JohnnyCake

This is kinda way out there, but no worse that some of what I've read in this forum.

My garage is 90 degrees to my driveway, meaning that I can not activate the garage door remote until I actually get to the top of the driveway. Then I have to sit there and wait while the garage door slowly opens (very old opener motor). Especially since I back in, its just been a pet peeve of mine to sit there waiting while the door opens, all twisted around backwards.

So, I now control the garage door via the touch screen from a mile away and the door is fully open before I get there and I can just zoom in.

I used the MagicJack service ($19.95 per year) to get my garage door a telephone number. I then got a ring-detector circuit board and two relays. When I call, the first circuit board detects the ring, and triggers the next two circuit boards, one of which triggers the garage door, the other answers the phone and immediately hangs up. Setting up a "one-touch" number in the SC means that this done via the touchscreen.

Silly? Of course it is. My garage door is probably the only one in the world which has a telephone number. Hey, it may not be Habious car-PC cool, but I still think its fun.

intdiamond

iTrader: (2)

That IS cool, but what if someone dials your garage-door by mistake, or your garage-door starts getting all those annoying sales-calls we all get.... will your door open?
My mom had the same problem (90 degree turn to pull in) so I pulled the antenna wire out of the opener-box, lengthened it about 3ft. and taped it to the garage ceiling. Now she can open the garage from the street, which is about 100yds. from the door.

JohnnyCake

I thought of that. I attached a wireless automatic garage door closer to the door and set it for five minutes. Like an iPhone, this device can detect if it is vertical (door closed) or horizontal (door open). If it is horizontal for more than the time set, it sends the signal to the door opener to close the door. It is basically like a remote that you'd have in your car.

Harold57

JohnnyCake, there is no reason why the garage being 90 degrees off of your driveway would cause you to wait until you are at the garage to open it. It is an RF signal and RF doesn't really care what direction anything is unless a very directional antenna is used. (We don't have directional antennas for the garage door openers in the SC and highly unlikely in your opener receiver either.)

I have the same situation at my home. My driveway is about 100' long and I regularly open the door from about 200' down the road (that translates to about 225'). It is very possible that the frequency is slightly off on your transmitter that you used to train it with. You usually can tune the either the receiver or the original transmitter and then retrain your car's transmitter.

Does your garage door opener receiver (the box in the garage) have a wire dangling down from it? That would be the receiver's antenna. If it does, it should have adequate gain to receive the signal from quite a ways away, depending on your garage door opener.

Habious

I think that's VERY clever! Hats-off to you JohnnyCake!

But, I do agree about security concerns. Anyone who dials (or mis-dials) that number opens your door.

Seems like it would simple enough to add a DTMF decoder board between the ring-detector board and the relay boards.

You could still have the one-touch program...just have it dial the number, pause, then dial your "access code".

Something like this, for $90...would give you total security. This board also has 8 outputs (I couldn't find an el-cheap-o one with only a single output) so you could also control other things (turn on/off your outside lights, kick the Tivo on, fire up the coffee pot, etc).