andrew77 Posted March 18 Share Posted March 18 I have two 'smart home' (amazon wifi devices) garage door openers that pick and choose when to work. Is there a wired solution for someone with an Insteon and EISY setup? The garage doors are fairly far away so the wifi is the culprit. If I had a hardwired device I'm thinking it would fix my woes. Link to comment
paulbates Posted March 18 Share Posted March 18 (edited) Option 1. You can use an iolinc, I did for + 10 years at my old house. It and associated keypad went with the house when I sold it last summer. This solution depends on how far away, "far away" is. You'll see advice from very knowledgeable folks here to not use iolincs for this type of application, which is worth considering, but I never had a problem with it, even in our -20 winters +100 summers here. It's native to eisy as an Insteon device. Option 2: Yolink. I just started using yolink for other purposes, not GDO. It's a great, reliable long range radio (1/4 mile) solution if you're thinking of adding their capabilities. They have some ingenious gadgets to integrate current wall mounted GDO opener switches and other options. There's a great, supported eisy PG3x plugin. If I decide to automate GDO at my new house, I'll go this route. You'll need a yolink hub and plugin in addition to the devices you pick. Edited March 18 by paulbates 1 Link to comment
Bumbershoot Posted March 19 Share Posted March 19 +1 on Yolink. I scrapped my Z-Wave garage door openers for Yolink, and I'm very pleased with them. I've recommended them to others as well, and I've had no negative feedback at all. Link to comment
FrayAdjacent Posted March 19 Share Posted March 19 haha... I went a more nerdy route. I set up a Raspberry Pi with a relay board, soldered a wire into one of my garage door remotes and set up a bash script that trips the relay. Then on my iPhone I set up a Shortcut to create an SSH connection and execute the script. Works quite nice. Previously I had the old Insteon garage door opener setup, but it was quite unreliable. I replaced the garage door opener a couple years ago, and the same thing won't work anymore - basically the panel and button isn't a simple Open/Close switch. It's a serial controller... so you can't connect a relay to the inputs on the opener and just short them to open the door. It won't work. Link to comment
paulbates Posted March 19 Share Posted March 19 1 hour ago, Bumbershoot said: +1 on Yolink. I scrapped my Z-Wave garage door openers for Yolink, and I'm very pleased with them. I've recommended them to others as well, and I've had no negative feedback at all. Did you use the finger controller? That's ingenious and is how I would to implement it... myq is a "preexisting condition" at my new-to-me house. Link to comment
EricBarish Posted March 19 Share Posted March 19 I used a wifi extender to get wifi control into the garage and to my ring spots on that side of the house. Plugged into a outlet in laundry room next to garage fixed my connection problems. Link to comment
mmb Posted March 19 Share Posted March 19 4 hours ago, Bumbershoot said: +1 on Yolink. I scrapped my Z-Wave garage door openers for Yolink, and I'm very pleased with them. I've recommended them to others as well, and I've had no negative feedback at all. Is a hub required or can it be linked directly to the EISY? Link to comment
Bumbershoot Posted March 19 Share Posted March 19 3 hours ago, paulbates said: Did you use the finger controller? That's ingenious and is how I would to implement it... myq is a "preexisting condition" at my new-to-me house. Nope, I used their Garage Door Controllers with Garage Door Sensors. My garage door openers are original with the house, which was built in 1999. They've worked perfectly. Link to comment
Bumbershoot Posted March 19 Share Posted March 19 38 minutes ago, mmb said: Is a hub required or can it be linked directly to the EISY? You have to have a hub. Yolink uses LoRa, which isn't included in the Z-Matter dongle, so you have to have a hub. 1 Link to comment
andrew77 Posted March 19 Author Share Posted March 19 21 hours ago, paulbates said: Option 1. You can use an iolinc, I did for + 10 years at my old house. It and associated keypad went with the house when I sold it last summer. This solution depends on how far away, "far away" is. You'll see advice from very knowledgeable folks here to not use iolincs for this type of application, which is worth considering, but I never had a problem with it, even in our -20 winters +100 summers here. It's native to eisy as an Insteon device. Option 2: Yolink. I just started using yolink for other purposes, not GDO. It's a great, reliable long range radio (1/4 mile) solution if you're thinking of adding their capabilities. They have some ingenious gadgets to integrate current wall mounted GDO opener switches and other options. There's a great, supported eisy PG3x plugin. If I decide to automate GDO at my new house, I'll go this route. You'll need a yolink hub and plugin in addition to the devices you pick. I've done some YouTubing on Yolink and it looks exactly like what I'm hoping for, as long as it's rock solid. I have the same sort of thing but a cheaper one called REFOSS. It sometimes opens and other times not. I' haven't found where I can add it to Alexa but it seems to say it does have that capability Link to comment
paulbates Posted March 19 Share Posted March 19 (edited) 1 hour ago, andrew77 said: 've done some YouTubing on Yolink and it looks exactly like what I'm hoping for, as long as it's rock solid. I have the same sort of thing but a cheaper one called REFOSS. It sometimes opens and other times not. I've watched yolink from afar on the forums and made the leap a few months ago. It has a lot going for it Solid technical & rf solution - powerful star network that works A very good complement for Insteon (each is good at something the other isn't) not really that expensive A complete pg3x plugin that works Designed to be integrated with other HA / myq syndrome immune It currently does not have a local api, but personally I'm less worried about that versus my Venstar days 10 years ago. 1 hour ago, andrew77 said: haven't found where I can add it to Alexa but it seems to say it does have that capability I haven't tried, but would guess you could do it by having Alexa setting a variable or calling a program, and the program handling the door operation through the plugin Edited March 19 by paulbates Link to comment
slimypizza Posted March 19 Share Posted March 19 Im using the Insteon iolinc and have been for a few years now. When we moved a couple of years ago to a house that had MyQ, I took the iolinc from the old house, scrapped MyQ and installed the iolinc. Works very well with my KPL switches, geofence, Alexa, and Home Assistant. Haven't looked at the Yolink solution. Always wanting to learn more, I'll read up on that. 1 Link to comment
andrew77 Posted March 19 Author Share Posted March 19 I see the IOLinc is still sold but the garage door 'wires and magnet' don't seem to come with it. Could you describe how you hooked it up to your garage opener? Link to comment
paulbates Posted March 19 Share Posted March 19 (edited) 7 minutes ago, andrew77 said: Could you describe how you hooked it up to your garage opener? These are the steps. Search amazon for garage door contact sensor that you like. I never used the kit but followed the directions Per my first response in this thread, the distance does matter as the iolinc is powerline only. Edited March 19 by paulbates Link to comment
andrew77 Posted March 19 Author Share Posted March 19 Thank you very much for this. My complaint is other automatic openers are wifi and don't work all the time because the garage is about 200-250 ft away from the house. This seems like a plug in direct to the power so it should be as reliable as I've always found other insteon devices, correct? Link to comment
paulbates Posted March 19 Share Posted March 19 (edited) It's worth a try but that's pretty far for a single band signal. However, if you are saying that there are other devices, likely dual band, working in the garage.... it's likely one circuit and the dual band devices are providing a bridge to that area. I know that's not a 100% clear answer, but it's these long distance fringes that put any of these powerline technologies to the test. I would guess that yolink would cover that easily. I don't know if you have one of the old boxy 1st generation lamplincs.. they are powerline only. I still have them for my christmas lights. If you have one, plug it in the garage and see of you can access it from the isy in the house Edited March 19 by paulbates Link to comment
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