Why One Man Is Fighting for Our Right to Control Our Garage Door Openers
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Dec 4, 2025 at 7:40 AM EST
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> it is possible for a savvy user to partially control the newer hardware in limited ways by hacking open the wall button and soldering a connection to a third-party relay module that interfaces with your home control system. But your home control system won't know if the garage door is open, closed or in-between or if/when it was remotely activated from an arriving or leaving vehicle. It also won't know if the door stopped due to the electric eye being blocked. Knowing the full system state, activation history and sensor data is much better, enabling all kinds of flexible automations like auto opening as you enter your driveway.
You could, in theory, start adding more third-party sensors around your garage door opener like a tilt/angle sensor on the door, a voltage detector on the motor wires, etc but it's just more and more "science project" to regain access to information that should be yours to start with. It's not like Chamberlain is giving away these garage door openers for free - just buy a non-Chamberlain brand (note: they now own MyQ, LiftMaster, Merlin, Arrow and several others so shop carefully). If you have a 2.0 (or earlier) Chamberlain from before ~2022 get a RATGDO to open it back up 100%. If you're stuck with a post-2022 encrypted 3.0 Chamberlain, then your only options are science project hacking to regain some limited control or just replacing it. I'm fortunate to have 2.0 Chamberlains and I only bought them because they HAD an open API that worked with open source Home Assistant - then Chamberlain sprang their carefully laid trap.
Many come with (or can be OTA flashed with) Tasmota or ESP Home open source firmware, ensuring you will continue to control them forever locally and/or via your cloud API of choice which I highly recommend. I built a new house with 75 ESP 8266-based in-wall WiFi dimmer switches running Tasmota firmware plus dozens of other wall plugs
I went with 2 https://opengarage.io/ and it integrates with HomeAssistant quite nicely. It also has ultrasonics to detect cara as well.
While the prior versions of their control hardware weren't documented, it was still possible to reverse engineer the serial protocol. But the new hardware even encrypts communications between the wall button and lift motor for no legitimate security reason other than "securing" Chamberlain's revenue stream. Fortunately my units are the older 2.0 version hardware so third-party add-ons like RATGDO can tap into the system and open it back up. While adding that hardware is an extra hassle I didn't expect, newer customers don't even have that option.
Even if Chamberlain provided a similar capability for free in their walled garden (they don't), I wouldn't use it because they lace their apps and panels with pop-ups ads. And there's ZERO fucking chance I'm giving some company's black box device access to my family's real-time phone/vehicle locations or internal home motion sensor data.
(To be clear, it is possible for a savvy user to partially control the newer hardware in limited ways by hacking open the wall button and soldering a connection to a third-party relay module that interfaces with your home control system. But your home control system won't know if the garage door is open, closed or in-between or if/when it was remotely activated from an arriving or leaving vehicle. It also won't know if the door stopped due to the electric eye being blocked. Knowing the full system state, activation history and sensor data is much better, enabling all kinds of flexible automations like auto opening as you enter your driveway. I used to have a Home Assistant failsafe automation that closed the garage door if it was accidentally left open and we weren't home. That automation worked great for years and then just stopped working when Chamberlain disabled their open API.)
This sounds awesome. Would be amazing if someone could do this for the Google Nest Protect system, which was bricked last year.