3 ms·
Many garage door motors only accept a dumb trigger and don't have any mechanism for sending explicit "close" or "open" signals. I would avoid basic RF wherever
by simondotau 5y ago
Many garage door motors only accept a dumb trigger and don't have any mechanism for sending explicit "close" or "open" signals.
I would avoid basic RF wherever possible; stick with a wired connection between the motor and your microcontroller, and use 802.11 wifi for communications. This is where the ESP32 (or ESP8266) makes perfect sense.
- jvolkman 5y agoMine only has the single trigger, but also has two limit switches at either side (it's a screw drive). I figured out that by flipping the limit switches I can control the direction of the door using just the single trigger button. E.g., if I short the open limit switch and send the door move signal, it will always close.
- yesimahuman 5y agoWhy do you say avoid RF? I was trying to create essentially a new “opener” button like the battery-powered ones that came with the motor. It’s pretty old so I don’t think it’s doing anything too complicated security-wise. I do see wired being easier but I was driven to figure out RF. And yea I wouldn’t be able to do a specific open/close event but the reed switch would tell me which state the door was in before sending the toggle signal
- simondotau 5y agoI find RF to be occasionally unreliable. Home automation which isn't highly reliable is, in my opinion, worse than no home automation.