I have a “dumb” garage door which works with remotes and for which I added an old Shelly 1 to trigger an open/close signal (there is only one signal - open/stop/close) depending on the current state.
This goes over a simple dry contact which closes a circuit and either triggers or stops the motor in one direction or the other.
The problem with the Shelly is its wifi. I don’t have a good connection a that exact spot. My Zigbee and Z-Wave gateways are a few meters away, so this would be a better choice.
I am looking for an “easy and cheap” solution with one of those protocols, where a reed/magnetic switch (or other) could be easily added to the setup and of course home assistant.
I found some more exotic modules on aliexpress, but I want the solution to be dependable, and aliexpress doesn’t really fit that in my mind.
Sadly, everything I found is either not really clear (for me) in terms of the possibility to read the theoretical switch or difficult to get to work in home assistant from my findings.
I would love some ideas and tips from you guys on this seemingly easy project.
Thanks !
I use a Zwave Ecolink TILT-ZWAVE2.5-ECO tilt sensor for position and a Zwave Zooz ZEN51 dry contact switch for the operator. I don’t think you can get that tilt sensor but the Ecolink TILT-ZWAVE2-ECO is another one that should also work.
I maybe have to add that I am in the EU (DE/FR) and seem to not have Zooz products available to me.
I also would prefer a wired solution for the sensor (basic magnetic/reed switch ?) as it should be cheaper and more dependable (one less battery to care about)
Maybe a bit overkill for your use case, but the Aqara T2 dual relay module has two outputs which can be wired as dry contacts. It also has connections for the 2 reed/magnetic switches you mentioned. EDIT: the connections at the bottom seem to be for hooking up your existing garage door switch so you can manually open the door. Was misled by the drawing on their product page, sorry.
Note that you can’t wire up one of the outputs as a wet contact and another as a dry contact - it’s an all or nothing affair. You also (probably) won’t be able to use the power monitoring feature in dry contact mode.
Still, it’s a more solid option than any alternative you might find from Tuya, with the form factor roughly the same as your existing Shelly 1, and the pulse length setting in Z2mqtt makes it perfect for your requirements.
I used Shelly1 for my garage door too, but the wifi strength is too weak to work reliably. I looked into zwave/zigbee products but ended just getting a TP-Link RE220 WiFi extender ($14), enable the 2.4Ghz band and disable the 5Ghz band on repeater (so that it doesn’t interfere with my other devices e.g. phones, laptops, using the 5Ghz band.) It’s been solid so far.
For reed switch, I used this: https://www.amazon.com/Yohii-Security-Rolling-Contact-Magnetic/dp/B07GLP28DS/ and run pair of white wires to the shelly1. The reed switch has a bigger magnet, so you can have a small gap and still have a “closed” position. I find this very useful in my case because the way the garage door moves, I can’t place the 2 parts very close to each other.
I’ve had my tilt sensor on my door for almost 7 years ever since I started using HA and it still works great and I think I’ve changed the battery twice. And it can’t be much easier to use. you just literally stick it on the door so you don’t need to worry about magnets & spacing etc.
As far as cheap you did say you wanted zwave or zigbee and anything zwave will be a bit more expensive. But it pretty much does just work.