You probably open and close your garage door several times a day. Like most of us, you also probably forget to close it every now and then, leaving your home and belongings vulnerable to uninvited guests. Thanks to modern technology, you don’t have to worry like you used to. With the rise of the smart home, it’s now possible to control your garage door, along with nearly everything else in your home, from any place you happen to be—right from your smartphone.
What’s a Smart Home?
The phrase “smart home” gets thrown around a lot, but what is it, exactly? One way to look at a smart home is as a home where the appliances are connected to the internet. This setup allows them to communicate with each other and a central interface, like a phone app or security system control panel to provide status updates and remote-control capabilities.
Connecting your garage door to your smart home system lets you check its status at a glance, along with the rest of your home, in tandem with your home security system. It also allows you to use your smartphone or a tablet to control the door, rather than worrying about keypad codes or carrying extra key fobs and remote controls. It also eliminates the range limit of those remotes, so you can shut your garage from downtown when you suddenly remember you left it open. This feature can improve your home’s resale value as well—now your garage door offers more than just curb appeal.
So now that you know why you want a smart garage door, let’s talk about how you set it up.
What You’ll Need
Integrating your garage door into your smart home setup is easier than you might think, but there are a couple things you’ll need to get started:
- A compatible garage door opener. First up, you’ll need a garage door opener that is compatible with your smart home system. For the most part, any system will work—one of the most popular smart garage door controllers, the Chamberlain MyQ, works with nearly every major brand and garage door manufactured after 1993.
- A Wi-Fi enabled garage door controller. Most garage doors come with their own remote controls, but to be able to use it with your smartphone, home security control panel, or voice assistant, you’ll need something to give it Wi-Fi access. Since the Chamberlain MyQ Smart Garage Hub is popular, that’s the example we’ll use.
Connecting Your Garage Door to Your Smart Home
All right, we’ve got the tools to get our garage door connected—let’s do this.
- Install the Chamberlain MyQ Smart Garage Hub in your garage.
- First, install the main hub unit on the ceiling of your garage next to your garage door opener’s motor. The hub comes with an installation kit and mounting bracket, so you’ll just need to supply the drill or screwdriver. You’ll also have to plug it in, so make sure there’s an outlet nearby—this is usually not a problem, since the garage door opener itself also needs to be plugged in.
- Mount the included sensor to your garage door to indicate to the system whether the door is open or closed. This sensor uses simple adhesive strips, so no need to do any drilling.
- Connect the MyQ Hub to your Wi-Fi network. Download the MyQ app for iPhone or Android and follow the instructions. The process is straightforward, especially if you’ve connected other smart home devices before. Just fire up the app, sign up for an account, and follow the instructions.
- Enjoy! You should now be able to control your garage door and get status updates using the MyQ app.
There. Now your garage door is “smart,” and you’re ready to leave those clunky remotes behind. (You can put them in the same box as your “dumb” phones collecting dust in the garage).
About the Author: Krystal Rogers-Nelson is a freelance writer with expertise in tech, family safety, home automation. As a homeowner and mother of a rambunctious toddler, she enjoys DIY house projects, gardening, and traveling.
