Ultimate Garage Door Control Setup

Wireless "clicker" garage door controls were likely pretty neat as they were introduced in the latter half of the 20th century, and one might argue they still get the job done well enough. Now that we’re well into the 2020s, however, perhaps it's time for an upgrade. Stephen Carey's Ultimate Garage Door Control not only raises and lowers two garage doors, but also reads whether each is fully up or fully down, and even its intermediate state via a Hall effect sensor.

The device's operation is described nicely in Carey's write-up, including a video of the controller interface. The interface shows the fully opened/closed state or an intermediate percentage, along with a video of the action. Things become interesting when the safety circuit trips via an errant scooter at the 20 second mark, keeping "Dad's Garage" from closing all the way.

Hardware-wise, the opener employs an ESP32 to control the garage doors through a pair of relays, and two reed switches per door show whether each is fully up or down. The open/closed percentage is calculated by a somewhat more complicated (and quite clever) Hall effect sensor/magnet setup. This can be configured to work via timing, or in a quadrature arrangement.

The project implements Home Assistant for its interface, along with MQTT to take care of notifications. Currently, the device uses Node-RED to text if the garage doors are open at midnight, and there are a number of other automations and upgrades that would be possible with this system.