normally there would be a green button like this (different repository don’t open an issue here): Issues · nielsfaber/alarmo · GitHub

So your only option is the hack.

I have an automation that runs every 30 minutes that reloads the devices so that it grabs the current status of the door. I think it doesn’t get the status automatically when it changes so I just reload it.

dj