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

[JohnR]

Mine arrived today, installed it. It works but initially it gave a warning (!) when I hit Open then hit it again to close it. Apparently it doesn't like it if you change your mind midway?

Other than that, simple install!

 

[smithrh]

I'll have to test that - normally, if I were to press the remote or door button while the door was moving, it would just stop, so it wouldn't be open or closed.

 

[dotme]

Was wondering if anyone can give me a tip here. Installed this last night and all seems to be working as intended. I have the icon in my Home app, and can control the door via Siri etc.

My better half is on my "People" list under the home, meaning she's an authorized user. But the Insignia Garage Door isn't appearing on her Home app. She can see all of our other Homekit devices, just not this one. This is our first "entrance-type" homekit device (all the others are lights, switches and sensors) but I'm stumped as to why she can't see or control this product. Is there a restriction on guest capabilities when it comes to locks and doors?

Have any of you with a significant other sharing your Home run into this? Any tips on how I can get the garage door to appear in her Home app like everything else? Thanks in advance.

 

[AJS-Mac]

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!

I was also looking to add some automation to ensure the garage door was not left open by accident, which was the main reason for my purchase. I found some suggested automations on a reddit thread and decided to setup the following automation. Thanks to user TheKrs1 on reddit for this idea.

Automation 1: When garage door opens > iDevices smart plug night light turns on
Automation 2: When someone leaves home > iDevices smart plug night light turns off
Automation 3: When iDevices smart plug night light turns off > Close garage door

With these 3 automations, you are never asked if the automation should run. They just trigger automatically. Obviously, you can use any light or switch that is HomeKit controlled for use in this automation. I just used a night light on switch that is never used anyway.I have had this setup for a couple of days and it has worked successfully so far.

Has anyone else setup any automations for your garage door?

 

[Treebark]

When you all tested your connection to the garage opener by pressing the little button on the insignia opener...did that work well and allow you to put the garage door up and down with two presses?

I've fiddled with wrapping the wires and inserting them a few time now, but when I get to the point where it says to test the connection by pressing the insignia remote button it rarely works. Maybe I am just twisty-wire challenged.

 

[GDF]

I was also looking to add some automation to ensure the garage door was not left open by accident, which was the main reason for my purchase. I found some suggested automations on a reddit thread and decided to setup the following automation. Thanks to user TheKrs1 on reddit for this idea.

Automation 1: When garage door opens > iDevices smart plug night light turns on
Automation 2: When someone leaves home > iDevices smart plug night light turns off
Automation 3: When iDevices smart plug night light turns off > Close garage door

With these 3 automations, you are never asked if the automation should run. They just trigger automatically. Obviously, you can use any light or switch that is HomeKit controlled for use in this automation. I just used a night light on switch that is never used anyway.I have had this setup for a couple of days and it has worked successfully so far.

Has anyone else setup any automations for your garage door?

Thanks I created the automation 3 above and works great. Amazing what these smart devices can do!

 

[imac wannabe]

I installed it last night and I can say it was just a piece of cake! Only issue is the garage door open/close indicator has a burned out led but works perfectly. I may contact insignia for a new one but probably not...

 

[imac wannabe]

Ok so had something weird happen today. My wife was leaving the house and said to our HomePod “Hey Siri open the garage door”. Siri asked for authentication on my phone before it would continue. She is part of our Home was invited by me and accepted...what’s going on?

Paul

 

[smithrh]

I think that's as designed - prevents people from outside your house yelling at your HomePod to open the door...

 

[jljue]

The only way to open a garage door or unlock a door without authentication at them time of request by calling out an “open” command is by Apple Watch from my experience. You already authenticate your watch when you put it on, so the assumption is that your are still the authorized user until you take off the watch.

 

[imac wannabe]

I think that's as designed - prevents people from outside your house yelling at your HomePod to open the door...

But what if not home, how does she open it? Other than open the app...am I the only one that can use Siri? Makes no sense.‍♂️

 

[dukebound85]

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.

just having the peace of mind being able to check that your garage is CLOSED makes it worth it

 

[MistrSynistr]

Good way to spy on your wife.

 

[212rikanmofo]

I was also looking to add some automation to ensure the garage door was not left open by accident, which was the main reason for my purchase. I found some suggested automations on a reddit thread and decided to setup the following automation. Thanks to user TheKrs1 on reddit for this idea.

Automation 1: When garage door opens > iDevices smart plug night light turns on
Automation 2: When someone leaves home > iDevices smart plug night light turns off
Automation 3: When iDevices smart plug night light turns off > Close garage door

With these 3 automations, you are never asked if the automation should run. They just trigger automatically. Obviously, you can use any light or switch that is HomeKit controlled for use in this automation. I just used a night light on switch that is never used anyway.I have had this setup for a couple of days and it has worked successfully so far.

Has anyone else setup any automations for your garage door?

So basically the nightlight is being used to indicate the status of the garage door? If so that's cool. I was wondering if I can set up a similar automation for my front door. I use an August Smart Lock Pro. Would be nice to look at my night light to see whether the door is locked or unlocked.

 

[yass31]

Ok so had something weird happen today. My wife was leaving the house and said to our HomePod “Hey Siri open the garage door”. Siri asked for authentication on my phone before it would continue. She is part of our Home was invited by me and accepted...what’s going on?

Paul

Personal requests from your Homepod are associated to your iCloud account that's why.
If she has an iPhone, she could ask Siri on it to open the door and you won't have any authentication to make I think.

 

[AJS-Mac]

So basically the nightlight is being used to indicate the status of the garage door? If so that's cool. I was wondering if I can set up a similar automation for my front door. I use an August Smart Lock Pro. Would be nice to look at my night light to see whether the door is locked or unlocked.

I don't see why not. As long as your lock and status (locked/unlocked) is available within HomeKit, then you can add an automation and include any of the usual parameters and conditions (location, time of day, person presence etc.).

 

[smithrh]

The nightlight idea is a good one, I just did that as I had one handy.

I also have a daily automation (well, nightly really) where every night I close the door.

If it's already closed, nothing happens. But if it's open, it will close then.

This way, I don't even have to notice, it will eventually close each night.

 

[GDF]

So, my insignia garage door opener has been working great until recently. Now in Homekit it always shows open even though it is not. Not sure what the issue is. Anyone else experience this?

 

[Bfarmer38119]

So, my insignia garage door opener has been working great until recently. Now in Homekit it always shows open even though it is not. Not sure what the issue is. Anyone else experience this?

I have had to reset the controller and sensor sync to deal with most problems. Hope this helps you.

 

[GDF]

Thanks - seems like a pain to keep doing that though. They need to have firmware updates to fix this stuff, otherwise I will just return it. Good concept, just needs to consistently works.

 

[GDF]

So, got it working again, the sensor somehow got misaligned. Guess it is very sensative. Now for some reason, notifications don't work anymore. Anyone else ever have that issue and if so, how was that resolved? Thanks!

 

[dotme]

So, got it working again, the sensor somehow got misaligned. Guess it is very sensative. Now for some reason, notifications don't work anymore. Anyone else ever have that issue and if so, how was that resolved? Thanks!

No push notifications here either. Stopped working probably around Dec 22nd or so. I've disabled and re-enabled push, still no-go. Homekit is able to show me the status of the door (open or closed) when I open the "room" so it's not that there's no communication. Just no push notifications any more. Wife's phone has the same problem.

 

[GDF]

No push notifications here either. Stopped working probably around Dec 22nd or so. I've disabled and re-enabled push, still no-go. Homekit is able to show me the status of the door (open or closed) when I open the "room" so it's not that there's no communication. Just no push notifications any more. Wife's phone has the same problem.

Interesting, as that is around the time I stopped getting notifications. I wonder what happened?

 

[dotme]

Interesting, as that is around the time I stopped getting notifications. I wonder what happened?

Me too. Haven't had much time yet to run this down, but I'm going to try a few things today, and if I get it resolved I'll post back.

 

[dontwalkhand]

I have MyQ equipment already, I think it is more cost effective for me to get the Home Bridge at this point, then trying to figure out how to wire this thing, and ripping out what is already there, etc.