Having a hard time attempting to ditch the i/o lincs which I really dislike.

 

So I just installed a Genie which going back because it has a massive security flaw that can leave me unable to close the door with the app when I'm away from home. Now I get that neither the Genie nor Liftmaster doors operate their rules in offline mode when the internet is down. It would be awesome if auto door closing rules still executed locally but I know they won't.

 

But what actually happens is beyond belief and makes Aladdin completely useless to me. 

 

Say you have a rule to close the door at 10:00 pm. At 9:55 PM, the internet goes down. I live out in the country with decent gigabit Comcast but it goes down 5 or 6 times a week for 10 to 20 minutes on average. Now 10 pm rolls around and the server can't send the command to the door to close it at 10 because the internet is down. Internet comes back up at 10:15 and rules that failed to execute when the internet was down don't. What's worse is the app won't let you operate the door until you first operate the door locally to re-establish state. So if you leave your house and forget to close the door and the door rule fails to close it because the internet happens to be down at that time, you are royally screwed with no way to remotely close the door even after the internet comes back up.

So in an attempt to find out if myQ has the same limitations, I contacted Liftmaster supprt and told them what happens with the Genie I just installed and they informed me, at lest they were honest, that myQ has the exact same limitation. 

 

Just coming here to confirm. Sometimes support folk aren't as educated as you might think. Also, maybe it was an issue that was eventually fixed and maybe it's still an issue leaving both myQ and Aladdin as non starters for me. 

 

 

 

3 hours ago, sorka said:

Having a hard time attempting to ditch the i/o lincs which I really dislike.

I did read through your saga.  I don't use the MyQ mobile app "rules" so I don't know if this is a problem or not.  I don't use the MyQ app for much of anything actually.

Depending on what it is that you don't like about the I/O Linc you have option of using a Z-Wave relay controller as an alternative to the I/O Linc.....

 

I don’t believe MyQ needs local operation before allowing commands after an outage. The commands appear to work whether the state is known or not.

32 minutes ago, Goose66 said:

I don’t believe MyQ needs local operation before allowing commands after an outage. The commands appear to work whether the state is known or not.

 

Can you comfirm this? Do you mean through the app or through the API? Maybe the thing that is broken is intentional for some obscure safety reason and if you actually use the close command through the API it works?

But unless you've done what I said above and this program a rule through the myQ app and then have it fail because you've blocked the service from reaching the door and then unblock it after the rule fails to execute and THEN issue a command through the API to see that it still works, I'm not sure I'd consider this debunked yet.

35 minutes ago, Goose66 said:

I don’t believe MyQ needs local operation before allowing commands after an outage. The commands appear to work whether the state is known or not.

And if someone unplugs the remote control light associated with the opener it won't let you operate it using myq either.  Found out the hard way.

MyQ has some other missing features like being able to turn off remote operators.

2 hours ago, simplextech said:

I did read through your saga.  I don't use the MyQ mobile app "rules" so I don't know if this is a problem or not.  I don't use the MyQ app for much of anything actually.

Depending on what it is that you don't like about the I/O Linc you have option of using a Z-Wave relay controller as an alternative to the I/O Linc.....

 

I actually like the i/o lincs except for two things. A month or two back, all six of my i/o lincs failed simultaneously. Non of the other hundreds of insteon devices failed so it's really strange that it was just i/o lincs. They never recovered. Secondly they randomly opened my garage doors responding as if to an all on. This is a well known issue with the i/o lincs and why many have had to dump them.

1 hour ago, sorka said:

A month or two back, all six of my i/o lincs failed simultaneously.

That's odd for them to fail at the same time.  I've had them fail from time to time and like you I replaced them.

The I/OLinc modules. Have the same switching power supply chip as the 2413 line of PLMs. So I would think they may also have power supply issues and acting strange if the supply is getting flaky.

In my 2450 modules. Smarthome tried a few different capacitors in the supply to try and improve reliability.  Not a Pi style filter just a single C7. My V1.0 units where 10uF/25V close to the supplies output voltage.  A  10uF/50V in a V1.8. Latest I have is a 220uF/50V in a V2.3

11 hours ago, simplextech said:

That's odd for them to fail at the same time.  I've had them fail from time to time and like you I replaced them.

No kidding. After the failed, I put the 3 inputs from my photobeams on my CAI8 (which I'm powering via POE from my Unifi switch) and the house water control (1 in and 1 out) also on the CAI8. 

 

For the garage doors, I figured I'd just replace them after 22 years with modern units that have control built in. It's unfortunate non of them work locally/offline and get tripped up when the internet or power goes out.

 

Half tempted to just keep the old Liftmasters after all and just hook the CAI8 up to them as well.

1 hour ago, sorka said:

It's unfortunate non of them work locally/offline and get tripped up when the internet or power goes out.

They can work locally in the same manner as the older units.  I just installed 2 x new Chamberlain systems and I used an additional control unit for each that I mounted in the attic above them.  This is just a normal button controller to open/close the doors but it has additional wires added for pulse input.  I can control the doors through my Lutron VCRX just like any standard "dumb" door.  The same could be done with IO Lincs or Z-Wave controllers or whatever you choose.

2 hours ago, sorka said:

No kidding. After the failed, I put the 3 inputs from my photobeams on my CAI8 (which I'm powering via POE from my Unifi switch) and the house water control (1 in and 1 out) also on the CAI8. 

 

For the garage doors, I figured I'd just replace them after 22 years with modern units that have control built in. It's unfortunate non of them work locally/offline and get tripped up when the internet or power goes out.

 

Half tempted to just keep the old Liftmasters after all and just hook the CAI8 up to them as well.

IIRC: Chamberlain has a MyQ box upgrade device you can just add on to the old units.

I have two different vintage Chamberlain GDOs and they both destroyed my Insteon comms until I installed FilterLincs. The newer one (MyQ and battery motor) was the worst but tipped me off to what my signal problem was and caused me to track it down.

20 hours ago, sorka said:

Can you comfirm this? Do you mean through the app or through the API? Maybe the thing that is broken is intentional for some obscure safety reason and if you actually use the close command through the API it works?

So I disconnected my MyQ gateway from the LAN for 10 minutes, then plugged it back it. The first command to door 1 from the mobile App worked as normal. However, the first command to both door 2 and door 3 from the ISY through the API appeared to fail, but the second command to both was successful. 

The first command to the lamp module from the ISY through the API was also successful. So really, not a consistent result to report. 

I will try again later.

Edited November 24, 20204 yr by Goose66

4 hours ago, Goose66 said:

So I disconnected my MyQ gateway from the LAN for 10 minutes, then plugged it back it. The first command to door 1 from the mobile App worked as normal. However, the first command to both door 2 and door 3 from the ISY through the API appeared to fail, but the second command to both was successful. 

The first command to the lamp module from the ISY through the API was also successful. So really, not a consistent result to report. 

I will try again later.

Is this the standalone myQ or the myQ built into the opener?

Standalone MyQ with the gateway device connected to the LAN by ethernet and corresponding MyQ-ready keypads that control older (purple button) LiftMaster openers.

I also note that, despite the failure of the first commands to doors 1 and 2 through the API, the status reported through the API remained correct. So you could have a control mechanism that closed the doors, and then a few minutes later, if the status was still open, closed them again. But you would want some independent way to verify the door state IMO, like alarm system sensors (very common these days).

I also also note that I don't count on my automation for security in this instance. I am old school - I don't move the car towards the driveway without visually confirming the door is coming down. Taught my kids the same thing. I mention this only to say that I haven't done a thorough investigation of the fail-secure nature of the MyQ system.

Edited November 25, 20204 yr by Goose66

So I rolled the dice yesterday and drove a 90 mile round trip to the nearest Liftmaster dealer and purchased two 8550WLB openers with 7 foot solid rail kits. Installed the first one last night. 

 

Night and difference in quality of everything compared to the Mattel look and feel of the Genie and the soft start/stop is real and progressive unlike the lurchy two speed affair of the cheap Genie. 

 

One thing I will give the Genie is that the Aladdin app shows you the wifi connection status and the signal strength which the myQ app doesn't.

 

Anyways, I did the same test this morning that failed on the Genie. I setup a rule to close at a specific time and unplugged the cable modem 3 minutes before the rule was to execute. Time came and as expected the rule failed and the door did not close.

I waited a few more minutes and then plugged the cable modem back in. Waited for it to come up so everything had a connection. Now already there's a difference. myQ still shows the door status as open while the Genie is in a state that says door status unknown and that door must be operated locally to re-establish state.

So I tried to close the door with myQ and it failed. So far same as the Genie which never recovered even an hour later. But 10 minutes after plugging the cable modem in, I tried a second time to close and this time it worked fine.

 

The system was able to recover and I think I know why. The Liftmaster knows it's open/close state which is required for the TTC feature to work from the control panel which the Genie doesn't have. What's also interesting is that the Homelink communication is two way with the security 2.0 feature. On our Prius, when the door is opening or closing, the homelink display shows and up arrow or down arrow in the direction of the door motion for exactly as long as the door is moving which is pretty cool.

 

So I ordered my Autolocks after this since I'm happy with the openers. I know many folks have complained about the wifi reliability. I'm hoping mapping a VLAN to the garage ceiling access point that is dedicated to the opener and less than 10 feet away that it will be reliable. Some wifi devices, like my ring doorbells don't work well on mesh with multiple APs broadcasting the same SSIDs. 

One more thing. I'm assuming I can't get push notifications from myQ to the ISY that are timely to the second so I'm going to route my magnetic contact switches to digital inputs on my CAI8 after all so my ISY knows exactly when my door opens or closes. I need this to trigger various external lighting scenes at home when the garage door opens at night.