Re: Reed Switch for Garage Door

["random735" <random735@xxxxxxxxx>]

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.