I use the standard opengarage platform and then have template sensors that indicate status of the bays based on the distance centre and set an appropriate icon for use in the picture elements card that shows the garage security camera.
configuration.yaml
cover:
- platform: opengarage
covers:
garage_left_bay:
host: <ipaddress>
device_key: !secret opengarage_leftbay_key
name: Garage Left Bay
garage_right_bay:
host: <ipaddress>
device_key: !secret opengarage_rightbay_key
name: Garage Right Bay
sensors.yaml
- platform: template
sensors:
garage_left_bay_status:
friendly_name: 'Left Bay'
entity_id: cover.garage_left_bay
value_template: '{% if ((states.cover.garage_left_bay.attributes["distance_sensor"] < 150) and (states.cover.garage_left_bay.attributes["distance_sensor"] > 50)) %}
<Car One Details>
{% else %}
Empty
{% endif %}'
icon_template: '{% if ((states.cover.garage_left_bay.attributes["distance_sensor"] < 150) and (states.cover.garage_left_bay.attributes["distance_sensor"] > 50)) %}
mdi:car
{% else %}
mdi:cancel
{% endif %}'
garage_right_bay_status:
friendly_name: 'Right Bay'
entity_id: cover.garage_right_bay
value_template: '{% if ((states.cover.garage_right_bay.attributes["distance_sensor"] < 150) and (states.cover.garage_right_bay.attributes["distance_sensor"] > 50)) %}
<Car Two Details>
{% else %}
Empty
{% endif %}'
icon_template: '{% if ((states.cover.garage_right_bay.attributes["distance_sensor"] < 150) and (states.cover.garage_right_bay.attributes["distance_sensor"] > 50)) %}
mdi:car
{% else %}
mdi:cancel
{% endif %}'
The obvious place to start is incorporating this device in home assistant, so you know canonically when the engine has been started, and are not using other noise/CO/vibration sensors to guess.
However googling doesn’t reveal much about how they work, merely a whole lot of ads selling them.
I’m thinking their “protocol” will be pretty secure, or they are a thief’s charter
Even though I tend to be a little too paranoid I want to share this thought: automatically opening the garage on high CO2 could potentially be a way to gain access to your garage. If there’s valuable stuff in it, or the lock from there into the house isn’t as secure as the one at the front door, then an attacker just would have to inject CO2 into your garage. I do have to admit though, that probably no one would ever think of opening garages that way. So the chances of this happening are still very low. But still I wanted to mention, that you’re adding an attack-vector to your house that’s never going to be exploited.
Yeah, I don’t have any sort of connection other than key fobs. I believe there’s a cell phone module, but I’m not really interested in that. Key fobs with 3500’ range should be more than enough
I’m thinking the opengarage device will be a good place to start, to know if the vehicle is in the garage, and I think some sort of OBDII adapter would be good, as long as I can get it to talk to Home Assistant. Those two things with a CO detector, I think would be safe. I just need to figure out the CO and OBDII parts of it.
I have a lot of expensive stuff in my garage, tools mostly. Honestly though, I almost want to say if they think of pumping CO into my garage to gain access, then I wouldn’t even be mad, haha.
I’ve read that automations can be ran off of it’s state. CO detected -> Open Garage and turn on shop fan. I’m doing this anyways, even if I don’t do that remote start automation. I’m always working on motorcycles and cars in my garage, so it wouldn’t hurt to have it.
This device, connected to an esp32/esp8266, would work. You’d need wifi in the garage. You’d need to write some firmware for the esp device to connect to home assistant, possibly via esphome.io
with traccar you could also have a device tracker entity for the car… This means that you could also open the garage door when the car is say 100m from home…
In terms of the garage door, it may also be an idea to decouple the technologies and focus on the human patterns… is there a pedestrian door that opens into the garage? If so, you could simply stick an open/close sensor on that and then say write an automation that goes something like:
between 05am and 07am on weekdays, when the pedestrian door opens, open the garage door…
You can’t put smoke/CO detectors in a garage, they will false constantly. Read the manual, it will tell you. Typically you would mount a heat detector in a garage only, but that won’t serve your purpose here. You would need something that would measure the level of CO, not just detect it. The fan is a good idea, people typically just run those in conjunction with the door being opened/closed or by motion to clear out the garage faster.
Ahh, got it. This might not be the best solution, but maybe get a Google home mini or Chromecast or something and plug it in (if you can), have an automation that always casts something to it but set the volume to 0. So now make another automation that when the cast device is playing something, it opens the garage.
Edit: a better and probably less stupid solution would be to get a Raspberry Pi Zero and use Bluetooth or wifi presence detection
Edit2: what car is it? Some newer cars have WiFi only when on. Unless it is an electric car or something
Currently remote start and garage control is seperate system with no connection between them. Both action start car/open door are seperate and this is danger. One may occur without other.
I recommend place this into one control.
An HA install in car that controll car OFF/ON and report car condition as sensors.
You current HA install may use HA API or MQTT event/statestream to connect and control this instance.
In this scenario you may have automation that
1 open door
2 verify open door
3 start car
This method is safer since you may add many safety check from both car and home side to verify needed condition as well as monitor after car start and potentially shut off after some time.
Originally I say obd since I know sensor monitor of car is possible as well as car starting. Since this is aftermarket I actually think maybe tie into that…
