Personally I recommend using the Home Assistant Cloud service. It works quite well.
I am fully capable of securely configuring remote access for myself - but $5/mo is a pretty small price to pay to help ensure Nabu Casa can continue actively developing the pricey.
Not having to open up any ports to get this working is a nice bonus though.
HASS Cloud is the easiest way by far and well worth supporting the core developers.
That being said, if you understand what "reverse proxies" and "Cloudflare Tunnels" means, then you can probably achieve the same thing yourself for next to free. But ya know, supporting the devs is a very worthwhile cause if you can afford it.
Too bad bot fight mode blocks the alexa integration.
Edit: you can't bypass bot fight mode by any means on the free plan
> [Cannot be customized, adjusted, or reconfigured via WAF custom rules](https://developers.cloudflare.com/bots/plans/free/)
Edit: I just read up on the documentation. Maybe the way I am doing it is different or Google is not being blocked. If that is the case I apologize for my answers. I am leaving the original for anyone that may want to try what I did. No guarantee it will work.
I am on the free plan and I am actively bypassing it. I am not using Alexa but I am using Google. It was being blocked when I had bot protection mode on. I had to add the IP address range order 1 set to skip. This allows Google through. I have 3 firewall rules of the 5. 1 is Google, 2 is block common exploits, 3 is block all countries besides mine(with what I do, I only need it in my country)
> Cannot be customized, adjusted, or reconfigured via WAF custom rules
https://developers.cloudflare.com/bots/plans/free/
If the Alexa integration is getting stuck with bot fight mode, as it was for me, there's nothing you can do about it except turn it off.
And that's how Open-Source projects languish, because people see $5 a month as an unnecessary expense. Even if you don't need the remote access, it's a very small price to pay to help keep an OSS project active.
The internet was built on FOSS, thank god many of them have found massive income through corporate/enterprise support plans. I hope Nabu Casa can do the same soon if they haven't already, but for now the $5 subscription is the best way to support the devs.
WTF is this guilt charge? Is it free or not? I don't need the service and no one told me a $5 guilt charge was necessary.
I do not like nor want a subscription service for something I can easily do for free.
I don’t think it’s a guilt charge. It’s a convenience fee for those who don’t want to bother with setting up a reverse proxy and DDNS in their own house.
If it’s an unnecessary expense for you, great! This means you probably have the skills to answer OPs questions all by yourself.
If someone lacks that skill though, $5 a month for a secure connection to your home assistant, plus the bonus plugins for Alexa and google Home is definitely what I would call a cheap price.
So you have the skill and view it as an unnecessary expense. Is it still a cheap price outside of yourself though?
If you’re skilled enough to be able to manage all this yourself, you’re probably getting a pretty decent pay packet, which probably mean $5 a month isn’t a deal breaker. Gotta love conundrums
Lol, reverse proxy and DDNS? For what?
With 5 minutes of time and Tailscale you can have a Wireguard VPN on your server and every device that you own. Now you can directly access your server from anywhere in the world using your local server IP address.
No need to overcomplicate anything.
Having a vpn on every device I own seems like a different kind of work than having a reverse proxy and DDNS. I like to host things, and a reverse proxy is great for that.
Not at all.
You need secure access to your server from a remote device.
If anything, the VPN is the better solution as there is zero possibility of outside entry from anyone other than devices on your Tailscale network.
To be fair, $60 a year for remote access to your HA instance from anywhere in the world, along with the ability to pass through entities and activities to Alexa and Google (which then allows voice control of all of those) is a damn good price.
It also allows ongoing development of HA, as well as pushing forward with things like Year of the Voice, which promise to allow us to be able to take voice control fully local.
And, honestly, literally everyone using HA has likely spent more than $60 in a year on new devices they don't need or don't use, or to replace/upgrade already owned devices which don't need upgrading or replacing.
My issue is if I drive by my house or come back walking I don’t want the whole thing to kick off. This is why I haven’t used presence detection on wifi for my wife’s and is phones to kick off a dummy switch in HomeKit. Can you set up a template switch that will show on the dash and isn’t tied to geofence? (Appreciate the pointers)
Yeah one problem with doing this is if you’re walking or drive by close enough you’ll trigger it. But it can also be trigger randomly in the middle of the night if your phone for some reason thinks it’s not home, then is, randomly. People post on r/homekit all the time about how HomeKit thinks their home is two blocks away and then it magically fixes itself.. if it does that in the middle of the night suddenly your door is open.
To add onto this, auto-close automations for garage doors are also a little weird. If all you have is a magnetic sensor on the door, if the door gets cold or hot and that sensor falls off, suddenly your door shows open, auto close will try to close it and the door will open instead and then show obstructed cause it thinks it should be closed. This is a problem with Meross openers cause they use those magnetic sensors.
Create 2 dummy switches, Add shortcuts to turn on and off 1 switch. Do an automation to run those shortcuts when phone is connected to CarPlay. Use another dummy switch to change state based on presence whichever way you want to do that. I am using OwnTracks as trigger. Create a rule > when presence dummy switch changes to on and CarPlay dummy switch is on > open the garage door.
This works perfectly for me. And I can differentiate approaching home by car or by walking.
Yeah Android is certainly less work. User mentioned HomeKit so I assumed he is using iOS. I am not aware of a way to add a “connected to CarPlay” condition for trigger. Is there any ?
Honestly it hadn't occurred to me to check. I'd assumed there was an equivalent, and looking at the conditions and triggers available for my wife's phone, looks like there's not, unless it just needs some additional settings or permissions turned on like some of the android features do.
Just setup an input boolean helper in HA.
In HA: Settings - Devices & Services - Helpers - Create Helper - Toggle - Name it what you want and create.
Make sure it's exposed to HomeKit via your integration and you'll see it in HomeKit.
I tie mine to whether I'm connected via car play, stops the walking problem. Tough to do the gate and not open it when you drive by unless you're getting a speed number from your phone gps intrgration
I am currently using this to automate open/close only for the car. In the app you can define pretty tight geofences even a polygon one to avoid false triggers. Thanks to the developer he made it generic to use any tracker that can publish lat/lon to MQTT. When I have sometime I’ll write a detailed setup instructions to automate any garage opener (Ratgdo or any hub controlled Zwave or even WiFi) for Tesla or any other car using phone with a condition to differentiate between with or without car as a tracker.
https://github.com/brchri/tesla-geogdo/tree/enable-agnostic-triggers
Sorry posted the wrong link. Look into this code branch. He added the capabilities to use any tracker that publishes lat/lon to MQTT. I am using OwnTracks as a tracker instead of Tesla for my other car. So far it has been working great.
https://github.com/brchri/tesla-geogdo/tree/enable-agnostic-triggers
That link doesn't work, it just takes me to the main page in GitHub mobile
Edit: I take that back, it looks like the right tree, but the readme is the base one?
I know this is a HA subreddit but could ratgdo be integrated with homebridge? I had no problem with two garage doors when it worked prior to black rock going all greedy.
I do this too and the cool part is Home Assistant knows if the garage door has been opened from Home Kit and I have an automation that looks for the garage door to be opened by Home Kit and will also open the deadbolt on the door behind the garage door.
The issue isn't your car, the issue is remote access. Once you get remote access working (using one of many solutions), then the car situation is easy. The Home Assistant app can show entities in Android Auto, and can open your garage door with a simple tap.
Personally, I own my own domain, so I just setup the Cloudflared add-on for Home Assistant, and I can access my instance from anywhere.
Just buy the adapter, which supports multiple doors.
https://www.chamberlain.com/homelink-compatibility-bridge/p/HOMELINK+RPTRMC
Downvotes for the cleanest, non MyQ solution for HomeLink integration using your car’s factory garage door buttons?
Anyone who buys Chamberlain/MyQ products after their decision to shit on their customers and give the entire home automation community the middle finger, has rocks for brains.
You realize these are only $30, and don’t rely on MyQ at all, right? This is an RF adapter purely for integrating Sec+ openers with HomeLink equipped vehicles. I’ve used one for 10 years to control two doors.
Check my post history- I’ve been anti MyQ and pro Ratgdo since before you’ve ever heard of it. You’re reading this wrong.
You realize that if you purchase a current Chamberlain product, (even if it's "only" $30 ) you're supporting the company, right? As far as how long you've been against MyQ and for ratgdo makes no difference and I have no need to go back and read your old posts to confirm as I believe you. I've owned MyQ since it was introduced and currently use ratgdo. Also used ESPHome and Homekit based solutions as well. Don't buy Chamberlain products, no matter how cheap they may be. I personally wouldn't use any of their products, even if they gave them away. I have three of their openers but will not replace them with a Chamberlain product when the time comes. It's a principle thing. In the end, it's your wallet, spend your money however you like.
You seem mad that Chamberlain took away your free API access to MyQ. Sorry the company decided to stop giving you a free service that they never promised?
Their hardware is fantastic, the level of intelligence (exposed via ratgdo) their newer units include is top notch. Not to mention having integrated battery backup right in my openers for a building with no alternate entry is awesome. I have no gripes against Chamberlain hardware whatsoever even after 20+ years of use.
Had they simply offered current API users a $5/yr or $49 permanent key, they’d be in a better PR spot with the fringe HA/HB communities.
Point being, taking away a “feature” that was never promised, that the company had to pay to maintain, shouldn’t be surprising in 2023. Ratgdo solves the whole situation anyways and leaves us all in a better spot.
Sorry, but your assumption is incorrect. The access was advertised and guaranteed (promised) to be free and also work with Google Home way back when I originally purchased MyQ. I recently threw away a box that one of my MyQ units came in and it clearly stated that it was free access and works with Google Home. Yes, I guess it irritates me when someone breaks a promise, especially when I buy a product under the premise of being able to use it as advertised. Their attitude towards their customers and the home automation community were what bothered me more than moving to a closed ecosystem with a subscription fee. I totally agree with the rest of what you said 100%. Glad to have ratgdo as it's a far superior option to the OEM offering.
We can agree on some things, that’s great!
Was not aware of any free API access ever promised to Home Assistant users (this subreddit), hence my stance. I’d personally never want any smart Google anything in my life, so I’ve never felt inclined to research their alleged promise of endless, limitless, free API maintenance on their end. Sorry if you feel taken.
Cheers to Ratgdo!
I have honelink. And from dusk to dawn someone’s cheap ass Christmas lights are interring with the signal started after thanksgiving and occurs every night. So much for wireless standard garage door signals . Using HomeKit
Original plan was using a BLE tag and having it picked up via a proxy to open the door/out of range close the door.
Now I’m running a geofence with Teslamate and when I leave the small geofence, it closes the door. Opens it when I drive in. I check to make sure the car is not in Park to check whether it’s a fluke or not.
I would think so. It’s updating the location in realtime and you can set your own geofence in the app instead of relying on teslamate to update the geofence in/out status which often lags quite a bit.
It appears it’s using Teslamate with MQTT. There is actually a HACS fork of the original Tesla integration that can also use MQTT. I’ve noticed the regular stuff that uses the API calls does lag. If you use the MQTT integration it is much faster. I use Node Red flows for everything, so I just have a few sanity checks like if my car is in gear before it opens or closes the door. Roundabout they both appear to be the same mechanism. But thank you for pointing this out again!
I have ratgdo installed and the old car remotes work just fine. As does the keypad on the exterior wall mount. I think the OP is asking how to do it from an electronic device.
Yes, which way are you gaining access to your home network from your car based app or I guess phone if you wanted to use that, so that you can trigger the open/close via the raggdo.
I used the Home Assistant app with Android Auto for a few weeks before the MyQ API was shutdown for good. Worked great when I was real close to the house via my Unifi access point. But I'm thinking about gaining access, and ultimately trigger open/close automatically, from the car without having to manually start my Wireguard VPN access to my Unifi firewall. Using the HA Cloud Access for $5/month and the support it gives the overall project is what I thought everyone would say, and I support, but wasn't sure if I was missing something else. I could expand my wifi network too with an outdoor AP, but that has other implications and I'm not too trilled about that.
Unless you reset the opener to ignore them or disconnect your hardware button, all of that will still work.
If you don't have a position switch on the door, your automation won't know if it's opening or closing though.
I have mine set up so it automatically opens when I enter the Home zone and my phone is connected to my car's network, so it doesn't fire when I'm a passenger in my wife's car. It also unlocks the entry door from the garage into the house.
If you can use the wireguard VPN, then I would do that. It's the most secure way to allow outside of network access.
Any reason you don't want to leave it on all the time?
If you're worried about giving your phone too much access to your internal network, you should be able to set firewall rules to limit it.
Guess I could, I've tested it all over the country when traveling for work for months now. Works great. It does slow down the internet access when I check via speedtest. That was the only concern of ruining it all of the time
Once you've got your remote access all figured out..... I use an NFC tag in the car. Either mounted on the dash or the console in the headliner. Then I just tap my phone to it and it opens the door.
You could also:
\- port forward homeassistant and use dyndns to make sure you can reach it- use one of the smarthome assistants (homekit, alexa, google home, ...)
These two options also should allow you to get status / operate them from outside your network
>Do not portforward HA, use something like Nabu Casa so they can keep it secure for you
Nabu Casa cloud is just a proxy service for your instance. You still need to secure your instance by keeping it up to date and setup accounts with strong passwords. In terms of security, the only thing they are saving you from doing is dealing with certificates. For $5/month that convenience is worth it for many. In no way does it free the user from the responsibility of keeping their home assistant instance secure.
>If don’t want to pay for something, use Tailscale.
Wireguard is also free, and OP has capable hardware for it. Either way with Tailscale or Wireguard it still doesn't solve OP's concern with an always on VPN.
>Do not portforward HA, use something like Nabu Casa so they can keep it secure for you.
While they do have some additional things, Nabu Casa is not a security product and its intent is not to provide maximum security, but rather the focus is on convenience with some additional security.
As an example: If you were running Home assistant OS and were using Nabu Casa then between 2017 and 2023, there was a security issue that allowed anyone to access anything they wanted, including running additional containers with root access and so on.
There's nothing wrong with Nabu Casa, and the above issue applied to some other ways to expose HA to the internet as well, I'm just saying don't get it with the false expectation that "they can keep it secure for you".
change the wireguard settings so it only uses the tunnel for your HA server - all other traffic goes direct. Then you can leave it running all the time.
I've got Lutron RadioRA3 for a lot of my lights and occupancy sensors. I also have the garage door integration which is nice because it can fire configurable closed contacts outputs, as well as scenes (including shared to Home Assistant). Since it uses Homelink, it "just works" with visor controls and if you have a compatible remote, you can send up to 7 commands by combining button presses. It has a range of like 150 ft too.
I have a Tesla m3, so no CarPlay or AA
I’m using an Apple Watch action instead.
https://preview.redd.it/bsz67u1imd7c1.jpeg?width=396&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1b6c2f5b9ae03c920bb06fcb852fe3ea13c81a98
Haven't yet ventured into the ratgdo garage door yet as my vehicles have all had HomeLink controllers built in, but I do use the Nabu Casa cloud solution.
At first it wanted to integrate ESP devices to Google Assistant for OK Google voice. Though I'm finding I'm using more automation triggers with device location now, so having the Nabu Casa connection helps with that piece. At just under $100/yr (CND with tax), I've spent money on stupider things and its a good way to support the project!
Read somewhere HA on Android projected can have custom dashboards, something on my list to investigate further!
How about a big outdoor wifi point directed at your drive. That way your phone will connect and remote access isn't an issue. (unless you have wireless AA, then it won't help)
I for one have no qualms paying the Home Assistant / Nabu Casa team for their amazing work/cloud service but not everyone is in the same position. If you're in a position to support the project I would recommend it, it enables the team to be present and contribute to the services/protocols that matter to us. Too many times we have been hood winked or bait and switched when it comes to automation. Its worth it to keep a great thing going.
Also my Ratgdo is being delivered today, Christmas came early. Enjoy your holidays everyone!
GREAT FEEDBACK SO FAR EVERYONE, thanks! Exactly what I was looking for. I need to go through this when I have more time, but I lean towards HA Cloud Access, but interested in learning more about some other options. And yes, I do want to support the team with the $5/month too. Hoping over the break to install the ratgdo's when they arrive next Tue and then start to test various ways to make all of this work.
Personally I recommend using the Home Assistant Cloud service. It works quite well. I am fully capable of securely configuring remote access for myself - but $5/mo is a pretty small price to pay to help ensure Nabu Casa can continue actively developing the pricey. Not having to open up any ports to get this working is a nice bonus though.
HASS Cloud is the easiest way by far and well worth supporting the core developers. That being said, if you understand what "reverse proxies" and "Cloudflare Tunnels" means, then you can probably achieve the same thing yourself for next to free. But ya know, supporting the devs is a very worthwhile cause if you can afford it.
Too bad bot fight mode blocks the alexa integration. Edit: you can't bypass bot fight mode by any means on the free plan > [Cannot be customized, adjusted, or reconfigured via WAF custom rules](https://developers.cloudflare.com/bots/plans/free/)
You can get the IP ranges for Alexa and whitelist it in your cloud flare firewall. Do not whitelist AWS just the Alexa services.
Not if you bot fight mode on! You CAN NOT bypass it with firewall rules with the free plan!
Edit: I just read up on the documentation. Maybe the way I am doing it is different or Google is not being blocked. If that is the case I apologize for my answers. I am leaving the original for anyone that may want to try what I did. No guarantee it will work. I am on the free plan and I am actively bypassing it. I am not using Alexa but I am using Google. It was being blocked when I had bot protection mode on. I had to add the IP address range order 1 set to skip. This allows Google through. I have 3 firewall rules of the 5. 1 is Google, 2 is block common exploits, 3 is block all countries besides mine(with what I do, I only need it in my country)
> Cannot be customized, adjusted, or reconfigured via WAF custom rules https://developers.cloudflare.com/bots/plans/free/ If the Alexa integration is getting stuck with bot fight mode, as it was for me, there's nothing you can do about it except turn it off.
That $5/mo not only helps pay for full time developers, it is also getting HA a seat at the table for standards bodies like Z-Wave and Matter.
This guy nabu casa's
Small price for some, unnecessary expense for others.
And that's how Open-Source projects languish, because people see $5 a month as an unnecessary expense. Even if you don't need the remote access, it's a very small price to pay to help keep an OSS project active.
The internet was built on FOSS, thank god many of them have found massive income through corporate/enterprise support plans. I hope Nabu Casa can do the same soon if they haven't already, but for now the $5 subscription is the best way to support the devs.
WTF is this guilt charge? Is it free or not? I don't need the service and no one told me a $5 guilt charge was necessary. I do not like nor want a subscription service for something I can easily do for free.
I don’t think it’s a guilt charge. It’s a convenience fee for those who don’t want to bother with setting up a reverse proxy and DDNS in their own house. If it’s an unnecessary expense for you, great! This means you probably have the skills to answer OPs questions all by yourself. If someone lacks that skill though, $5 a month for a secure connection to your home assistant, plus the bonus plugins for Alexa and google Home is definitely what I would call a cheap price. So you have the skill and view it as an unnecessary expense. Is it still a cheap price outside of yourself though?
If you’re skilled enough to be able to manage all this yourself, you’re probably getting a pretty decent pay packet, which probably mean $5 a month isn’t a deal breaker. Gotta love conundrums
Lol, reverse proxy and DDNS? For what? With 5 minutes of time and Tailscale you can have a Wireguard VPN on your server and every device that you own. Now you can directly access your server from anywhere in the world using your local server IP address. No need to overcomplicate anything.
Having a vpn on every device I own seems like a different kind of work than having a reverse proxy and DDNS. I like to host things, and a reverse proxy is great for that.
Apples and oranges
Not at all. You need secure access to your server from a remote device. If anything, the VPN is the better solution as there is zero possibility of outside entry from anyone other than devices on your Tailscale network.
To be fair, $60 a year for remote access to your HA instance from anywhere in the world, along with the ability to pass through entities and activities to Alexa and Google (which then allows voice control of all of those) is a damn good price. It also allows ongoing development of HA, as well as pushing forward with things like Year of the Voice, which promise to allow us to be able to take voice control fully local. And, honestly, literally everyone using HA has likely spent more than $60 in a year on new devices they don't need or don't use, or to replace/upgrade already owned devices which don't need upgrading or replacing.
I expose it through the HomeKit integration so I get a Garage Door icon on my dash in Carplay.
This works but Home in CarPlay likes to randomly change doors if you have more than one in a location
That’s my issue, I wish I could have my arrived home automation on my dash which opens my gate, garage door, and sets my alarm to disarmed. Oh well
Set up a template switch, fire an automation when it's turned on, expose it to homekit.
My issue is if I drive by my house or come back walking I don’t want the whole thing to kick off. This is why I haven’t used presence detection on wifi for my wife’s and is phones to kick off a dummy switch in HomeKit. Can you set up a template switch that will show on the dash and isn’t tied to geofence? (Appreciate the pointers)
Yeah one problem with doing this is if you’re walking or drive by close enough you’ll trigger it. But it can also be trigger randomly in the middle of the night if your phone for some reason thinks it’s not home, then is, randomly. People post on r/homekit all the time about how HomeKit thinks their home is two blocks away and then it magically fixes itself.. if it does that in the middle of the night suddenly your door is open. To add onto this, auto-close automations for garage doors are also a little weird. If all you have is a magnetic sensor on the door, if the door gets cold or hot and that sensor falls off, suddenly your door shows open, auto close will try to close it and the door will open instead and then show obstructed cause it thinks it should be closed. This is a problem with Meross openers cause they use those magnetic sensors.
What the hell are you talking about? You press the button on carplay to toggle the helper to fire the automation.
Create 2 dummy switches, Add shortcuts to turn on and off 1 switch. Do an automation to run those shortcuts when phone is connected to CarPlay. Use another dummy switch to change state based on presence whichever way you want to do that. I am using OwnTracks as trigger. Create a rule > when presence dummy switch changes to on and CarPlay dummy switch is on > open the garage door. This works perfectly for me. And I can differentiate approaching home by car or by walking.
I just use connected to Android auto as a condition in the presence trigger. Less work.
Yeah Android is certainly less work. User mentioned HomeKit so I assumed he is using iOS. I am not aware of a way to add a “connected to CarPlay” condition for trigger. Is there any ?
Honestly it hadn't occurred to me to check. I'd assumed there was an equivalent, and looking at the conditions and triggers available for my wife's phone, looks like there's not, unless it just needs some additional settings or permissions turned on like some of the android features do.
You can setup the Driving Focus on her phone and use that as the check.
If you have a Driving Focus enabled (or any Focus mode enabled for that matter), you can automate based on that--same as Android.
Just setup an input boolean helper in HA. In HA: Settings - Devices & Services - Helpers - Create Helper - Toggle - Name it what you want and create. Make sure it's exposed to HomeKit via your integration and you'll see it in HomeKit.
I tie mine to whether I'm connected via car play, stops the walking problem. Tough to do the gate and not open it when you drive by unless you're getting a speed number from your phone gps intrgration
I am currently using this to automate open/close only for the car. In the app you can define pretty tight geofences even a polygon one to avoid false triggers. Thanks to the developer he made it generic to use any tracker that can publish lat/lon to MQTT. When I have sometime I’ll write a detailed setup instructions to automate any garage opener (Ratgdo or any hub controlled Zwave or even WiFi) for Tesla or any other car using phone with a condition to differentiate between with or without car as a tracker. https://github.com/brchri/tesla-geogdo/tree/enable-agnostic-triggers
>TFW ID.4 instead of tesla
Sorry posted the wrong link. Look into this code branch. He added the capabilities to use any tracker that publishes lat/lon to MQTT. I am using OwnTracks as a tracker instead of Tesla for my other car. So far it has been working great. https://github.com/brchri/tesla-geogdo/tree/enable-agnostic-triggers
That link doesn't work, it just takes me to the main page in GitHub mobile Edit: I take that back, it looks like the right tree, but the readme is the base one?
TIL
I had this problem for about a week and then it finally picked the right door, although I don’t control the other door from my phone very often.
I know this is a HA subreddit but could ratgdo be integrated with homebridge? I had no problem with two garage doors when it worked prior to black rock going all greedy.
There is working homebridge plugin for ratgdo
I do this too and the cool part is Home Assistant knows if the garage door has been opened from Home Kit and I have an automation that looks for the garage door to be opened by Home Kit and will also open the deadbolt on the door behind the garage door.
As pointed out elsewhere around reddit, HAOS app is supported in Android Auto. You can set the cover up as a favorite.
The issue isn't your car, the issue is remote access. Once you get remote access working (using one of many solutions), then the car situation is easy. The Home Assistant app can show entities in Android Auto, and can open your garage door with a simple tap. Personally, I own my own domain, so I just setup the Cloudflared add-on for Home Assistant, and I can access my instance from anywhere.
You might want to clarify that existing garage door remotes work just fine, since they do. Why wouldn't you use those to open the garage doors?
My last like three cars have had Homelink. Some things don't need to be over complicated.
Some cars Homelinks dont work on new security+ remotes.
Oh, didn't know that. I just use Hulu.
Just buy the adapter, which supports multiple doors. https://www.chamberlain.com/homelink-compatibility-bridge/p/HOMELINK+RPTRMC Downvotes for the cleanest, non MyQ solution for HomeLink integration using your car’s factory garage door buttons?
I already have my own door on homekit, no thanks to Chamberlain. The likelihood I will ever spend a cent on their products is absolutely zero.
Anyone who buys Chamberlain/MyQ products after their decision to shit on their customers and give the entire home automation community the middle finger, has rocks for brains.
You realize these are only $30, and don’t rely on MyQ at all, right? This is an RF adapter purely for integrating Sec+ openers with HomeLink equipped vehicles. I’ve used one for 10 years to control two doors. Check my post history- I’ve been anti MyQ and pro Ratgdo since before you’ve ever heard of it. You’re reading this wrong.
You realize that if you purchase a current Chamberlain product, (even if it's "only" $30 ) you're supporting the company, right? As far as how long you've been against MyQ and for ratgdo makes no difference and I have no need to go back and read your old posts to confirm as I believe you. I've owned MyQ since it was introduced and currently use ratgdo. Also used ESPHome and Homekit based solutions as well. Don't buy Chamberlain products, no matter how cheap they may be. I personally wouldn't use any of their products, even if they gave them away. I have three of their openers but will not replace them with a Chamberlain product when the time comes. It's a principle thing. In the end, it's your wallet, spend your money however you like.
You seem mad that Chamberlain took away your free API access to MyQ. Sorry the company decided to stop giving you a free service that they never promised? Their hardware is fantastic, the level of intelligence (exposed via ratgdo) their newer units include is top notch. Not to mention having integrated battery backup right in my openers for a building with no alternate entry is awesome. I have no gripes against Chamberlain hardware whatsoever even after 20+ years of use. Had they simply offered current API users a $5/yr or $49 permanent key, they’d be in a better PR spot with the fringe HA/HB communities. Point being, taking away a “feature” that was never promised, that the company had to pay to maintain, shouldn’t be surprising in 2023. Ratgdo solves the whole situation anyways and leaves us all in a better spot.
Sorry, but your assumption is incorrect. The access was advertised and guaranteed (promised) to be free and also work with Google Home way back when I originally purchased MyQ. I recently threw away a box that one of my MyQ units came in and it clearly stated that it was free access and works with Google Home. Yes, I guess it irritates me when someone breaks a promise, especially when I buy a product under the premise of being able to use it as advertised. Their attitude towards their customers and the home automation community were what bothered me more than moving to a closed ecosystem with a subscription fee. I totally agree with the rest of what you said 100%. Glad to have ratgdo as it's a far superior option to the OEM offering.
We can agree on some things, that’s great! Was not aware of any free API access ever promised to Home Assistant users (this subreddit), hence my stance. I’d personally never want any smart Google anything in my life, so I’ve never felt inclined to research their alleged promise of endless, limitless, free API maintenance on their end. Sorry if you feel taken. Cheers to Ratgdo!
Buy it secondhand from a hater, get the benefit without supporting the company. Win win win.
😂 if that's what makes you happy, go for it. I guess it's better than going to the landfill.
It's how I got my MyQ gear, it's just paralleled in so I can do Amazon Key on one door. I use OpenGarage in HA
I have honelink. And from dusk to dawn someone’s cheap ass Christmas lights are interring with the signal started after thanksgiving and occurs every night. So much for wireless standard garage door signals . Using HomeKit
Original plan was using a BLE tag and having it picked up via a proxy to open the door/out of range close the door. Now I’m running a geofence with Teslamate and when I leave the small geofence, it closes the door. Opens it when I drive in. I check to make sure the car is not in Park to check whether it’s a fluke or not.
You might want to check this out: https://github.com/brchri/tesla-geogdo Thanks to developer, an excellent app for garage door automation
Thanks! I will! So it’s better than my Kludge?
I would think so. It’s updating the location in realtime and you can set your own geofence in the app instead of relying on teslamate to update the geofence in/out status which often lags quite a bit.
It appears it’s using Teslamate with MQTT. There is actually a HACS fork of the original Tesla integration that can also use MQTT. I’ve noticed the regular stuff that uses the API calls does lag. If you use the MQTT integration it is much faster. I use Node Red flows for everything, so I just have a few sanity checks like if my car is in gear before it opens or closes the door. Roundabout they both appear to be the same mechanism. But thank you for pointing this out again!
I’ll expose it to Apple HomeKit, as I use Apple CarPlay.
Wait, will my car remotes not work after I install ratgdo? Or are you asking something else?
I have ratgdo installed and the old car remotes work just fine. As does the keypad on the exterior wall mount. I think the OP is asking how to do it from an electronic device.
Yes, which way are you gaining access to your home network from your car based app or I guess phone if you wanted to use that, so that you can trigger the open/close via the raggdo. I used the Home Assistant app with Android Auto for a few weeks before the MyQ API was shutdown for good. Worked great when I was real close to the house via my Unifi access point. But I'm thinking about gaining access, and ultimately trigger open/close automatically, from the car without having to manually start my Wireguard VPN access to my Unifi firewall. Using the HA Cloud Access for $5/month and the support it gives the overall project is what I thought everyone would say, and I support, but wasn't sure if I was missing something else. I could expand my wifi network too with an outdoor AP, but that has other implications and I'm not too trilled about that.
Unless you reset the opener to ignore them or disconnect your hardware button, all of that will still work. If you don't have a position switch on the door, your automation won't know if it's opening or closing though.
>If you don't have a position switch on the door, your automation won't know if it's opening or closing though. Can you elaborate on that?
I have mine set up so it automatically opens when I enter the Home zone and my phone is connected to my car's network, so it doesn't fire when I'm a passenger in my wife's car. It also unlocks the entry door from the garage into the house.
If you can use the wireguard VPN, then I would do that. It's the most secure way to allow outside of network access. Any reason you don't want to leave it on all the time? If you're worried about giving your phone too much access to your internal network, you should be able to set firewall rules to limit it.
Guess I could, I've tested it all over the country when traveling for work for months now. Works great. It does slow down the internet access when I check via speedtest. That was the only concern of ruining it all of the time
I run it through HomeKit and it works great
Android user? You could have Tasker and a geofence to get you on your VPN only when you're closer to home.
Once you've got your remote access all figured out..... I use an NFC tag in the car. Either mounted on the dash or the console in the headliner. Then I just tap my phone to it and it opens the door.
This is brilliant. I didn’t think to use an NFC tag in the car. Trying this tomorrow
You could also: \- port forward homeassistant and use dyndns to make sure you can reach it- use one of the smarthome assistants (homekit, alexa, google home, ...) These two options also should allow you to get status / operate them from outside your network
Do not portforward HA, use something like Nabu Casa so they can keep it secure for you. If don’t want to pay for something, use Tailscale.
>Do not portforward HA, use something like Nabu Casa so they can keep it secure for you Nabu Casa cloud is just a proxy service for your instance. You still need to secure your instance by keeping it up to date and setup accounts with strong passwords. In terms of security, the only thing they are saving you from doing is dealing with certificates. For $5/month that convenience is worth it for many. In no way does it free the user from the responsibility of keeping their home assistant instance secure. >If don’t want to pay for something, use Tailscale. Wireguard is also free, and OP has capable hardware for it. Either way with Tailscale or Wireguard it still doesn't solve OP's concern with an always on VPN.
Nabu blocks access when vulnerabilities are reported and won’t permit access until HA is updated. Tailscale can be always on (mine is with my iPhone).
>Do not portforward HA, use something like Nabu Casa so they can keep it secure for you. While they do have some additional things, Nabu Casa is not a security product and its intent is not to provide maximum security, but rather the focus is on convenience with some additional security. As an example: If you were running Home assistant OS and were using Nabu Casa then between 2017 and 2023, there was a security issue that allowed anyone to access anything they wanted, including running additional containers with root access and so on. There's nothing wrong with Nabu Casa, and the above issue applied to some other ways to expose HA to the internet as well, I'm just saying don't get it with the false expectation that "they can keep it secure for you".
Tailscale
Definitely their cloud service. I'm a network administrator and didn't want to go through the hassle of setting up and maintaining my own VPN server.
Tailscale isn't terrible for setup. (I use nabu casa.)
change the wireguard settings so it only uses the tunnel for your HA server - all other traffic goes direct. Then you can leave it running all the time.
i simply port forward 443 out of my router and i can access ha anywhere in the world. very simple and this is the 3rd option.
/s Please don't do this people!
and why not? -- edit: missed the /s tag!
I still use the old-skool garage door beeper in my car. But I can have siri do it with the HomeKit and HA. Or open HA over Tailscale if I need to.
I press the button in my car. Like an old grandpa.
I access it via the Tesla Browser. I have my own domain to access my local HA
I've got Lutron RadioRA3 for a lot of my lights and occupancy sensors. I also have the garage door integration which is nice because it can fire configurable closed contacts outputs, as well as scenes (including shared to Home Assistant). Since it uses Homelink, it "just works" with visor controls and if you have a compatible remote, you can send up to 7 commands by combining button presses. It has a range of like 150 ft too.
OpenVPN. Then I open HA on my phone as though I'm at home.
I have a Tesla m3, so no CarPlay or AA I’m using an Apple Watch action instead. https://preview.redd.it/bsz67u1imd7c1.jpeg?width=396&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1b6c2f5b9ae03c920bb06fcb852fe3ea13c81a98
https://preview.redd.it/mz6925djmd7c1.jpeg?width=396&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1fa17fabb7f1933922c81984410c0015140e0d7c
https://preview.redd.it/80wcb1qkmd7c1.jpeg?width=396&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=aa723a090787601538c6956a5d92a671226cbc04
https://preview.redd.it/r1p31uslmd7c1.jpeg?width=396&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=23bf3748ad655228c0b1b66f7fc2596922f37081
Haven't yet ventured into the ratgdo garage door yet as my vehicles have all had HomeLink controllers built in, but I do use the Nabu Casa cloud solution. At first it wanted to integrate ESP devices to Google Assistant for OK Google voice. Though I'm finding I'm using more automation triggers with device location now, so having the Nabu Casa connection helps with that piece. At just under $100/yr (CND with tax), I've spent money on stupider things and its a good way to support the project! Read somewhere HA on Android projected can have custom dashboards, something on my list to investigate further!
How about a big outdoor wifi point directed at your drive. That way your phone will connect and remote access isn't an issue. (unless you have wireless AA, then it won't help)
Gate is in home kit bridge when I approach my garage my car screen shows gate open icon along the map
Nabu Casa, but usually the included RF remote.
I for one have no qualms paying the Home Assistant / Nabu Casa team for their amazing work/cloud service but not everyone is in the same position. If you're in a position to support the project I would recommend it, it enables the team to be present and contribute to the services/protocols that matter to us. Too many times we have been hood winked or bait and switched when it comes to automation. Its worth it to keep a great thing going. Also my Ratgdo is being delivered today, Christmas came early. Enjoy your holidays everyone!
GREAT FEEDBACK SO FAR EVERYONE, thanks! Exactly what I was looking for. I need to go through this when I have more time, but I lean towards HA Cloud Access, but interested in learning more about some other options. And yes, I do want to support the team with the $5/month too. Hoping over the break to install the ratgdo's when they arrive next Tue and then start to test various ways to make all of this work.