Garage Door Controller - Garadget

One of the many frustrating things is when you are away from your home and you don't remember if you had closed your garage door. Garadget can be a fix for that.

This is billed as a "cloud-enabled garage door controller". When I first implemented this IoT device, the integration that it has with IFTTT or Amazon Alexa is nonexistent. Meaning, I have to "hack" my way around to get the REST API integration to work with IFTTT and others. Fortunately, this is not too hard and I was able to get the tokens and on my way to use the "maker" or "webhook" service to have it open or close the door. Today, there is an existing IFTTT service already and Amazon's Alexa also recognizes the device; making the whole integration thing quite easy.

In essence, this device simulates the pressing of the garage door button and it detects the "open" or "close" status of the door via reflected laser. Quite ingenious, really. There is a small caveat, however - the WiFi receiver is not strong and it cannot handle double-NAT network configuration. Therefore, do consider this and other IoT devices when you design your house's network (Ubiquiti EdgeRouter X with 3 NAT'ed networks and double-NAT for each) and how to secure it.

IFTTT

Created "button" applets to open and close a garage door. Also integrate with location-based services to trigger closing of the door (just in case I forgot to close the door manually) when I exist a half-mile radius. There's also the timed based schedule to close the door at night and a notification whenever the garage door is open. Future integration maybe to consider a more complex orchestrator instead of IFTTT - Stringify is a good candidate and maybe even Microsoft Flow where time and location are just 2 of the few conditions to trigger something to be done.

Alexa

Unfortunately, Alexa integration is only action orientated. Commands such as "Alexa, ask Garadget open garage door 1" or the reverse of that. Alexa also can't distinguish my voice with anyone else's and that can be a security issue.

Conclusion

This is a first iteration of a garage door controller and what it can do is quite good. The reliability for it to remain on-line and cloud'ed is an important issue. One which will be improved in the future, I am sure.