To avoid these ads, REGISTER NOW!

Controls for 8 garage door openers?

J

jmroach

Member
Joined
Dec 2, 2012
Messages
14
I just posted a kind of boring question here, but this one is a bit more fun. I'm in early construction on a pretty large garage addition to a house. The addition is ~30x40 main area with an additional bay for a lift to the side w/ 2 bedrooms upstairs-- see foundation print below to get an idea. There will be about a 10' pass-through from the existing 3-car garage to the addition. The new garage will be used for hobby furniture-making (woodworking + welding) and general automotive stuff.

The new garage will have 3 driveway-facing overhead doors and 2 backyard-facing glass overhead doors. The existing garage is getting new Liftmaster 8900W openers and the new garage will have 8500W openers on all 5 doors.

So I'll have 8 garage doors... Thoughts on how to control all of these? The myQ app is certainly an option. I'm leaning toward a custom 5-switch panel in the new garage and a 3-switch panel in the existing garage.

Thanks!

-john



1701363237001.png
 

Attachments

  • 1701363124334.png
    1701363124334.png
    251.9 KB · Views: 4
To avoid these ads, REGISTER NOW!
M

MOS3522

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 6, 2022
Messages
1,784
Location
Colorado
I was just researching a similar issue although I only have 5 garage doors to control. There are a few Chamberlain and Liftmaster compatible remotes on Amazon that do 4 doors - wondered if that was as good as I would do without too much trouble. I don't want to move to internet reliant options.

 
OP
J

jmroach

Member
Joined
Dec 2, 2012
Messages
14
2Fast said:
If you want to get into Z-Wave home automation, take a look at the Zen-16 multi-relay by Zooz

Zooz ZEN16 MultiRelay – ZOOZ

www.getzooz.com www.getzooz.com

How to Use the ZEN16 MultiRelay as a Garage Door Opener on Hubitat

www.support.getzooz.com www.support.getzooz.com
Click to expand...

I like this idea, but I'm somewhat apprehensive about adding to my 'smart' stuff. I currently have about a dozen smart switches, some leak detectors, TVs, a few bulbs, etc. running through a SmartThings hub. Honestly, I haven't been overly impressed. For the automated switches in daily routines, I seem to get 12-24mo out of the switches before they fail. I've tried 4-5 brands with the same results... Device actions also seem to fail intermittently without reason... Probably fodder for a different thread though...
 
W

wssix99

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 2, 2011
Messages
5,161
Location
Chicago, IL
My first thought is to just have the butler keep 8 separate remotes in their pocket, label them and just have him mind things.

Thinking back a few years and re-living my hell with 3 Liftmaster 8500 units (the doors would randomly open all by themselves), I'm not sure I would want this number of garage door openers for security reasons. After going through that experience, I would look to keep some doors manual and others on a push-button switch inside the building.

If you aren't familiar with the 8500 control failures, you might read about them some and contemplate how such a think could affect your planned system.
 
OP
J

jmroach

Member
Joined
Dec 2, 2012
Messages
14
wssix99 said:
My first thought is to just have the butler keep 8 separate remotes in their pocket, label them and just have him mind things.

Thinking back a few years and re-living my hell with 3 Liftmaster 8500 units (the doors would randomly open all by themselves), I'm not sure I would want this number of garage door openers for security reasons. After going through that experience, I would look to keep some doors manual and others on a push-button switch inside the building.

If you aren't familiar with the 8500 control failures, you might read about them some and contemplate how such a think could affect your planned system.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the input & agree. It looked to me like many of the failures were tied to an issue w/ the control board ~2017. I'll definitely do a bit more reading though. I'm getting the 5 new openers installed, so I'm a little constrained on the openers I can use (residential, etc.) All 5 will be installed on high-lift track so I'll be using jack-shaft type openers.
 
B

BrandonV

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 9, 2023
Messages
4,030
Location
Arizona
If the openers support regular switched operation, I'd just go with momentary 24V Decora style switches.

56080-2W

56080-2w
www.leviton.com www.leviton.com
 
To avoid these ads, REGISTER NOW!
OP
J

jmroach

Member
Joined
Dec 2, 2012
Messages
14
Good to know on myQ... I'm on iOS, but that's not surprising.

The switches the 8900 comes with are very simple momentary switches. It looks like the 8500s come with fancier versions of the same (the terminals & setup of the opener look identical).

I wouldn't be surprised if the 8900 and 8500 were the exact same unit but come with different accessories. Does anyone know?

@BrandonV I built a switch panel with these (https://newwiremarine.com/marine-grade-switches/contura-ii/switch-combos/) for my Land Rover Defender and was thinking of similar for the custom garage switch panel.
 
K

Kezorm

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 18, 2021
Messages
174
Location
Twin Cities, MN
I believe the 8900 uses "Security+ 2.0" which means a simple dry contact switch won't work to open / close the door. (at least that is what my research has indicated on the 8500W)

See RATDGO (Rage Against The Garage Door Opener)

"Security+ 2.0 uses an encrypted serial signal to control the door opener’s open/close and light functions, which makes it impossible to use Shelly One, Go Control, Insteon I/O linc or any other dry contact relay device to control the door. "
 
W

walta

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 13, 2017
Messages
2,311
Location
Dutzow Missouri
The 8500W is Security 2.0 what that means is normal wired contact switches are not compatible with the opener and will not make the door open. The instructions say you may only have one wires control for each opener but it seems that people have connected 2 and had it work someone said they tried 3 and had problems.

Each opener will come with a wall panel and you can order 883LMW as a second wired button indoors.

Outdoors you can get one or more wireless keypads and program a different 4 digit code for each opener. Note when you press the enter key on the wire less keypad every open door programed into that keypad will close. This is neat sometimes and terrible other times.

Lift master sells a remote with 4 buttons to put in the cars.

Does anyone know the difference between 883lm and 883lmw besides the price?
 
J

JunkBonds

Well-known member
Joined
May 19, 2011
Messages
1,005
dcg9381 said:
Hasn't worked great for me on Android. It routinely refuses to do anything.. I can usually get it to do something by restarting the app. The controller is hard wired (Cat6). Mine may be an isolated experience?
Click to expand...
I don't know what to say.

It worked fine on my Blackberry. I have since gone to the Apple iPhone 14 and it works. I bought an Apple watch a month ago and it works really nicely on it.
 
OP
J

jmroach

Member
Joined
Dec 2, 2012
Messages
14
Kezorm said:
I believe the 8900 uses "Security+ 2.0" which means a simple dry contact switch won't work to open / close the door. (at least that is what my research has indicated on the 8500W)

See RATDGO (Rage Against The Garage Door Opener)

"Security+ 2.0 uses an encrypted serial signal to control the door opener’s open/close and light functions, which makes it impossible to use Shelly One, Go Control, Insteon I/O linc or any other dry contact relay device to control the door. "
Click to expand...

Security+ 2.0 certainly looks like a solution in search of a problem...

Note that the LJ8900W says it uses Security+ 2.0, but I can confirm that a normal "dry contact" switch is what it ships with. Ie. simply completing the circuit between the terminals activates the open/close functions.
 
D

dcg9381

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 20, 2018
Messages
11,767
Location
Austin, TX
JunkBonds said:
I don't know what to say.

It worked fine on my Blackberry. I have since gone to the Apple iPhone 14 and it works. I bought an Apple watch a month ago and it works really nicely on it.
Click to expand...
Glad we are seeing some counter-reports on it... I haven't really chased it as it's on a door that isn't opened very much.
 
H

Higgins

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 25, 2009
Messages
1,935
Location
Shepheardsville, KY
jmroach said:
I just posted a kind of boring question here, but this one is a bit more fun. I'm in early construction on a pretty large garage addition to a house. The addition is ~30x40 main area with an additional bay for a lift to the side w/ 2 bedrooms upstairs-- see foundation print below to get an idea. There will be about a 10' pass-through from the existing 3-car garage to the addition. The new garage will be used for hobby furniture-making (woodworking + welding) and general automotive stuff.

The new garage will have 3 driveway-facing overhead doors and 2 backyard-facing glass overhead doors. The existing garage is getting new Liftmaster 8900W openers and the new garage will have 8500W openers on all 5 doors.

So I'll have 8 garage doors... Thoughts on how to control all of these? The myQ app is certainly an option. I'm leaning toward a custom 5-switch panel in the new garage and a 3-switch panel in the existing garage.

Thanks!

-john



1701363237001.png
Click to expand...
Let me know what you find as we have one garage with 4 doors and the house has 2 .
 
P

P0234

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 6, 2012
Messages
3,241
Location
NoVA
dcg9381 said:
Hasn't worked great for me on Android. It routinely refuses to do anything.. I can usually get it to do something by restarting the app. The controller is hard wired (Cat6). Mine may be an isolated experience?
Click to expand...

I'm a little late to the party but I've had the same issues with MyQ. The app is way too darn slow. Part of the issue absolutely is my phones wavering between wifi and LTE however there are times even when things are perfect that it takes 5, 10, 30 seconds to open the door. Other times it refuses and that app has to be restarted. After countless times of having to go inside and open the door old school style I built my own.

I used this guys instructions:

kevinsaye.wordpress.com

Using Home Assistant, ESPHome, ESP8266, Optocouplers and a Universal Remotes (G953EV-P2) to control your garage doors

Often when leaving my house, I wonder “did I close the garage door”? Once I understand if the door is open or closed, the next challenge remotely is “how do I close it?” In …
kevinsaye.wordpress.com kevinsaye.wordpress.com

Zero lag now, I hit the button and before I can look up the door is already going up.
 
S

Sumboodie

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 20, 2021
Messages
10,697
Location
AK
We had Liftmaster at work.

Just typed in the door number and then the code. Had probably 30 doors between 4 buildings. Door number sticker on the door.

Id imagine a version without a code could be done too, just it was in a SIDA so had to be coded.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
To avoid these ads, REGISTER NOW!
Top Bottom