Chamberlain and myQ software

[Roman]

Any chance or update on being able to control the new versions of the Chamberlain Garage door openers.. Unfortunately the old way of using IOLinc (2450) device no longer works due to the complexity of how these new garage door openers work.

 

Do not feel like taking apart and soldering anything, at this point in my life would like to keep things simple if possible

 

Thanks

 

Roman

[TomG]

I am interested in this as well, having just finished putting in a Chamberlain opener today and finding it no longer works with my Elk. Guess operating the door is no longer as simple as shorting the two wires together. I suppose one way around it would be to solder a couple of wires to the contacts of the pushbutton and wire them the the output of the Elk, or whatever system you use.

 

Tom

[arw01]

I thought some folks took a spare opener and soldered to one of those.  Put a walwart on it and never worry about batteries either.

[MWareman]

I am interested in this as well, having just finished putting in a Chamberlain opener today and finding it no longer works with my Elk. Guess operating the door is no longer as simple as shorting the two wires together. I suppose one way around it would be to solder a couple of wires to the contacts of the pushbutton and wire them the the output of the Elk, or whatever system you use.

 

Tom

I have mine working fine with my Elk, but shorting the two wires does not work. There are a couple of solutions.

 

If you downgrade to the non-electric wall button, shorting works again.

 

In my case, I got an extra remote, opened it and connected the Elk output to the activation button. The Elk effectively 'presses' the remote button, operating the door. It's worked flawlessly for me for a couple of years so far.

[TomG]

I have mine working fine with my Elk, but shorting the two wires does not work. There are a couple of solutions.

 

If you downgrade to the non-electric wall button, shorting works again.

 

In my case, I got an extra remote, opened it and connected the Elk output to the activation button. The Elk effectively 'presses' the remote button, operating the door. It's worked flawlessly for me for a couple of years so far.

 

I thought about doing the remote thing, but it seems so convoluted.

 

What do you mean by "non-electric wall button"?

 

Tom

[MWareman]

The MyQ door comes with a couple of different options for the wall button. The one with the LCD will not work with shorting to operate, but the dumb wall controller apparently will. The way to test is to disconnect the wires from the wall controller and see if shorting them operates your door.

[TomG]

For whatever reason, the basic push-button is now wireless, and the two wires coming down from the opener are 12VDC. So no more of the doorbell push-buttons everyone has been using for the last 50 years. Guess I'll be cannibalizing a remote to get the job done, unless there is a way to recreate the signal this thing uses to open and close.

 

Tom

[MWareman]

Wow, this must have changed since I got my opener a couple of years ago...

 

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[mitchmitchell]

I would think this would be a perfect candidate for Polyglot integration.

[lilyoyo1]

That's why I stayed away from Chamberlain when I built my house. I have the Sommer opener and it allows me to still use the iolinc

[Jimbo.Automates]

Einstein42 has the code, not sure why he hasn't created a polyglot https://github.com/Einstein42/myq-garage

 

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[mitchmitchell]

I wondered that myself -- I could follow his (Einstein42) MyQ code easily but as Gary mentioned, puzzling out the polyglot interface is a bit more complicated.

[mwester]

Start here:  http://forum.universal-devices.com/topic/20379-how-to-build-my-own-polyglot-node-for-centralite/?p=207108

 

You may wish to scroll up a bit from that post to gain more context, and I seem to recall that there may have been some additional discussion further down.  But it's a good start on how to write a Polyglot node server.

[Goose66]

I have created a Polyglot NodeServer for MyQ garage door openers. It's very basic and supports status and open and close commands - that's it. I am currently "stress testing" it to make sure it can gracefully handle timeouts from the service. They happen so infrequently (maybe 1 or 2 per 24 hours at current timeout of 6 seconds) that it makes my coding faux pas hard to find.

 

I am wondering what the experiences of others who have worked with integration with the MyQ service have been in regard to how frequently the service can be polled before LiftMaster shuts you out, how long the security token remains valid, and the like. I am currently just checking for status changes every 30 seconds (the default long_poll() frequency) but I am afraid in the end that may be too frequent. Any feedback here would be welcome, and I can tweak the MyQ Polyglot NodeServer and put it in GitHub.

[G W]

I'd poll no more than every 60 seconds. In fact that's what set my polling at.

 

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[larryllix]

It certainly would. I need a primer on writing a node server. I wrote a MyQ driver for RTI so I just need to port it to work with the ISY.

 

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Being in the same boat

I have a few drivers that can be hooked into polyglot if I ever try to dive in one more time.

 

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[Goose66]

Ok, I put in an active and inactive intervals for polling. It goes into active mode after every command received from the ISY and stays in active mode for 5 minutes, then goes into inactive mode. You need to set the active and inactive intervals in the config.yaml file. I have them currently set for active = 20 seconds and inactive = 60 seconds. You also have to set the token timeout in config.yaml. I am currently using 600 seconds (10 minutes). I have been running it with these values for about 72 hours and it hasn't shutdown and is handling timeouts (1 or 2 a day) gracefully.

 

Putting the code on GitHub now and will post a new discussion in the Polyglot forum

[larryllix]

Ok, I put in an active and inactive intervals for polling. It goes into active mode after every command received from the ISY and stays in active mode for 5 minutes, then goes into inactive mode. You need to set the active and inactive intervals in the config.yaml file. I have them currently set for active = 20 seconds and inactive = 60 seconds. You also have to set the token timeout in config.yaml. I am currently using 600 seconds (10 minutes). I have been running it with these values for about 72 hours and it hasn't shutdown and is handling timeouts (1 or 2 a day) gracefully.

 

Putting the code on GitHub now and will post a new discussion in the Polyglot forum

The best technique I have seen (not with HA) is to report ....

 

-when a change is encountered,

-when first powered up, and

-every x minutes, user definable.

 

It take some code logic doing, but can be done.

 

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[Ajax]

Incase anyone is curious there is a skill in beta that works with myQ. Its actually 2 at this moment one you have to invoke myq with the alexa and give a pin to open the door, and another skill that you can just say alexa close my door and it works great.

[Goose66]

The best technique I have seen (not with HA) is to report ....

 

-when a change is encountered,

-when first powered up, and

-every x minutes, user definable.

 

It take some code logic doing, but can be done.

 

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The NodeServer checks state on startup and the Polyglot framework already takes care of not reporting to the ISY if the state has not changed in subsequent checks. The problem is you get no notification from MyQ of changes in state - you have to poll on some interval. I was afraid if I polled too frequently, they would cut me off, and if not frequently enough, it wouldn't be useful.

[G W]

The NodeServer checks state on startup and the Polyglot framework already takes care of not reporting to the ISY if the state has not changed in subsequent checks. The problem is you get no notification from MyQ of changes in state - you have to poll on some interval. I was afraid if I polled too frequently, they would cut me off, and if not frequently enough, it wouldn't be useful.

Polling every 60 seconds to get status is not an issue. If it returns that the door status is moving, then polling every 6 seconds until it reports opened, closed or stopped is not an issue.

 

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[larryllix]

Polling every 60 seconds to get status is not an issue. If it returns that the door status is moving, then polling every 6 seconds until it reports opened, closed or stopped is not an issue.

 

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That depends on the source. Ecobee3 warns you to not exceed 120 second polling frequency with the threat of being refused response.

[G W]

This isn't Ecobee. This is LiftMaster.

 

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[Goose66]

Polling every 60 seconds to get status is not an issue. If it returns that the door status is moving, then polling every 6 seconds until it reports opened, closed or stopped is not an issue.

 

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That's a good idea! Maybe next version.

[G W]

I have a wee bit of news. Just this morning I received access to the complete LiftMaster API. I can now write an accurate and fast driver. This is going to be nice.

 

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