5 ms·

I include this when considering buying something integrated. For example Philips Hue is overpriced, but their Home Assistant integration is top tier and ultra-

I include this when considering buying something integrated. For example Philips Hue is overpriced, but their Home Assistant integration is top tier and ultra-reliable. Contrast that with myQ garage door openers (LiftMaster, Chamberlain and Craftsman) recently breaking Home Assistant support on purpose, to essentially replace it with nothing, and they're dead to me. So Xiaomi adding support, assuming it is reliable, definitely moves them into a better category.

UberFly 2y ago
After trying the lesser priced bulbs and sensors I always end up back to Hue. Rock solid quality - pays for itself in the long run.
rsanek 2y ago
Hue is amazing, the reliability of their products is truly impressive. I've had ~40 lights for years and not a single one has died or ever had connectivity issues.
Filligree 2y ago
Is there a list I could consult to find such companies?
- mankyd 2y ago
  https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/ https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/ It's worth clicking through and reading details on each one before you commit. Most of them are quite complete, but some only support a handful of devices or features. You can also get a sense if the control is local (i.e. no internet connection) or cloud based.
michaelmior 2y ago
In case anyone using a myQ opener comes across this, I feel the need to mention ratgdo which many have found to be a great inexpensive upgrade. https://ratcloud.llc/ https://ratcloud.llc/
- grahamj 2y ago
  I'm aware but I'm one of the like 5 people that bought the overpriced MyQ-HomeKit adapter and it's still working to provide HA control. If it ever dies I'll be going ratgdo or opengarage for sure
- dingnuts 2y ago
  It's inexpensive if you discount the cost of your education learning how to wire in something like that. There's an order of magnitude difference in project size between setting up the old MyQ integration with home assistant and learning how to use.. whatever that thing is. Sometimes I think clever and educated people forget what it's like to be less intelligent or educated. I want a solution I can download :(
  - lotsofpulp 2y ago
    Perhaps an iSmartGate Pro works? https://ismartgate.com/ismartgate-pro/ https://ismartgate.com/ismartgate-pro/
  - michaelmior 2y ago
    That's a fair point, but it's still likely less expensive than replacing your existing opener if you include the cost of an electrician doing the wiring for you.
    - NordSteve 2y ago
      It's really not hard at all. It probably took 5 minutes to install, with most of the time futzing with the power cable routing so that it looked decent and didn't rub on sharp corners of the opener bracket.
      - michaelmior 2y ago
        I agree that it's not challenging. I'm just saying that even if someone is intimidated by doing this, it's still probably a relatively inexpensive option even when you include hiring an electrician.
VTimofeenko 2y ago
I am looking to install a garage opener and due to meatspace constraints I will probably have to use jackshaft. Jackshafts are predominantly LiftMaster and Chamberlain => the smarts are myQ, which I don't want anywhere near my network. Genie jackshafts seem fine, but Genie's reputation is bad to the point where garage door companies may refuse to work on them. These motors also usually come with the ability to hook up a hardwired button. There are a couple of pre-made (konnected, ratgo) solutions or one could jury rig a z-wave relay. Alternative is Overhead Garage door company that have separate SKUs for the unit, the battery and the smarts so one can pick two and use the same relay (my current plan). There may be _some_ proprietary shenanigans with LM and Chamberlain hardwired buttons but Overhead's one really seems to just work through bridging two contacts
- asveikau 2y ago
  Not sure how it works with a jackshaft vs. the more traditional residential opener, but ratgdo can speak the myQ protocol and control it from mqtt or home assistant. I have it working with my Chamberlain opener as do many others.
  - VTimofeenko 2y ago
    Besides the questionable rent-seeking behavior from myQ: * I don't want to use an integration that needs a round-trip through the cloud to work. Long-term changes are inevitable (company goes out of business, randomly changes API, etc.) * I fundamentally do not like Amazon Key integration. It gives someone else control over my security hardware which makes me very uncomfortable. I am not sure if it's opt-in or out, but the point is that a myQ device that is installed _can_ be configured to let arbitrary third party to open the door. If I have a choice, I'd rather set up a system that I control from the get-go rather than try to lobotomize a system that I can't fully control.
    - asveikau 2y ago
      Ratgdo doesn't go through the cloud. It's a separate board. You wire it into the opener the same way would a button, and it speaks the serial protocol that a myQ enabled button or console would use. Then it can speak MQTT over wifi. I never paired my opener with any app nor do I have it on WiFi.
pcl 2y ago
If you’ve got a spare garage remote control, a raspberry pi or Arduino board, a soldering iron, an optocoupler, and a sense of adventure, you can easily integrate your existing garage door opener into Home Assistant or what have you. In fact, the Arduino starter kit comes with a few optocouplers and instructions for basically exactly this project! Or you can get a tube of a dozen 4N25 optocouplers for like $8 on amazon. https://store.arduino.cc/products/arduino-starter-kit-multi-language https://store.arduino.cc/products/arduino-starter-kit-multi-...
- efitz 2y ago
  > If you’ve got a spare garage remote control, a raspberry pi or Arduino board, a soldering iron, an optocoupler, and a sense of adventure, You just excluded 99.9% of smart home product customers.
  - pcl 2y ago
    Yes, well, but here at HN, hopefully we’ve got the 0.1% in attendance!
IncreasePosts 2y ago
MyQ are such scum. I love how on my smartphone I can just press a button in the MyQ app to open my garage door, but if I want to push the button on my Tesla, they want to charge me a subscription fee of $100 a year or something like that
ortusdux 2y ago
I wish FEIT devices were compatible. I've seen their smart bulbs at costco for as low as $2.50/ea.
- slug 2y ago
  Costco Feit WiFi dimmers can be flashed with esphome with some work, have a few dozen running. Haven't tried the bulbs.
- reaperducer 2y ago
  There's a reason Feit is so cheap.
  - ortusdux 2y ago
    People have had success flashing custom firmware in the past, so hardware wise they are compatible.
    - jabroni_salad 2y ago
      Feit are the only LED bulbs that I have had straight up die on me inside of a year.
echoangle 2y ago
Look for Zigbee devices and most stuff just works out of the box. And when you’re not upgrading firmware, there’s no way for the manufacturer to break anything.
- bitdivision 2y ago
  Zigbee is wonderful, especially alongside things like zigbee2mqtt device support [0]. The downside is that its not uncommon to see non-compliant devices, or buggy implementations which is almost more annoying. I recently installed a zigbee thermostat in my bathroom, which turned out to be flooding the network and causing the rest of my network to become unstable [0]: https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/supported-devices/ https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/supported-devices/
mohaine 2y ago
I'll just second to avoid myQ at all costs. 1. They want to charge for some integrations. I could see this if they didn't make local only impossible if you want anything beyond the clicker. Why aren't these just bluetooth and or wifi so my car and open when I pull up and close when I leave? Hell, if they just added an 'open if closed' and 'close if open' it would make it way better for the car to controll. IMO they are purposely making the non myQ options suck and stuck in the 80s just so they can upsell to a monthly subscription. 2. Their security is a joke. After moving to new phone their app would refuse to login yet would still show me notifications for door events. The only way to stop the notifications was to uninstall the app. My newer garage door is lacking wifi just so I can add my own automation without even bothering with theirs.
microtonal 2y ago
For example Philips Hue is overpriced, I wouldn't call them overpriced (at least not all products), their quality is typically great, you get what you pay for. We have had Hue lights for over 10 years (pretty much every light in our house is Hue) and never had any issues. I think over that period one light broke. And like you said, the integration is great. In our house we have it configured to use both through the Hue hub and SmartThings.
- tills13 2y ago
  Yup. I paid like $40CAD for a single Hue lightbulb in 2017 and it's still going. In that time, I've had countless cheap Canadian Tire brand (NOMA) & Walmart brand LED bulbs burn out and need replacing totaling WAY more than $40. I just looked and they have gotten like 20% more expensive though... that said, their non-smart bulbs are still pretty affordable comparatively.
  - dividedbyzero 2y ago
    We have almost two dozen Ikea Tradfri bulbs and they've been great. We had a few older Hue ones too, those never seemed to keep their state across power loss and their light quality was pretty bad given the price, really not impressed.
- drdaeman 2y ago
  > their quality is typically great, you get what you pay for. You're lucky. I also have almost all lights from Hue, and in almost 6 years I've had 6 or 7 completely dead bulbs (out of ~40). One more lightbulb failed in a weird way - it sort of worked, but in 90% of cases refused to completely turn off and still kept some of the LEDs lit. I haven't bothered to disassemble it to see how that happened. And one more light works normally, but somehow fails to report its status to HomeKit. It can be controlled but always shows up as "updating..." - guess it's a software bug of some sort, since it works in the Hue app. No Home Assistant here at the moment, just regular Hue+HomeKit setup. I have tried HA a few times, but found no significant additional value over what I already have. It's just as dumb as all other "smart" home solutions, still has very limited diagnostics if something is not working (maybe if one really groks its internals it can be debugged better, but I don't) and requires maintenance. I was thinking about building something with plain simple Zigbee2MQTT and a bunch of DIY scripts to make it a little smart, but haven't yet had time for this.
ashayh 2y ago
Try Konnected for garage doors. https://konnected.io/collections/shop-now?filter.p.tag=Smart+Garage+Door+Openers https://konnected.io/collections/shop-now?filter.p.tag=Smart... Have 2 of them and work great.
zamalek 2y ago
> Philips Hue At the moment you can pair them with any ZigBee controller, which I found to be much simpler. This is one firmware update away from not working (which is why I mostly relied on Z-Wave) so YMMV.
Carrok 2y ago
I retrofit my 20 year old garage door opener with a $13 Shelly switch (Shelly 1 Gen3 ). Now my garage door is smart with zero outside dependencies. Blog post I used as reference: https://simplyexplained.com/blog/make-garage-door-opener-smart-shelly-esphome-home-assistant/ https://simplyexplained.com/blog/make-garage-door-opener-sma...

UberFly 2y ago

After trying the lesser priced bulbs and sensors I always end up back to Hue. Rock solid quality - pays for itself in the long run.

rsanek 2y ago

Hue is amazing, the reliability of their products is truly impressive. I've had ~40 lights for years and not a single one has died or ever had connectivity issues.

Filligree 2y ago

Is there a list I could consult to find such companies?

mankyd 2y ago
https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/ https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/ It's worth clicking through and reading details on each one before you commit. Most of them are quite complete, but some only support a handful of devices or features. You can also get a sense if the control is local (i.e. no internet connection) or cloud based.

michaelmior 2y ago

In case anyone using a myQ opener comes across this, I feel the need to mention ratgdo which many have found to be a great inexpensive upgrade. https://ratcloud.llc/ https://ratcloud.llc/

grahamj 2y ago
I'm aware but I'm one of the like 5 people that bought the overpriced MyQ-HomeKit adapter and it's still working to provide HA control. If it ever dies I'll be going ratgdo or opengarage for sure
dingnuts 2y ago
It's inexpensive if you discount the cost of your education learning how to wire in something like that. There's an order of magnitude difference in project size between setting up the old MyQ integration with home assistant and learning how to use.. whatever that thing is. Sometimes I think clever and educated people forget what it's like to be less intelligent or educated. I want a solution I can download :(
- lotsofpulp 2y ago
  Perhaps an iSmartGate Pro works? https://ismartgate.com/ismartgate-pro/ https://ismartgate.com/ismartgate-pro/
- michaelmior 2y ago
  That's a fair point, but it's still likely less expensive than replacing your existing opener if you include the cost of an electrician doing the wiring for you.
  - NordSteve 2y ago
    It's really not hard at all. It probably took 5 minutes to install, with most of the time futzing with the power cable routing so that it looked decent and didn't rub on sharp corners of the opener bracket.
    - michaelmior 2y ago
      I agree that it's not challenging. I'm just saying that even if someone is intimidated by doing this, it's still probably a relatively inexpensive option even when you include hiring an electrician.

VTimofeenko 2y ago

I am looking to install a garage opener and due to meatspace constraints I will probably have to use jackshaft. Jackshafts are predominantly LiftMaster and Chamberlain => the smarts are myQ, which I don't want anywhere near my network. Genie jackshafts seem fine, but Genie's reputation is bad to the point where garage door companies may refuse to work on them. These motors also usually come with the ability to hook up a hardwired button. There are a couple of pre-made (konnected, ratgo) solutions or one could jury rig a z-wave relay. Alternative is Overhead Garage door company that have separate SKUs for the unit, the battery and the smarts so one can pick two and use the same relay (my current plan). There may be _some_ proprietary shenanigans with LM and Chamberlain hardwired buttons but Overhead's one really seems to just work through bridging two contacts

asveikau 2y ago
Not sure how it works with a jackshaft vs. the more traditional residential opener, but ratgdo can speak the myQ protocol and control it from mqtt or home assistant. I have it working with my Chamberlain opener as do many others.
- VTimofeenko 2y ago
  Besides the questionable rent-seeking behavior from myQ: * I don't want to use an integration that needs a round-trip through the cloud to work. Long-term changes are inevitable (company goes out of business, randomly changes API, etc.) * I fundamentally do not like Amazon Key integration. It gives someone else control over my security hardware which makes me very uncomfortable. I am not sure if it's opt-in or out, but the point is that a myQ device that is installed _can_ be configured to let arbitrary third party to open the door. If I have a choice, I'd rather set up a system that I control from the get-go rather than try to lobotomize a system that I can't fully control.
  - asveikau 2y ago
    Ratgdo doesn't go through the cloud. It's a separate board. You wire it into the opener the same way would a button, and it speaks the serial protocol that a myQ enabled button or console would use. Then it can speak MQTT over wifi. I never paired my opener with any app nor do I have it on WiFi.

pcl 2y ago

If you’ve got a spare garage remote control, a raspberry pi or Arduino board, a soldering iron, an optocoupler, and a sense of adventure, you can easily integrate your existing garage door opener into Home Assistant or what have you. In fact, the Arduino starter kit comes with a few optocouplers and instructions for basically exactly this project! Or you can get a tube of a dozen 4N25 optocouplers for like $8 on amazon. https://store.arduino.cc/products/arduino-starter-kit-multi-language https://store.arduino.cc/products/arduino-starter-kit-multi-...

efitz 2y ago
> If you’ve got a spare garage remote control, a raspberry pi or Arduino board, a soldering iron, an optocoupler, and a sense of adventure, You just excluded 99.9% of smart home product customers.
- pcl 2y ago
  Yes, well, but here at HN, hopefully we’ve got the 0.1% in attendance!

IncreasePosts 2y ago

MyQ are such scum. I love how on my smartphone I can just press a button in the MyQ app to open my garage door, but if I want to push the button on my Tesla, they want to charge me a subscription fee of $100 a year or something like that

ortusdux 2y ago

I wish FEIT devices were compatible. I've seen their smart bulbs at costco for as low as $2.50/ea.

slug 2y ago
Costco Feit WiFi dimmers can be flashed with esphome with some work, have a few dozen running. Haven't tried the bulbs.
reaperducer 2y ago
There's a reason Feit is so cheap.
- ortusdux 2y ago
  People have had success flashing custom firmware in the past, so hardware wise they are compatible.
  - jabroni_salad 2y ago
    Feit are the only LED bulbs that I have had straight up die on me inside of a year.

echoangle 2y ago

Look for Zigbee devices and most stuff just works out of the box. And when you’re not upgrading firmware, there’s no way for the manufacturer to break anything.

bitdivision 2y ago
Zigbee is wonderful, especially alongside things like zigbee2mqtt device support [0]. The downside is that its not uncommon to see non-compliant devices, or buggy implementations which is almost more annoying. I recently installed a zigbee thermostat in my bathroom, which turned out to be flooding the network and causing the rest of my network to become unstable [0]: https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/supported-devices/ https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/supported-devices/

mohaine 2y ago

I'll just second to avoid myQ at all costs. 1. They want to charge for some integrations. I could see this if they didn't make local only impossible if you want anything beyond the clicker. Why aren't these just bluetooth and or wifi so my car and open when I pull up and close when I leave? Hell, if they just added an 'open if closed' and 'close if open' it would make it way better for the car to controll. IMO they are purposely making the non myQ options suck and stuck in the 80s just so they can upsell to a monthly subscription. 2. Their security is a joke. After moving to new phone their app would refuse to login yet would still show me notifications for door events. The only way to stop the notifications was to uninstall the app. My newer garage door is lacking wifi just so I can add my own automation without even bothering with theirs.

microtonal 2y ago

For example Philips Hue is overpriced, I wouldn't call them overpriced (at least not all products), their quality is typically great, you get what you pay for. We have had Hue lights for over 10 years (pretty much every light in our house is Hue) and never had any issues. I think over that period one light broke. And like you said, the integration is great. In our house we have it configured to use both through the Hue hub and SmartThings.

tills13 2y ago
Yup. I paid like $40CAD for a single Hue lightbulb in 2017 and it's still going. In that time, I've had countless cheap Canadian Tire brand (NOMA) & Walmart brand LED bulbs burn out and need replacing totaling WAY more than $40. I just looked and they have gotten like 20% more expensive though... that said, their non-smart bulbs are still pretty affordable comparatively.
- dividedbyzero 2y ago
  We have almost two dozen Ikea Tradfri bulbs and they've been great. We had a few older Hue ones too, those never seemed to keep their state across power loss and their light quality was pretty bad given the price, really not impressed.
drdaeman 2y ago
> their quality is typically great, you get what you pay for. You're lucky. I also have almost all lights from Hue, and in almost 6 years I've had 6 or 7 completely dead bulbs (out of ~40). One more lightbulb failed in a weird way - it sort of worked, but in 90% of cases refused to completely turn off and still kept some of the LEDs lit. I haven't bothered to disassemble it to see how that happened. And one more light works normally, but somehow fails to report its status to HomeKit. It can be controlled but always shows up as "updating..." - guess it's a software bug of some sort, since it works in the Hue app. No Home Assistant here at the moment, just regular Hue+HomeKit setup. I have tried HA a few times, but found no significant additional value over what I already have. It's just as dumb as all other "smart" home solutions, still has very limited diagnostics if something is not working (maybe if one really groks its internals it can be debugged better, but I don't) and requires maintenance. I was thinking about building something with plain simple Zigbee2MQTT and a bunch of DIY scripts to make it a little smart, but haven't yet had time for this.

ashayh 2y ago

Try Konnected for garage doors. https://konnected.io/collections/shop-now?filter.p.tag=Smart+Garage+Door+Openers https://konnected.io/collections/shop-now?filter.p.tag=Smart... Have 2 of them and work great.

zamalek 2y ago

> Philips Hue At the moment you can pair them with any ZigBee controller, which I found to be much simpler. This is one firmware update away from not working (which is why I mostly relied on Z-Wave) so YMMV.

Carrok 2y ago

I retrofit my 20 year old garage door opener with a $13 Shelly switch (Shelly 1 Gen3 ). Now my garage door is smart with zero outside dependencies. Blog post I used as reference: https://simplyexplained.com/blog/make-garage-door-opener-smart-shelly-esphome-home-assistant/ https://simplyexplained.com/blog/make-garage-door-opener-sma...