Re: Reed Switch for Garage Door

["BruceR" <br@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Here's how I do it. First, we have 3 single garage doors so only the
door for the particular car leaving/arriving operates. If I take the car
that I drive exclusively, the operation is automatic as it is valid to
assume that 99.99% of time I'm the one driving.  It forwards when I
leave and cancels when I return. I look for the door to open and close.
If it stays open for more than 3 minutes it is ignored as the assumption
is that I'm keeping the door open for other reasons.

For the door that has the Jeep that either my wife or I might use, the
operation is the same except that, instead of forwarding, Stargate calls
and asks me to dial '#' to confirm I want forwarding set. I ignore the
call if it's my wife using it or dial '#' if I'm leaving. SG hangs up
and then does the forwarding.  If I'm already gone with the other car it
doesn't call me.  When the Jeep returns home SG call and asks if I want
to cancel CF.

Our trash (YES Frank, we do have trash in Paradise but no place to put
it) isn't kept in the garage but the timeout or callback features I
mentioned would handle that.  Overall reliability has been excellent
with very few mistakes over the last 4 years I've had it this way.


> Not to threadjack, but i'm curious...   it sounds like you're using
> your garage door status to indicate your departure/arrival.  How do
> you deal with
>
> 1) your wife making use of the garage door
> 2) you opening the garage door to, say, take out the trash
>
> Seems like you'd get alot of false departure/arrivals...
>
> This is an area i've struggled with, making my house "smarter" about
> where i am and what mode it should be in.  For now i've got my HA
> server tied into my alarm system so when i arm it in away mode, the
> house knows i'm leaving, and when i disarm it, it knows i'm back, but
> i have the convenience of being the only person in the house.
>
> I can, of course, manually hit buttons on a remote to trigger specific
> modes, (which essentially i'm doing by arming the alarm), but i really
> want to get to the point where things happen automatically.
> Unfortunately I suspect this will never happen unless i'm willing to
> put up with a system that occasionally guesses wrong.
>
> How have other people dealt with this?  combinations of motion
> detectors and timeouts? any other interesting ideas?
>
>
>
> BruceR wrote:
>> You can see a picture of how I set up mine here:
>>  http://community.webshots.com/user/brobin111
>>  I have a Genie opener that already has a magnet on the trolley. I
>> just stuck an alarm sensor on the one that Genie uses and ran the
>> leads back to my panel over the Cat5 I had run to the ceiling during
>> construction. I could have added a magnet to the trolley if it
>> wasn't already there. The advantage to this setup is that there are
>> no wires within reach to be tampered with and the sensor was about a
>> buck (in a package of 10) at ADI.
>>  BTW, I use that contact to indicate to the Stargate that I'm coming
>> or going. Stagate then forwards my landline to my cellphone and
>> unforwards on my return. My wife and I have seperate numbers to make
>> this work.
>>
>>
>>> I'm looking for a reed switch to sense if a garage door is open.
>>>
>>> Radio Shack used to sell one for security systems.  It was maybe 4"
>>> long, and would handle a gap of an inch or so.
>>>
>>> Any ideas for a mechanical switch would also be appreciated.
>>>
>>> All I need is SPST, and doesn't matter if it's NO or NC.