MyQ Bridge - Fully local MyQ garage door control

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Look, I get it - I initially bought the cheaper, cloud-controlled one. I spent money. Then I REspent money to buy the right one.

Home Automation is the same as any other game - you’ve got to pay to play. You can either buy the good equipment once, and be happy for years, or you can buy the cheap equipment, and be miserable and complain for years.

If you take into account the cost of your lightswitches, sensors, the hardware you’re running HA on, and other assorted smart home gadgetry that you’ve already purchased, how much does that $100 REALLY mean in the grand scheme? Not to mention - how much is your time and frustration worth to you? How much is it worth to you to have LOCAL control of your garage door?

As for your two citations - they may have discontinued it, but it’s still available for purchase, so I’m not sure that’s relevant. Reddit? Wikipedia is more reliable. LOL

I’m aware what is being discussed here, but in case I wasn’t clear, my question is why is it being discussed?? As far as I can tell, NO ONE in the HA community likes cloud integrations, and there is a LOCAL alternative. That’s my point. Rather than beating your head against the wall trying to use something that everyone claims to hate already, and that works poorly to boot, just “do the needful” and get the better solution.

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That’s good to know!

So. @exx ,
Looks like we don’t need MyQ account nor MyQ app for daily operations. Would we be able to block the garage door opener calling MyQ cloud mothership from some firewall setup… while everything would keep working via HomeKit? Or even (log out and) delete the MyQ app altogether?

I am asking because I have also read that HomeKit would stop working after awhile, if you severed the link to MyQ cloud. Can you confirm?
(Heard that from Reddit, not a reliable source I know, and that’s why I am asking.)

Finally, would we still need any MyQ account or MyQ app in any way… for example during initial setup?

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@exx - I was pointing out facts. And there is no need for you to be nasty, laughing and berating, even if you disagree. You are better than that.

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Since the device has no screen or interface, you do need the app to get it on the wifi and connect it to the opener.

Mine is on a vlan without internet access, and I haven’t had any trouble.

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@PaulWieland - The recent break in the MyQ integration got me interested in local control and I found your RATGDO project! I was wondering whether you can trigger a door closure with the blinking/beeping before it actually closes. I suspect that “command” is not implemented as a serial command but who knows…

Also, My Chamberlain MyQ GDO has a little rectangular black box that hooks up to an ethernet port and communicates with the GDO wirelessly so I don’t think it is a “Security+2” version as it is 10 years old. Does RATGDO work with my setup? I am also planning on using an ESP32 (there are some that are sort of pin compatible with 8266) and ESPHome.

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It doesn’t beep when closing. There doesn’t seem to be a way to control the beeper either.

To see which wireline protocol your chamberlain gdo uses, short the wires going to your wall control panel. If the door moves after momentarily shorting the wires then it will not work with ratgdo v2.0.

I will be supporting the older control protocol in the near future.

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0) To identify
Here is the official document to help you identify which protocol you would have on your GDO:
Determine the Color of the Learn Button on Your Garage Door Opener (chamberlaingroup.com)

1) If yours is not one of those “Security+ 2.0” GDO

I have seen Athom selling a complete kit that is with ESPHome already:
Garage Door Opener for ESPHome | athom
(Wow - I didn’t aware that the price is ridiculously low.)

Or you can obviously DIY, roll your own ESP32 with controls and sensors, using a Shelly (Uni should be good enough, also ESPHome compatible if you want to), I have done something using Zooz Z51, plus there are tons of zigbee relay boards also.
BTW ZEN16 or 17 would work also, with the benefit to control multiple doors and integrate door status sensors.

I have also seen someone on YouTube using a 110V to low voltage dry contact relay, and then you can use regular smart plug also.

And I suppose most of the GDO around the world would be able to use one of the solutions above… since the MyQ being predominantly an US thing.

(Or wait a bit for Paul to update his future RATGDO to support non-Security+ 2.0.)

2) If yours being a Security+ 2.0 GDO

… then you have the option of the existing RATGDO, or using the Athom / Shelly / Zooz, etc… along with something like these, which you can DIY or buy.
(Something like this: Cutting out MyQ cloud from Garage Door control )

Someone above recommended a now-discontinued MyQ bridge. That bridge itself is OK, and you can operate cloud-free, but you would still be paying MyQ for abandoning HomeKit and breaking things that should be working, and you would still need the MyQ cloud for initial setup - who knows whether the “initial setup” would still work 1 or 3 or 5 years down the road. For those reasons, I personally would suggest we stay away. But that’s just me - no intensions to impose my opinion.

3) BTW
One thing to note: apart from RATGDO, Athom, and bridges from MyQ, most of the recommendations above are about the open/close side of the garage door operations. But for a complete garage door opening solution, you would also want to have some sort of sensor(s) to know your door status being open or close (and/or even a way to detect opening / closing).

Hope this helps.

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@k8gg - I have a Security+ 2.0 given that the button is round and yellow and so is the antenna. The model is HD930EV.

I built an ESPHome device that controls 2 IR curtains that detect obstructions where people/cars would be and lift gates up high if open. The system also disconnects the lower sensor as a way to disable the closure of the door. I also have a reed relay bolted to the ground that detects whether the door is open or closed. The way this is built, if you power it down or disconnect any any of the IR curtains, the garage door keeps working.

I am guessing that the RATGO has a level shifter to interface between the GPIO and the 12V of the GDO. I have a spare optoisolator that is not being used in this box and was wondering whether I could implement the communication with that. I would buy the RATGO board (on backorder when I checked) as a thank you to @PaulWieland but would not use it if I can just bake the same functionality inside the box I already have. Wiring is not an issue… I can easily run (and already have for some of it) Cat5e as needed.

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Another option, I could put a relay in parallel to the button on the wall (not the wires going into it, the button itself) as the box has a spare relay that I am not using. However, I would rather implement something where pressing open will not close the door in case it were already open (and yes I know I can build this logic in Node Red but if the RATGO can issue an open / close command instead of a toggle so to speak, then that is way better).

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ratgdo interfaces with the GDO over bi directional serial using 3 wires connected to the push terminals on the GDO. It not only controls the door, but it receives all the status updates from the GDO logic board. It therefore knows the current state of the door (open, opening, closed, closing, obstructed) as well as motion detection from compatible wall panels and on/off control over the light.

An open command will be ignored if the door isn’t closed and vice versa.

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@PaulWieland I placed the order… says it is backordered :frowning: #783998405

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Yes, there has been a sudden influx of orders given the recent issues with myQ. More are on the way and all backorders should ship out by the end of the month. Thank you for your patience!

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My GDO has a Chamberlain CIGBU/C adapter that is connected to the network via Ethernet. I am not sure but it may be the same as the LiftMaster 828LM. I wonder whether I can replace this with a newer model that can work with HomeKit to use the solution described in this thread. Has anyone tried this?

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I can replace this with a newer model that can work with HomeKit

My setup at the moment is ratgdo -> mqtt -> NodeRED -> homekit, but you can easily substitute NodeRED with Home Assistant. The HomeKit devices are all virtual and offer the UI, while HomeAssitant is the back end which controls the device(s) in question.

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@PaulWieland - I was just wondering whether replacing the CIGBU with a newer model, it would make the GDO visible to HA via Homekit in order to make it local.

Anyhow, I have read that it should be possible to use ESPHome with the ratgdo either already or soon… which is what I plan to do. Then all automation will be in NodeRED (ratgdo -> espHome -> NodeRED).

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You could, there are newer models. But please note:

… so in a way, newer but discontinued. You likely can still buy those MyQ+HomeKit boxes, but note that the news articles above were one year ago.

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The community really needs like a retrofit board for a garage door opener. Yank the brains and make it smart and open.

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Chamberlain has purposely made it difficult to use their products in third party platforms. This is by design. I am surprised they allowed the cloud integration to function as well as it has (until now). There are numerous (if not very satisfiying) workarounds most involving new hardware which means yet another point of failure and unnecessarily redundant devices hanging from your garage opener. If you want one go-to device that can do everything, the only option is the new Genie controller which just recently works with Amazon Key delivery. However, it’s 2x more expensive and doesn’t easily work with chamberlain openers. For me, I’ll limp along with some kludgy hack until I need a new opener. Then I’ll get a Genie with the built-in smart opener. That would include Amazon Key delivery, no hacked hardware wires, professional HA integration, and pretty cheap as long as you get already built-in to the new opener.

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Do we have a link of what exactly this new controller is? Model #? Are we talking about the ALKT1-R, or Genie’s Aladdin Connect in general, or is there something else?

Also, which HA integration?

If we are talking about and the ALKT1-R, and the HA core Genie Aladdin Connect integration, then the integration is cloud-only also. So it would still subject to internet outage, and/or however Genie (the company) implements its protocol. And yes, Genie has already broken the integration by changing the API… (Yes that was 2 years ago and it has been fixed, but still.)

So, well, Genie’s Aladdin Connect might be better than MyQ, because it breaks less frequently than MyQ, but they are still fundamentally in the same category (i.e. similarly bad)… One can still find all the MyQ’s weaknesses in Aladdin Connect.

That said, if Genie is indeed rolling out something new with local API (and can be setup / can operate without internet) … that would indeed be a major advantage over MyQ, and I, for one, would love to know.

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Bypassing the MyQ on a GDO is pretty straight forward. First thing you need is a smart relay. I used the zooz zen17. This allowed me to also use a reed switch so I can know when the door is open/closed. The last piece you need is a wall button or remote (I used the wall button). This is what the relay will use to open/close the door. More detailed info can be found here. Its been pretty rock solid so far.

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When adding the HomeKit bridge, I see that there are two integrations for HomeKit - the HomeKit Bridge and HomeKit Device. The device pairs with the Hass integration and then exposes all HA devices. Do I need the HomeKit device integration?

Thanks,

John Vowell

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Yes, despite the MyQ device being called a “bridge”, what you want is to add that as a device to home assistant. The “HomeKit Bridge” integration is a way to expose your HA devices to HomeKit, so you can control your HA devices via Apple’s interfaces.