For years I’ve had a bit of an OCD moment every time I leave the house and think “Did I close the garage door?”. So, if I don’t actually look back at the house, and say out loud “Garage door is closed”, I will often turn around a few blocks later, come back, confirm that I did close it, then go on my way. It’s basically the same as “Did I turn the stove off”, but I’ve never had that concern, so it’s manifested in garage door concerns.
Figuring there must be a better way, I started looking online, and quickly found Chamberlin has a whole line of Garage Door openers that have wifi and the ability to say if they’re open or closed, and control from a phone. They also make add-ons for their other garage doors, and finally I found they make the 821LM that is for all other garage door openers1. Ordering one off Amazon for just north of $100, I figured this would be the end of my OCD. Unit arrived quickly (even without Amazon Prime), and install was mostly easy. Screw the sensor unit to the door, and then program the Wifi base unit. They say to install next to the door opener, but really that’s just for range of the signal. Basically you can install the unit anywhere near the opener (probably within 40-50 feet, line of sight, but I haven’t really tested this). I installed it in the same area as my router and cable modem (in the garage).
- Note, I’m using Chamberlin and Liftmaster interchangeably since they are the same company. Chamberlin caters to consumers, where Liftmaster is their installer line. The Chamberlin version of this same device is the MyQ Garage MYQ-G0201. They are identical. Oddly, though, they have different Apps on the iOS App Store. [↩]