Garage Door Hardwire Question

Hello!

I am new to Indigo (actually still considering it) but have a few questions around garage door integration.

I am partial to hardwired (and IP solutions) but for right now what I am trying to do is control both of my garage doors so that they would automatically close every night at sunset, if they are open.

I have already installed GE magnetic garage door sensors on each garage door connected to cat5 run to a central location, and I have cat5 setup to each of the garage door openers relay inputs. I know everything works because it was previously setup with a Savant automation system and worked fine. I have moved on from Savant and trying to do things myself. I would prefer not use a wireless and/or battery sensors. And I would prefer not to use Insteon or Z-wave. I see something called EasyDAQ that is a sensor / relay option or something like the global cache GC100-12 that has both relay and sensor inputs.

So I would like something hard wired that knows when the sensor shows the garage door as open, then close the door at sunset. However, if the garage door is closed, then it will do nothing.

I also have a RadioRa2 system and could get the Visor control if Indigo is able to make use of those contact sensors. I would prefer I guess either the hardwired solution with Global Cache or if EasyDAQ work or with Radio Ra2 Visor control.

I would also like to make sure that the garage doors to do not get triggered to open when a unit power cycles. The Savant unit would do this and it was very unsafe. So make sure that whatever relays are used do not 'reset' or cause something to open if the power goes out and back on.

Thanks and look forward to seeing what can be done here.

I'm doing something similar with my driveway gate.

I don't use easydac or global cache products, but I did a more DIY solution with a raspberry and a relay and a limit switch. The easydac and global cache solutions look a little more robust and purpose built than what I did, but basically what you are trying to achieve is certainly possible.

I don't know the easydac and global cache products, so I can not confirm they would do exactly what you need though.

About the gate opening on power cycles, this depends on the type of contacts used by your gate motor and the relay used. If the motor expects a NO contact (I think it does), than you need to have a NO contact relay. Many relays have both options ( either NO or NC), but I'm not sure with integrated products such as the Global cache or easydac.

Another thing to find out is how they transmit if and when the sensor is open/closed, and if it can trigger an action directly inside Indigo or not. Their api should be flexible enough to open an external URL (external being your Indigo server, and the URL is the action that is called in Indigo).

Hmm .... I've been up to something similar, but on a very DIY basis!
I've had success with the excellent Indigo Arduino plugin, with Hall effect sensors and/or the ultrasonic distance measuring devices. Low cost IP solution, but wireless is a bit of a pain (trialling TPLink WR702 connected to Arduino with Ethernet).

Also had a play with the MySensor plugin that also uses Arduino's with separate radio network interfacing to Indigo via a USB connected Arduino gateway. However this doesn't appear to be as well supported as the Arduino plugin.

Longer term, I'm thinking that something like the Sparkfun Thing might just be the solution, using battery and wifi - but my software skills are just not up to that!


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Thanks for the replies. It looks like I may have to get something like the GC100-12 and give this a shot but it looks possible.

Since you are already using Radio Ra2, I'd suggest going with the visor control. It's got the inputs and outputs to let you see the status of the doors and close them. You could easily put the sunset logic into indigo.

More importantly, I like having systems fail gracefully, so if your indigo server is rebooting or hosed, you can still open or close your garage using RR2 controls, which are basically bulletproof.

Another nice thing is you can program the homelink buttons in your car to activate lighting/shading scenes....

That is what I was thinking but I called Lutron and they said this won't work with RA2 software so are you 100% sure the Visor control will work with Indigo to have this logic built in and it has enough ports on it for 2 sensors and 2 relays?

The visor control has at least two inputs and outputs. The specs are online. I'm at work so I can't check mine to get the exact number.

Indigo can talk to RR2 - there is a plugin that works well. I am not sure if Indigo can directly trigger the contact closures to close the garage, but it can push a keypad button that closes the garage, so that's the same thing.

Likewise, I forget off the top of my head if indigo can read the status of the vcrx inputs directly or if you need to read them off a phantom button/LED, but either way it can be done.

There were good discussions on the Lutron boards about ways to only shut a garage door if it's open - you basically put a relay (activated by a garage door sensor) across the wires that send the signal to close the garage door.

https://forums.lutron.com/showthread.ph ... or-Control

https://forums.lutron.com/showthread.ph ... rs-if-open