Garage Door Integration Plan Review

[cdcllc]

A while back I posted that my dealer wanted to charge me to come out and plan my garage door integration (still never recovered from MyQ driver fail).  My new plan is to do the design and install myself and have my dealer do the programming plus provide the 2 Z2IOs (I have 2 garage doors).  My request to this group is help reviewing the plan to see if I learned what I was supposed to from all the great previous posts on this topic - thanks in advance.

My goals are to control the opening/closing of the garage doors with Control4, display the current open/closed status of the garage doors, carry over the previous programming I had on buttons related to coordinated lighting, plus introduce new push notifications of door open too long, etc.  The components that I believe will provide those capabilities are:

• 2 x Z2IOs to provide the relay control and contact sensing capabilities; I think I have Zigbee presence in the garages now via switches for outdoor lights plus in the rooms immediately adjacent
• 2 X Liftmaster Security+ 2.0 Dry Contact Adaptors to provide the interface between the Z2IO relay control and Liftmaster motors
• 2 X Rail mounted magnetic contact sensors

I included a diagram of the connections.  I plan to mount the Z2IOs and Dry Contact Adaptors on the ceiling above the Liftmaster motors.  I'm lucky in that as part of the original install, Cat 5 cables were run inside the walls from the garage door safety sensors back to the motors - I plan to utilize an unused pair in the Cat 5 run to get the contact sensors presence back to the Z2IOs.  Power for the Z2IOs will come from the "wall" outlet in the ceiling serving the motors.

The biggest risk I see in the project is Zigbee presence in the garage.  I believe it's there, but I don't have a meter or anything to validate it.  Do SR260's run on Zigbee or wifi?  Maybe I could test control with an SR up by the motor?  Does it look like I have wiring termination points correct?

Here are the specific parts I plan on purchasing:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KYGJT4W/ref=nav_timeline_asin?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.garadget.com/product/security-2-0-dry-contact-adapter/

I considered the NYCE tilt sensors, but ended up selecting the magnetic contact sensors so there are no batteries and my perception of less maintenance with the wired sensors.

I'm currently on v3.0.0 and want to upgrade to most current version via this install.

Finally, any recommendations for automation / notification that you find most useful?

Thanks for your help - it is greatly appreciated.

[joecheech]

Not sure if one Z2IO can do two doors and two contact sensors or if it is limited to just one per unit, but I know that the Axxess Relay and Contact Sensor can because that's what I have in my 2-door setup. 

https://www.axxind.com/smarthome/relay-contact-sensor/

Otherwise looks fine.

[DawnGordon]

On Z2IO I think you can have either two contacts, or two relays, or one relay and one contact. 

 

[Neo1738]

Or get wireless NYCE Tilt sensors and use 1x Z2IO for relay for the doors. NYCE work great and they're so small don't even notice them.

[OceanDad]

2 hours ago, DawnGordon said:

On Z2IO I think you can have either two contacts, or two relays, or one relay and one contact. 

 

1. Two Relays/No Contacts
2. Four Contacts/No Relays
3. One Relay/Two Contacts

I love the Z2IO - it's a Swiss army knife that does a lot of things for reasonable money (repeater/IR/temperature as well), but in this case it can't do both doors independently with inbuilt contact sensing.

[DanITman]

You can save some cash by not spending a ton on the contact sensors.  Just buy some cheap read switches and mount them near the top of the door.  It will work just as well. No need to mount something on the rails. 

On the back of the EA5, just take wires from one of your relays and solder it to a remote.  If you go this route you won't need a z2io but you'll want to pick up a cheap WCS10A-2 which can read both doors.

[Pounce]

I say good plan. You have clearly researched.

[Chico]

OP, use two contacts. One for when the garage is open and one for when it's closed. 

[anon2828]

Or we could all just push Liftmaster / Chamberlain to bring back a driver that actually works.  This is crazy the amount of reverse engineering that is going into making our garage doors work property on Control4.  Also insane that Clare controls has a MyQ integration and they are owned by SnapAV who also owns Control4...ugh

[cdcllc]

Thank you to all - very helpful responses.

14 hours ago, Chico said:

OP, use two contacts. One for when the garage is open and one for when it's closed. 

Interesting idea - do you have logic that says if door was status=closed and is now neither closed nor open then status="opening"; if the door was status=open and is now neither open nor closed then status="closing"?  Any other alerts/automation driven off of "closing" and "opening" status?

13 hours ago, anon2828 said:

Or we could all just push Liftmaster / Chamberlain to bring back a driver that actually works.  This is crazy the amount of reverse engineering that is going into making our garage doors work property on Control4.  Also insane that Clare controls has a MyQ integration and they are owned by SnapAV who also owns Control4...ugh

I agree it would be much simpler if Liftmaster / Chamberlain would support an official API.  But even then, if they didn't change their architecture, I would still be subject to internet connectivity issues as well as delays in status change.  Not life-changing issues for sure (because I had the original MyQ integration and lived with it just fine), but at least I feel like I'm getting some sort of return on my "sweat" investment.  The $$'s don't seem awful so far - the adapters are $20 each and the contact sensors are $16 each.  Still don't know the cost of the Z2IOs, but I'm sure it will be significantly more than the other parts.  And there are other suggested options from posters above that I can consider to reduce my overall cost.

[RyanE]

4 hours ago, cdcllc said:

Interesting idea - do you have logic that says if door was status=closed and is now neither closed nor open then status="opening"; if the door was status=open and is now neither open nor closed then status="closing"?  Any other alerts/automation driven off of "closing" and "opening" status?

If you use the Garage Door Experience Button, you get events for Opening, Open, Closing, and Closed, as well as the visual of the current status of the door, including 'partially open'.

It works with 1, 2, or 3 relays, and with 1 or 2 contacts.

Most common usage would be a single toggle relay and a single 'closed' contact, but at my house, I have it hooked up with 2 relays, one to indicate fully closed, the other to indicate fully opened.

RyanE

Edited to add: OK, just checked, it doesn't have separate events for closing / opening, but it has an event for when it enters 'partial' state, so you still have to keep track of whether it was open or closed before getting that event, and then you can easily determine opening and closing.  Sorry.

It also has a 'Still Open' event, which you can use to indicate that the door has been open a certain amount of time, settable in the driver.

[DanITman]

Garry has an open source driver to help with the partial state of a garage door. Since the c4 version doesn’t support this.  Here is Garry’s open source driver for it. I haven’t gotten this to work just yet as I’m still building out the partially open state and using this driver as my framework. 
 

https://github.com/garrynewman/Control4.GarrysGarage
 

I use tilt sensors on my Honeywell system. The tilt sensors have an additional loop where you can hardwire a contact sensor. I wired this up to a magnet when fully closed or fully open. This allows me to see if the garage is partially open or not. For the garage to show fully open the title sensor needs to be open and the partially open contact needs to be closed. 

[vitali]

I have working system (thank to forum). Garage gate connected to security system and gates are defined as "zone for automation" (DSC power has that option). I got cheap remote that controls gates and connected to controller's relay. Works so far. (lift master solution looks great!!! Didn't know about that device). I even connected it to Alexa and made it working with Siri (home kit) didn't try with Google. Made scene for kids "Alexa open Sesame" and " Siri open Sesame". (worked around a bit, but got it working )They like it. Can share the recipe. 

[zaphod]

Is there any reason why I can't use a regular magnetic door sensor for my garage doors?  I have wooden garage doors and I have temporarily screwed the magnet onto the side of the door and put the sensor on the door frame.  It seems to work fine.  What advantage is there in a specific "garage" door sensor?

[cdepaola]

I’m ditching Liftmaster and moving to Genie on all future projects. Chamberlain group have been and continue to have the worst customer service. The best way to show your unhappiness is with your pocketbook.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[msgreenf]

Love the Genie I installed 2 weeks ago

[zaphod]

Does Genie have an open API that works with C4?

[msgreenf]

they have a free certified driver

[RyanE]

3 hours ago, zaphod said:

Is there any reason why I can't use a regular magnetic door sensor for my garage doors?  I have wooden garage doors and I have temporarily screwed the magnet onto the side of the door and put the sensor on the door frame.  It seems to work fine.  What advantage is there in a specific "garage" door sensor?

The biggest advantage is that specific Garage Door sensors are wider gap, and have better mounting options, that move the magnet further away from the track.

My first 17 years in our new home, I used standard wide-gap sensors (3" wide), but the magnet on them wore out because it would occasionally rub against the track as the door went up/down.

I've now put in proper garage door buttons, and that problem won't happen again.  I also put in both 'opened' and 'closed' sensors while I was at it, although the 'fully open' sensor isn't as useful as I'd hoped, other than to properly show 'partial' status on the garage door UIButton.

RyanE

 

Edited to add: They're also made specifically to mount *on* the track, in a way that doesn't interfere with the track wheels, etc.  The wide gap I had previously, I had to hack a way to make it work.  The Garage Door-specific sensors are nicer to mount.

[zaphod]

Thanks folks.  I have mine mounted on the door so that they can sense closed. I don't really care about partially open - I care more about closed, and not closed.

The gap is about 5mm but it doesn't rub on anything - at least not for now.  That could change I guess as the wooden door may expand and contract with weather and also be affected by ice on the floor causing the door to shift.

[Neo1738]

Using the NYCE tilt sensors and they work great for what I need. Stupid easy and small too. 

[jcn]

On 9/9/2020 at 9:41 AM, cdcllc said:

A while back I posted that my dealer wanted to charge me to come out and plan my garage door integration (still never recovered from MyQ driver fail).  My new plan is to do the design and install myself and have my dealer do the programming plus provide the 2 Z2IOs (I have 2 garage doors).  My request to this group is help reviewing the plan to see if I learned what I was supposed to from all the great previous posts on this topic - thanks in advance.

My goals are to control the opening/closing of the garage doors with Control4, display the current open/closed status of the garage doors, carry over the previous programming I had on buttons related to coordinated lighting, plus introduce new push notifications of door open too long, etc.  The components that I believe will provide those capabilities are:

• 2 x Z2IOs to provide the relay control and contact sensing capabilities; I think I have Zigbee presence in the garages now via switches for outdoor lights plus in the rooms immediately adjacent
• 2 X Liftmaster Security+ 2.0 Dry Contact Adaptors to provide the interface between the Z2IO relay control and Liftmaster motors
• 2 X Rail mounted magnetic contact sensors

I included a diagram of the connections.  I plan to mount the Z2IOs and Dry Contact Adaptors on the ceiling above the Liftmaster motors.  I'm lucky in that as part of the original install, Cat 5 cables were run inside the walls from the garage door safety sensors back to the motors - I plan to utilize an unused pair in the Cat 5 run to get the contact sensors presence back to the Z2IOs.  Power for the Z2IOs will come from the "wall" outlet in the ceiling serving the motors.

The biggest risk I see in the project is Zigbee presence in the garage.  I believe it's there, but I don't have a meter or anything to validate it.  Do SR260's run on Zigbee or wifi?  Maybe I could test control with an SR up by the motor?  Does it look like I have wiring termination points correct?

Here are the specific parts I plan on purchasing:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KYGJT4W/ref=nav_timeline_asin?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.garadget.com/product/security-2-0-dry-contact-adapter/

I considered the NYCE tilt sensors, but ended up selecting the magnetic contact sensors so there are no batteries and my perception of less maintenance with the wired sensors.

I'm currently on v3.0.0 and want to upgrade to most current version via this install.

Finally, any recommendations for automation / notification that you find most useful?

Thanks for your help - it is greatly appreciated.

Did you test it and works?

[cdcllc]

@jcn  Not yet.  I don't have the Z2IO's.  I'm guessing within the next 2-3 weeks I'll report my outcome - and I will document the install experience.

[cdcllc]

I implemented the design and I'm happy to report it works great!  Thank you to all that helped with review/comments and special thanks to @msgreenf for a great job with all the programming and @chopedogg88for excellent service providing the C4 parts I needed.  I highly recommend both of them any time you need assistance.  This was my first experience with remote support and I'll do it again without hesitation.

The responsiveness of the Z2IO-based solution is incredibly different than the MyQ integration solution plus I really like the C4 "garage door" experience button.  Although I allowed for their future addition, I chose not to add a second contact sensor to indicate "fully open" at this time - just one contact sensor for now.  Here are some photos I took to document the install:

1. Cat5 installed for the garage door obstruction sensors I used to piggy back the contact sensor
2. Selecting the location of the contact sensor
3. Installing the contact sensor - they don't come with installation instructions and it took me a bit to figure it out!!
4. Wiring the LiftMaster Security+ adapter and ready for Z2IO install
5. Z2IO install showing wiring hook-ups plus final install pic - looks a little busy, but it's on the ceiling above the motor and the items are small so you really don't see it.  The additional item plugged into the surge protector is a LiftMaster Security+ repeater for an older car - it is not part of the C4-garage door integration solution.

I'd be happy to answer any questions if you would have, but I'll need Mitch's help with any Composer-related questions!

[anon2828]

Absolutely impressive, yet absolutely ridiculous that any of us have to engineer a solution for a garage door opener brand that is the market leader.

Anyone from Control4 / SnapAV on here should be embarrassed and work with MyQ to get this fixed.   There is zero reason (yes, I understand, money) that this can't be a simple driver solution as it once was.  If MyQ is working with Clare Controls (also a SnapAV brand) why in the earth can't they figure it out for Control4?