Why One Man Is Fighting for Our Right to Control Our Garage Door Openers

With garage doors, at least you can make a physical device that literally depresses the button (and perhaps optionally has a camera to show the current state). Other devices aren't so amenable to physical fixes like this.

no paywall: https://archive.ph/jvNK7

Good on him!

I went with 2 https://opengarage.io/ and it integrates with HomeAssistant quite nicely. It also has ultrasonics to detect cara as well.

Chamberlain is one of the worst anti-user companies because they used a trojan horse deception while they were buying up other garage door opener companies to eliminate competition (they now own MyQ, LiftMaster, Merlin, CPSG, Arrow and several others). Their products used to have an open API and worked well with open source home control systems like Home Assistant. HA support was specifically why I chose to install their products in two homes. Then around 2022 they pulled a Darth Vader and "changed the deal" by shutting down API access for third-parties - except for companies willing to pay them - AND releasing a new 3.0 version of their control hardware that's encrypted.

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.)

> With that in mind, Kevin O’Reilly, the executive director of the FULU Foundation (it’s an acronym for Freedom from Unethical Limitations on Users), a nonprofit that fights for consumer ownership of devices, runs a bounty program that involves awarding money to people who can restore functionality to devices that have been bricked by manufacturers.

This sounds awesome. Would be amazing if someone could do this for the Google Nest Protect system, which was bricked last year.