Im looking for a device that will receive a command from my cellphone via WiFi, then send a radio frequency that will be cloned from my garage remote control and open my garage door.
All system I’ve seen have to be plugged into the garage door opener control unit. This is not going to work for me, I need the device to be away from the door control unit, and open it using a radio frequency just like pressing the button on the remote.
Just to clarify, the device will have internet connection via WiFi, but will not be connected to the Garage door unit. It will need to send a radio frequency code.
I have a bluetooth one that attaches to the door opener itself. It works the same as one attached to the button, but it is on the other end of that cable, at the motor.
I also saw this video a long time ago:
Rf is black magic to me. But if you can make some electronics that can open the door, you can make it work over wifi or bluetooth.
I also have to say that it seems fishy that you can’t attach a box inside the garage somewhere. Are you doing this legally?
I’m extremely doubtful that you will find an off-the-shelf solution. I’m not sure what the issue is with wiring to the control unit, but you can tie your control into any wired switch for the unit. So if there is a wired switch near an interior door, you can tie into those wires. If you want a RF solution, you will have to tie an IOT solution to something that generates the necessary signal. I see two pathways for generating that signal. You can either electrically or mechanically hack a second remote for the door, or you can create hardware to generate the signal. How hard it is to generate that signal will depend on the protocol used by the opener. As described in Jeff’s video, newer openers use rolling codes that are impossible to clone. Your electronics would have to emulate a second remote that is married to the unit. On the other hand, if you have an old garage opener, you can probably read the static 8-bit code directly off the back of the unit.
Here is a video of someone hacking/cloning a garage door unit. Seems complicated to me, but I only have a casual relationship with creating electronics. I think older garage doors can be emulated with simple RF modules. This same author has another video on hacking 433 MHz devices that might apply to an older garage door opener.
As a side note, his solution for his problem continuously sends the control signal any time his motorcycle is running. I wonder if any other garage doors with the same code are in his town.
I don’t want to sound suspicious so… its not my house garage, is the door that opens up to my neighborhood driveway. So I could wire it but then no wifi to reach it.
Also, I have no idea how that door works?, I would probably have to hire someone to do the wiring.
BTW, it is not a rolling code, it is Fixed. I have cloned it several times with universal remotes.
Too bad there is not a off the shelves solution for this.
You want an app (or web page, or whatever) that can open a garage door opener device. You do not want to connect it to a wired button. I would surmise that this is possibly because the wired button and opener unit is out of your home wifi range (As it is for my garage.) So you want something to basically open the door from within your home.
I would probably hack a Raspberry Pi to press the button on a remote. A couple of wires to a small relay would do the trick nicely. Most garage door openers run on a fairly limited RF range, and have inexpensive substitutes available. You need only open yours, read the dipswitch code from yours and duplicate it on the second unit. This is probably the most inexpensive route to generating the coded frequency pulse to open the door. Now the question is will you be in wifi range of the Raspberry Pi, or will you need to have Internet access.
If you will be in range of the Pi, then most secure would be to run the Pi as an access point. This way, you are only vulnerable from within a very small geographical area, someone would need to be in range of your house in order to hack into the garage door opener. (Did I hear something about access to an alleyway?) I suppose something similar might work for access to underground parking at an apartment building or condo complex, provided of course that you can open the door from within your unit.
If you will not be in range of the Pi, you will need Internet access. There are a number of ways to accomplish this with relatively secure means, but I’d highly recommend implementing an access log so you can be sure that nobody is opening and closing the gate at random times just because they can.
I believe this is how the MyQ garage door opener functions. You use your existing wireless remote to set up the MyQ just like you would the button in a car. You’d have to open an app on the phone in order to open the door. It does work with IFTTT, so you may be able to use geofencing to trigger it.
