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HomeKit Best Buy Black Friday - Wi-Fi Garage Door Controller

A

AJS-Mac

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 18, 2015
22
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Best Buy have the Insignia Wi-Fi Garage Door Controller for HomeKit available for $44.99, which is $25 off regular price.

I installed one a couple of days ago and it has worked great so far. No app or subscription needed. Just setup via the Home app. This is a much better option than using the expensive MyQ products from Chamberlain/Liftmaster.
 
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if nothing else, hopefully this gets Chamberlain to update its firmware to use HomeKit natively (like Belkin just did with the Wemo Plug) and integrate Siri Shortcuts. I've used Homebridge to get around buying the Chamberlain hub, but I'd rather have native support.
 
While I don’t need it just yet, I might have to pick up 3 for the new house under construction. I’m currently using Homebridge with my iSY-994i and Insteon garage controller, and I’ve been spoiled.
 
So, will this notify you when your garage opens and close everytime, even when using my car's garage door opener? Just want to verify that. Sorry if dumb question. Thanks!
 
GDF said:
So, will this notify you when your garage opens and close everytime, even when using my car's garage door opener? Just want to verify that. Sorry if dumb question. Thanks!
Click to expand...

Not a dumb question. If you have notifications switched on, yes you will receive a notification every time the garage door is opened or closed regardless of how it is done. As with all HomeKit accessories, you can also setup notifications based on time of day and the presence of people. I chose to turn notifications off.
 
GDF said:
So, will this notify you when your garage opens and close everytime, even when using my car's garage door opener? Just want to verify that. Sorry if dumb question. Thanks!
Click to expand...

The Chamberlain MyQ app can be set up to notify you like that. I would think the others will do it too.
 
I want this, but we don't have an outlet in the opener in the roof so I don't know if I would be able to get it to work.
 
Mine's arriving tomorrow, looking forward to this. Most of my exterior human doors have been set up with sensors, this is the last major one to do - plus I can open/shut it remotely. Travel quite a bit, so won't have to worry about finding someone to close it for me manually if I'm away.
 
What are the use cases for this? So far in this thread:

  • Alert when open ended
  • Open remotely (to let someone in maybe)
  • And I suppose close the door if you think you forgot to or did forget.
Trying to figure out if it’d be worth the install, lol.

Edit: Gah! Looks like it is back up to full price...or maybe that is just because they are out of stock.
 
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Closing/opening from my watch or phone is a plus for me, since it means that I don’t have to remember to grab my garage door opener when I swap vehicles for testing. It doesn’t seem like much, but when I have to move 2 car seats as well, all the items that I can do without means a lot.
 
Installation was a breeze, works great!

Edited to add - it doesn't notify you when you use Siri/HomeKit to open/close the door, which makes sense. It does notify when it's opened in some other way, remote or wall switch.

Haven't tried to see if it will notify if manually opened yet.
 
MacintoshDan said:
I want this, but we don't have an outlet in the opener in the roof so I don't know if I would be able to get it to work.
Click to expand...
If you mean you don’t have mains power for a door opener, Ryobi makes one with both mains- and battery-power functionality.
 
Ordered one but just thought about a question:

With this set up in the Home app, can you use it remotely (via cellular service) to close the door? Or do you have to be within the home wifi?
 
JohnR said:
Ordered one but just thought about a question:

With this set up in the Home app, can you use it remotely (via cellular service) to close the door? Or do you have to be within the home wifi?
Click to expand...

You can definitely use it remotely too. As with all HomeKit products, they work remotely too as long as you have a home hub setup, such as an Apple TV or an iPad.
 
smithrh said:
Installation was a breeze, works great!

Edited to add - it doesn't notify you when you use Siri/HomeKit to open/close the door, which makes sense. It does notify when it's opened in some other way, remote or wall switch.

Haven't tried to see if it will notify if manually opened yet.
Click to expand...
I agree, installation in it was a lot easier than I expected. So far it’s working exactly as advertised. Curious to see how reliable and consistent it is. For 44 bucks I am sort of not expecting a long term durable thing!! But I’ll allow myself to be pleasantly surprised!!
 
Got this yesterday and was installing it on a Liftmaster 2265. It has quick connect slots. Has anyone installed this on the Liftmaster 2265 yet and if so, what quick connect slots do I use? I think the first two and on the Liftmaster quick connect it has red wire on first slot and white wire on second slot. So, do I connect red in first slot and then does black go on second? Thanks!
 
There should be (will be) two wires coming from your wall switch. Trace those back to the lifter.
 
Yes, but unfortunately all the wires go into the garage ceiling, so not really possible to trace.
 
I had four wires going into my motor, and couldn’t tell which ones went to the sensor and which went to the wall controller, so I did a little process of elimination testing. Took one pair out (making sure I noted which wire went where) plugged my opener back in and hit the wall button. Nothing happened so that told me I had the right pair of wires.
 
Curious if anyone setup anything special on this in Homekit. I assume you can set it to close garage door at 10pm if open? Any other cool ideas? So far, it is working very well!
 
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