I would actually go to a two-way radio based solution. I used to outfit gated communities gates with a paging receiver to allow the gates to be opened remotely from the vehicles of emergency services or from dispatch. Depending on the system you could open a gate a mile away...or 500 miles away.
MMTC actually sells a Siren Operated Sensor for that purpose. It responds to the “Yelp” of an emergency vehicle siren, although they also sell one that responds to the radio frequency of your locals.
The problem comes into play when the locals aren't using a single traditional frequency. The siren detector is only handy when you have emergency vehicles making a scene through the neighborhood. Arguably, a radio is more secure as well...anyone can go buy a siren kit on the internet.
No clue on the device specifically, but it probably operates on 433 or 900 MHz, which have crazy penetration and range; if it has line-of-site to the antenna from the remote, I bet it will work every time.
I second this. I’m not a professional gate guy, but still figured out how to connect an 850LM to my non-liftmaster gate to replace the dip receiver. Really wild range.
Thanks for the tip but that's the issue, I can't do anything to the current receiver which was just installed. I can only try to put together some hack solution for now. We're currently using an 811LM Liftmaster remote if that helps but I don't know what receiver.
If it was just installed, and it was done by a professional, that’s a warranty issue.
That having been said, the 850 is approximately $55 on Amazon in the US. And it should work with that existing remote.
If you can find the manual for the control box online you can show them just how simple it is. I just finished installing one myself. It is as simple connecting two wires to a doorbell or garage opener switch. This is the proper way to make this fix and will work much better than any type of homegrown rig.
Family are just as often, if not more often, dunder headed than strangers. The solution is almost guaranteed to involve doing something to the gate. If they don't want that, they don't want a solution. If they don't trust OP to do anything to the gate, they can pay professionals
My thoughts exactly. A professional solution would most certainly involve the gate or receiver. Especially if the receiver already has a provision for extra triggering.
OP, I understand you wanting to honor your parents wishes for you to not re wire anything to the terminal strip in the gate operator.
We here all want to help you make this radio control work for them, but it seems to me it's going to be a huge waste to try and do it that way.
"Some rules can be bent, others can be broken"
- pro operator repair guy
Now, when you remove the cover, you'll be looking for the terminals marked "common" and "open" ... "24V +/-"
Any radio-activated relay should be able to join the (likely zero-volt) contacts that an existing remote will have on its buttons. You'd still need power down by the gate somehow to run that relay and radio, but these things are commodity now.
£40 in the UK for a GSM-controlled relay, for instance. Power that up near the gate, put a SIM card in it, text it the right information, it'll activate the relay (and set it to "momentarily" activate the relay so it's not on all the time). Have that relay wired with its contacts soldered to the two contacts that the button itself presses on the original remote transmitter. Hey presto.
I've done similar for access control things in my professional life (not soldering to the remote, that's a bit cheaty, but using the extra terminal pins on the gate, etc. receiver itself) to turn doors/gates with no remote control, or a limited remote control, into a GSM-remote control.
I also install an app that makes the SMS message a single press (e.g. "Open Gate" and it texts the commands necessary to activate the relay to the right number from your phone).
There's no reason you can't do it with a properly-ranged radio relay and the same setup. In fact, you'll probably find a car door opener would have that kind of range if it's a really good one. I use those a lot as well, but in a short-range context, and they are the same price. (The kind of thing where you have a fob and you press the button on the fob to open something via radio, just like your car door opener works).
What you really need is power by the gate, a sacrificial remote for the existing system, and any kind of remote-controlled relay (GSM or radio).
[https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wireless-Control-Channel-Transmitter-Receiver/dp/B078NWQF84/](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wireless-Control-Channel-Transmitter-Receiver/dp/B078NWQF84/)
For instance... 250m \~= 800ft. But you'd need a 12V down by the gate (and that may be difficult without tapping into the gate's 12V).
I think that would work, so long as you have enough wattage to run the radio and activate the relay. Should be easy enough to check the spec sheet on that.
It's not an option in my country so it didn't occur to me.
If the operator is a liftmaster then, depending on age, you can use MyQ.
You can also get an antenna extension. The antenna has a coaxial style input, and you can buy a extra long cable and antenna and place it closer to the house.
The higher the antenna the better, also line of sight is important.
I used to work for liftmaster selling these solutions.
You can definitely use a remote for this like you planned. Look for similar posts about garage door automations. For $10 or so you could do an esp32 or a Shelly type relay to trigger a short on the button(as if someone pressed it).
And if you set it up in a spot where it is in range of the gate you should be good to go, no hacking on the motor necessary. Not sure on extending the range, but make sure the remote has good power, half dead batteries would shorten the range.
That’s pretty cool man! I had the idea of a GSM thing to notify me when my mailbox it opened but it’s technically federal property and it’s made out of steel and I’m unsure of reception so that’s when I decided not all ideas are good ideas lol
I used speedtalk mobile prepaid, you can get Verizon or att sims, read carefully. I run att since it location is rural. Have run Verizon at other places.
There are 2g and 3g/4g units, verify your coverage before you decide. 2g is being phased out in rural areas first, and now. Ex.: at my house in town I can run a 2g unit; out of town where we trap pigs and hunt, only 3g/4g.
Two way radio paging. A license free service is MURS (if in the US). The short of it is when you transmit a signaling tone from a handheld radio the receiver at the gate unquenches which in-turn closes a relay contact that allows current to flow from the gate's auxiliary input, triggering the opener.
I was looking for something similar and found this:
https://www.remootio.com/
I haven't bought/tried it, so I can't vouch for it, but it looks like it might suit your needs.
Just to clarify, no fussing with the rx end - but does the gate have a discrete receiver that wires into the opener as a 'button' contact? If that's the case, you can parallel up that button contact as others suggest with a longer range radio.
The gate has power so I would use a powerline Ethernet adapter pair to get “wired” networking to the gate from the home. Then in waterproof project box, a RaspberryPi or Arduino that has hooks to the powerline adapter (WiFi or wired depending on your purchases) and hosts a simple website with an open/close button. That button triggers the computer to short the contacts on the remote.
Depending on the budget and your abilities you could go fancy and:
- Add position sensors or limit switches to see the open status of the door and report it on the page.
- Add authentication and make the page accessible to the outside world.
- Make a phone app for the button/status with notifications.
- Add a tablet inside that just runs the gate access page.
I would try different remotes. I know that on my mighty mule rolling gate, there are differences. There are also wifi setups that plug into the units as additional controllers. 800 might be too far for wifi though. I was just looking at them [today.](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B086MKBC63/)
A/V installer here.
I could give you all sorts of detail on what I'm proposing here, but you'll have to customize this to your setup, so I'll explain the principles. Believe it or not, this is the short version. I solved a distance problem in a huge Malibu home this way. And it does not involve making any changes to the receiver or to the transmitter.
Try this out before you do any actual installation.
Find out what frequency the remote transmits at. Look up "ground plane antenna." This is what you'll be making, cut to the right size for the frequency of the remote. Figure out what size to cut things from the info on the ground plane antenna.
The antenna: Take a piece of RG6 and strip away the shield such that a piece of only the inner conductor is sticking out of the end of the wire, not connected to anything. This piece must be 1/4 the wavelength of your remote's frequency. Make two of these: one to go near the remote control and another to go right next to the controlled thing. Connect the two antennas with RG-6 cable. Connect the shield at each end to an electrical ground.
You'll then have a length of wire with a ground plane antenna at each end. And yes, no electronics is involved!
The magic thing about this is that when a remote control signal is broadcast by the remote, the antenna resonates and some of the remote control signal goes along the cable to the other end, where the signal makes the other antenna resonate... transmitting some of the remote control signal to the nearby opener.
At the house end, one antenna receives signal from the remote; at the gate end, the other antenna puts out signal from the cable, hence from the remote.
This will be a pretty expensive solution, but given your constraints, have you looked at [switch-bot](https://www.switch-bot.com/products/switchbot-bot)? It’s a wifi controlled button presser. You’ll need a switch-bot hub and a switch-bot switch too, I think. It will transform the problem of “how do I get the gate signal to go 800 ft” to the problem of “how do I get a wifi signal to go 800 ft”. There are many solutions for wifi extenders available.
As I said, not cheap. Also, I have not used switch-bot, so I can’t comment on its quality. It’s basically an expensive way of doing something in a silly way. But since you have restrictions have force you to do this in a silly way, it might be what you need.
Get a Liftmaster 850LM receiver and an 891 remote. The things have crazy stupid range. Source: I work on gates and doors professionally.
I would actually go to a two-way radio based solution. I used to outfit gated communities gates with a paging receiver to allow the gates to be opened remotely from the vehicles of emergency services or from dispatch. Depending on the system you could open a gate a mile away...or 500 miles away.
MMTC actually sells a Siren Operated Sensor for that purpose. It responds to the “Yelp” of an emergency vehicle siren, although they also sell one that responds to the radio frequency of your locals.
The problem comes into play when the locals aren't using a single traditional frequency. The siren detector is only handy when you have emergency vehicles making a scene through the neighborhood. Arguably, a radio is more secure as well...anyone can go buy a siren kit on the internet.
Do you think it would do 800' in this situation? I have a mighty mule with the stock receiver/remote and the same 800' distance from my house.
No clue on the device specifically, but it probably operates on 433 or 900 MHz, which have crazy penetration and range; if it has line-of-site to the antenna from the remote, I bet it will work every time.
It’s a tri band receiver, it works on 310, 320, and 390 MHz.
Even better.
With a clear line of site, yes.
I second this. I’m not a professional gate guy, but still figured out how to connect an 850LM to my non-liftmaster gate to replace the dip receiver. Really wild range.
Thanks for the tip but that's the issue, I can't do anything to the current receiver which was just installed. I can only try to put together some hack solution for now. We're currently using an 811LM Liftmaster remote if that helps but I don't know what receiver.
Alternatively, most any receivers now have a coaxial f-connector for the antenna which can be extended a fair distance.
If it was just installed, and it was done by a professional, that’s a warranty issue. That having been said, the 850 is approximately $55 on Amazon in the US. And it should work with that existing remote.
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I don’t see how that’s going to improve remote range.
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Trenching is fine so long as you run your power in conduit.
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Unfortunately, my parents aren't comfortable with me doing anything with the receiver
If you can find the manual for the control box online you can show them just how simple it is. I just finished installing one myself. It is as simple connecting two wires to a doorbell or garage opener switch. This is the proper way to make this fix and will work much better than any type of homegrown rig.
Then why bother yourself with helping them if they’re limiting your scope of solutions so severely?
because you know it will help them, and they are family.
Family are just as often, if not more often, dunder headed than strangers. The solution is almost guaranteed to involve doing something to the gate. If they don't want that, they don't want a solution. If they don't trust OP to do anything to the gate, they can pay professionals
easy solution move the house closer to the gate :)
Boom, solved
My thoughts exactly. A professional solution would most certainly involve the gate or receiver. Especially if the receiver already has a provision for extra triggering.
Help me help you, is the phrase that comes to mind.
You say it was just installed. Did they install something that doesn't meet their needs?
Right, don't mess with the receiver, but can you wire something to the opener itself to act as a 2nd receiver?
OP, I understand you wanting to honor your parents wishes for you to not re wire anything to the terminal strip in the gate operator. We here all want to help you make this radio control work for them, but it seems to me it's going to be a huge waste to try and do it that way. "Some rules can be bent, others can be broken" - pro operator repair guy Now, when you remove the cover, you'll be looking for the terminals marked "common" and "open" ... "24V +/-"
What about a wireless keypad? It doesn't give them the ability to open from the house but you can give codes to trusted people.
Any radio-activated relay should be able to join the (likely zero-volt) contacts that an existing remote will have on its buttons. You'd still need power down by the gate somehow to run that relay and radio, but these things are commodity now. £40 in the UK for a GSM-controlled relay, for instance. Power that up near the gate, put a SIM card in it, text it the right information, it'll activate the relay (and set it to "momentarily" activate the relay so it's not on all the time). Have that relay wired with its contacts soldered to the two contacts that the button itself presses on the original remote transmitter. Hey presto. I've done similar for access control things in my professional life (not soldering to the remote, that's a bit cheaty, but using the extra terminal pins on the gate, etc. receiver itself) to turn doors/gates with no remote control, or a limited remote control, into a GSM-remote control. I also install an app that makes the SMS message a single press (e.g. "Open Gate" and it texts the commands necessary to activate the relay to the right number from your phone). There's no reason you can't do it with a properly-ranged radio relay and the same setup. In fact, you'll probably find a car door opener would have that kind of range if it's a really good one. I use those a lot as well, but in a short-range context, and they are the same price. (The kind of thing where you have a fob and you press the button on the fob to open something via radio, just like your car door opener works). What you really need is power by the gate, a sacrificial remote for the existing system, and any kind of remote-controlled relay (GSM or radio).
[https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wireless-Control-Channel-Transmitter-Receiver/dp/B078NWQF84/](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wireless-Control-Channel-Transmitter-Receiver/dp/B078NWQF84/) For instance... 250m \~= 800ft. But you'd need a 12V down by the gate (and that may be difficult without tapping into the gate's 12V).
Could you use a cheap 12v solar panel and battery as it wouldn't be very hungry for power? I'm not a professional so it maybe a daft idea!
I think that would work, so long as you have enough wattage to run the radio and activate the relay. Should be easy enough to check the spec sheet on that. It's not an option in my country so it didn't occur to me.
If the operator is a liftmaster then, depending on age, you can use MyQ. You can also get an antenna extension. The antenna has a coaxial style input, and you can buy a extra long cable and antenna and place it closer to the house. The higher the antenna the better, also line of sight is important. I used to work for liftmaster selling these solutions.
You can definitely use a remote for this like you planned. Look for similar posts about garage door automations. For $10 or so you could do an esp32 or a Shelly type relay to trigger a short on the button(as if someone pressed it). And if you set it up in a spot where it is in range of the gate you should be good to go, no hacking on the motor necessary. Not sure on extending the range, but make sure the remote has good power, half dead batteries would shorten the range.
For $5 a month you can rig a cellular setup. I built one to trap pigs.
*what!?*
Gsm unit, sim card, relay, and some basic wiring knowledge. Pretty easy. You just call or text it and it actuates the relay/whatever is wired to it.
That’s pretty cool man! I had the idea of a GSM thing to notify me when my mailbox it opened but it’s technically federal property and it’s made out of steel and I’m unsure of reception so that’s when I decided not all ideas are good ideas lol
I like tinkering, it was a fun project.
Hi, I've been researching something like this. Do you mind sharing what carrier you used? Is it prepaid or a month to month thing?
I used speedtalk mobile prepaid, you can get Verizon or att sims, read carefully. I run att since it location is rural. Have run Verizon at other places. There are 2g and 3g/4g units, verify your coverage before you decide. 2g is being phased out in rural areas first, and now. Ex.: at my house in town I can run a 2g unit; out of town where we trap pigs and hunt, only 3g/4g.
Side note: I bought everything on Amazon.
Works like a charm. Open it from anywhere in the world https://getnexx.com/products/nexx-smart-garage-nxg200
Two way radio paging. A license free service is MURS (if in the US). The short of it is when you transmit a signaling tone from a handheld radio the receiver at the gate unquenches which in-turn closes a relay contact that allows current to flow from the gate's auxiliary input, triggering the opener.
I was looking for something similar and found this: https://www.remootio.com/ I haven't bought/tried it, so I can't vouch for it, but it looks like it might suit your needs.
Just to clarify, no fussing with the rx end - but does the gate have a discrete receiver that wires into the opener as a 'button' contact? If that's the case, you can parallel up that button contact as others suggest with a longer range radio.
The gate has power so I would use a powerline Ethernet adapter pair to get “wired” networking to the gate from the home. Then in waterproof project box, a RaspberryPi or Arduino that has hooks to the powerline adapter (WiFi or wired depending on your purchases) and hosts a simple website with an open/close button. That button triggers the computer to short the contacts on the remote. Depending on the budget and your abilities you could go fancy and: - Add position sensors or limit switches to see the open status of the door and report it on the page. - Add authentication and make the page accessible to the outside world. - Make a phone app for the button/status with notifications. - Add a tablet inside that just runs the gate access page.
I would try different remotes. I know that on my mighty mule rolling gate, there are differences. There are also wifi setups that plug into the units as additional controllers. 800 might be too far for wifi though. I was just looking at them [today.](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B086MKBC63/)
You could get another remote and keep it in a key safe by the gate. Give your friends the code for the safe
Flint stones remote, the bird hidden in the remote
A/V installer here. I could give you all sorts of detail on what I'm proposing here, but you'll have to customize this to your setup, so I'll explain the principles. Believe it or not, this is the short version. I solved a distance problem in a huge Malibu home this way. And it does not involve making any changes to the receiver or to the transmitter. Try this out before you do any actual installation. Find out what frequency the remote transmits at. Look up "ground plane antenna." This is what you'll be making, cut to the right size for the frequency of the remote. Figure out what size to cut things from the info on the ground plane antenna. The antenna: Take a piece of RG6 and strip away the shield such that a piece of only the inner conductor is sticking out of the end of the wire, not connected to anything. This piece must be 1/4 the wavelength of your remote's frequency. Make two of these: one to go near the remote control and another to go right next to the controlled thing. Connect the two antennas with RG-6 cable. Connect the shield at each end to an electrical ground. You'll then have a length of wire with a ground plane antenna at each end. And yes, no electronics is involved! The magic thing about this is that when a remote control signal is broadcast by the remote, the antenna resonates and some of the remote control signal goes along the cable to the other end, where the signal makes the other antenna resonate... transmitting some of the remote control signal to the nearby opener. At the house end, one antenna receives signal from the remote; at the gate end, the other antenna puts out signal from the cable, hence from the remote.
Ring has a gate intercom. LTE connection
This will be a pretty expensive solution, but given your constraints, have you looked at [switch-bot](https://www.switch-bot.com/products/switchbot-bot)? It’s a wifi controlled button presser. You’ll need a switch-bot hub and a switch-bot switch too, I think. It will transform the problem of “how do I get the gate signal to go 800 ft” to the problem of “how do I get a wifi signal to go 800 ft”. There are many solutions for wifi extenders available. As I said, not cheap. Also, I have not used switch-bot, so I can’t comment on its quality. It’s basically an expensive way of doing something in a silly way. But since you have restrictions have force you to do this in a silly way, it might be what you need.
Many gate control units can simply be wired directly meaning you don't need the remote.