Make your garage door opener smart: Shelly 1, ESPHome and Home Assistant (2023)

I've been adding more and more gadgets to my smart home lately, so of course my garage door opener had to follow. But instead of trading it in for a new device, I used a Shelly 1 and a cheap door contact sensor to make it smart for under $20!

It runs ESPHome (open source, no cloud) and integrates seamlessly with Home Assistant. I did like this.

Meet my garage door opener

This is my "dumb" garage door opener. It is manufactured by FAAC and can only be controlled with the supplied RF remotes.

My "dumb" FAAC garage door opener is about to get smart!

But don't worry, this guide should work with all brands of garage door openers (including Hörmann, Genie, LiftMaster, Chamberlain,...).

The only requirement is that the opener has an input for a wall switch. As far as I know all operators have this yes!

Goals: What I want

Before I start, let me say what I wanted to achieve by making the garage smart:

• Being able to open the garage door with my phone so I don't have to carry a remote (or worry about forgetting it).
• I want to have fun with automations. Get actionable notification when car arrives, auto close if left open...
• Add it to your home security system to be notified when the garage opens when it shouldn't.

But most importantly, the "smart" garage door meets my smart home guideline:

Making things "smart" should only add a new layer of control, not replace existing ones. Smart bulbs must be able to be controlled with standard wall switches. A smart garage door should still work with the remote.

This rule also encourages verywife approval factor;)

What will you need

• WiFi (+ garage coverage)
• Concha 1(smart switch)
• Wired door contact magnetic sensor (any brand is ok)

Concha 1

Most garage door openers allow you to connect a wall switch to open and close your garage door. You can conveniently open your garage from the inside at the touch of a button.

So my idea was simple: to have aSonoff Miniact as a switch to open and close the garage.

However, there is a problem: the Sonoff does not have dry contacts. It forces you to plug 110/230v into the attached device and this will fry most garage door openers. Most models use a dry contact or 12-24 VDC.

Instead, I went with aConcha 1🇧🇷 It is slightly smaller than Sonoff and exposes both sides of the relay (input and output). This means you can switch any voltage (within reason) and you are not limited to 110 or 230V.

Sonoff Mini vs. Shelly 1. About the same size and functionality, except for the dry contacts.

Another bonus point for Shelly; It can work with 110-230 V (AC) OR with 12-60 V (DC). My garage door opener has a 24V output. Perfect for completely hiding Shelly!

Magnetic door contact sensor

I also bought a magnetic door sensor to detect the state of the garage door. This is completely optional, but it's an inexpensive way to tell if your garage is open or closed.

I askedthis one from Amazon with a 2 meter cable, but any wired contact sensor will work:

Magnetic door contact sensor

You can also use wireless door sensors (Zigbee) and use adocument layerin Home Assistant to combine them. However, I prefer wired solutions whenever I can (no batteries to replace).

I then attached the sensor to the garage door roller (black plastic parts in the photo). As soon as the garage door is opened a few centimeters, the contact is interrupted and the status can be updated.

Contact sensor attached to the "pulley" and metal frame of my garage remote control.

wiring

Connecting the Shelly to your garage door opener and contact sensor is relatively simple:

• Ligue o Shelly com 24-60 VDC.
• Connect the contact sensor toSOUTH-WESTand Shelly's bottom.
• Connect the switching contact of your garage door operator to the inputyouand go outoder Shelly.

Be careful when connecting all this. Unplug the garage door opener so you don't get hurt! It would be a shame to electrocute yourself before trying ;)

Se usa DC, Shelly'seuwill be the negative wire, and thenorteit becomes positive. This is the exact opposite of AC wiring, so make sure you don't confuse the two.

The contact sensor still needs to be connectedSOUTH-WEST, but the other end should now be connected toeu, which is Shelly's negative lead when using DC.

Connect Shelly to DC power. Attention: L is now negative while N is positive.

Attention: You can operate Shelly with 110-230 V, but not with this contact sensor. Shelly applies mains voltageSOUTH-WESTinput and the sensor is not designed for this voltage! So stick to DC or buy a proper contact breaker.

Custom firmware: ESPHome

Next: Flashing a custom firmware on Shelly.

I used ESPHome for my light switches (including Shelly's) and thought I'd do the same here. (I won't go into how to flash Shelly as there are lots of tutorials).

Why do I like ESPHome so much?

• it's open source
• You can configure your devices with YAML and track changes with Git (I save mine with my Home Assistant configuration).
• There is an excellent ESPHome plugin for Home Assistant that allows you to upload changes directly to devices.
• Seamlessly integrates with Home Assistant. No need for MQTT (sorry Tasmota).
• You can write small automations that run autonomously on the device itself.

Then it's time to configure the YAML! There are three important things we need to configure:

• The relay on Shelly 1 so we can turn it on and off to operate the garage door.
• The contact sensor connected to theSOUTH-WESTShelly's input. We will use this to determine the condition of the garage door.
• The "homepage" showing the Home Assistant. This is your garage door!

Use: this is not a complete getting started guide. If you are not familiar with ESPHome or have trouble following these steps, please review them.Introduction section of your documentation.

Let's start with the relay on Shelly. we need to create aChangeand tell ESPHome which GPIO pin the relay is connected to. I marked it asinternalbecause I don't need relay status in Home Assistant:

Change:
 - platform:gpio
 Hard:GPIO4
 Name: "Garage Railings"
 I would like to:retransmission
 internal: real

Next: the contact sensor. For that I use asensor_binarythis is what shelly looks likeSOUTH-WESTInput (connected to GPIO5). Again, this is ainternalComponents.

i added thosereversingI filtered why my contact sensor returns false when the garage is open and I think this is a bit counterintuitive. But that's not mandatory, just keep that in mind for the next steps ;)

sensor_binary:
 - platform:gpio
 Hard:GPIO5
 Name: "Garage door with contact sensor"
 I would like to:contact sensor
 internal: real
 Filter:
 - reversing:
 # Eliminate touch sensor debounce to avoid quick on/off/on events
 - late_on_off:500ms

With these two components, we can now do this.Main pageComponent to which the Home Assistant is exposed.

To send the correct port status, we need to implement a simplelambdaOccupation. mine is coming backCOVER_OPENwhen the contact sensor isreal(remember I reversed it) and if not, it returnsCOVER_CLOSED.

To operate the garage door, I setopen_actionyclose_actionto turn on the relay briefly (0.5 seconds). This is what my garage door opener needs to open or close. ONEstop_actionit was not implemented because my opener has a built-in security system.

Main page:
 - platform:model
 device class:Garage
 Name: "garage door"
 I would like to:voc_template
 lambda: |-
if (id(contact_sensor).state){
devolver COVER_OPEN;
 }anders{
retorna COVER_CLOSED;
 }
 open_action:
 - call.call_:retransmission
 - delay:0.5 seconds
 - interruptor.turn_off:retransmission
 close_action:
 - call.call_:retransmission
 - delay:0.5 seconds
 - interruptor.turn_off:retransmission

Here is the complete ESPHome setup for my garage, including things like stove type, Wi-Fi settings, Home Assistant API,...

replacements:
 friendly name:Garage
esfoma:
 Name:Garage
 platform:ESP8266
 boards:esp01_1m
# The door contact sensor connected to the SW
# Shelly 1. Not exposed to HA, used instead to set the
# Status from layer.
sensor_binary:
 - platform:gpio
 Hard:GPIO5
 Name: "Garage door with contact sensor"
 I would like to:contact sensor
 internal: real
 Filter:
 - reversing:
 # Eliminate touch sensor debounce to avoid quick on/off/on events
 - late_on_off:500ms
# The relay on Shelly 1 that gives the boost
# the garage door opener (not exposed HA)
Change:
 - platform:gpio
 Hard:GPIO4
 Name: "Garage Railings"
 I would like to:retransmission
 internal: real
# This will create the actual garage door in HA. The state is based
# on the contact sensor. Ease of opening/closing the garage door
# turns the relay on/off with a delay of 0.5 seconds.
Main page:
 - platform:model
 device class:Garage
 Name: "garage door"
 I would like to:voc_template
 lambda: |-
if (id(contact_sensor).state){
devolver COVER_OPEN;
 }anders{
retorna COVER_CLOSED;
 }
 open_action:
 - call.call_:retransmission
 - delay:0.5 seconds
 - interruptor.turn_off:retransmission
 close_action:
 - call.call_:retransmission
 - delay:0.5 seconds
 - interruptor.turn_off:retransmission
W-LAN:
 ssid: !Secretwifi_iot_ssid
 clave: !Secretwifi_iot_password
 # Enable alternate access point (captive portal) in case WiFi connection fails
 ap:
 ssid:$friendly_name Alternative Access Point
 clave: !Secretesphome_fallback_ap_password
captive portal:
# enable logging
Recorder:
# Enable the Startup Helper API
API:
 clave: !Secretesphome_api_password
ota:
 clave: !Secretesphome_api_password
# Send IP address to HA
text_sensor:
 - platform:info_wifi
 IP address:
 Name:IP address $friendly_name
(Video) How to make your Garage Door Smarter with Home Assistant and ESPHome !
# Send WiFi signal strength and uptime to HA
Sensor:
 - platform:wi-fi_signal
 Name:Força WiFi $friendly_name
 update interval:60er
 - platform:uptime
 Name:$friendly_name "Availability"

install correctly

It's time to install everything correctly. To secure the door contact sensor cable, I 3D printed some clamp anchors. Thanks,LoboCNC for posting your design on Thingiverse!

3D printed cable tie anchors for cable management

I glued them to the aluminum frame of the garage door and tied the sensor wire to it:

Secure the sensor cable (I don't want it blocking my garage door)

You can see that the cable enters through the top of the garage doorknob (this opening already existed for other peripherals). Then I removed the bottom cover and glued Shelly 1 in its place:

Shelly 1 on my garage remote. Fixed with tape.

The Shelly connects to the garage door opener logic board to toggle state (and also receives 24V power):

Shelly connected to garage door opener logic board

Replace the lid and everything is invisible. Legal and Clean:

Outside, everything remains the same. It looks like a "dumb" garage door opener.

house assistant

With the ESPHome setup complete, it's time to integrate everything into the Home Assistant.

Fortunately, ESPHome devices are automatically detected, so no manual configuration is required. Cold!

ESPHome devices are automatically recognized by Home Assistant

To beMain pagethat we set up in ESPHome is also automatically suspended from Home Assistant. Here is my garage door in Lovelace:

Garage Door Controls in Home Assistant

Thanks to the contact sensor, the Home Assistant knows exactly whether the garage door is open or closed, and the arrows reflect this. closed garage? The up arrow is enabled. open garage? The down arrow is enabled.

My default ESPHome setup also sends additional data to Home Assistant: Shelly's uptime, her IP address, and WiFi signal strength. I don't use them often, but they can help diagnose issues when they arise (poor Wi-Fi connection? Does Shelly restart frequently? etc.)

Additional entities that can help detect/debug issues

Examples of Automation

Once these entities are in Home Assistant, you can start automating!

We always keep the garage door closed but occasionally forget to do so. The first automation I created is the one that notifies you when the garage is open for more than 5 minutes:

- I would like to:b8aa033f-800f-4d26-8f99-f533d705421f
 pseudonym: "[📣] Notify if garage door was open too long"
 Deduction:
 platform:illness
 identity:cubierta.garage_door
 one:Open
 Pro:
 Protocol: 5
 Plot:
 - Service:notify.notify
 Data:
 title: "🚙Garage left open!"
 message: “The garage door has been open for 5 minutes. Are you closing?

actionable notifications

As I said at the beginning: I no longer want to carry the garage remote with me. So I created an automation that sends me an actionable notification when I get home during the week. Tap on it and the garage will open without needing to call Home Assistant.

You can read more about setting up actionable notifications on the Home Assistant Companion Apps website:https://companion.home-assistant.io/docs/notifications/actionable-notifications

Here is the automation that sends the actionable notification:

- I would like to:082bf626-021e-4e05-8a9e-c36a94486bc5
 pseudonym: "[📣] Tell Xavier to open the garage door during the week"
 Deduction:
 - platform:illness
 identity:persona.xavier_decuyper
 Von:not at home
 one:get married
 Illness:
 Illness:hour
 business day:
 -Mes
 -From
 -marry
 -pendency
 -fr
 Plot:
 - Service:notify.iphone_mobile_application_van_xavier
 Data:
 title: "🏡 🔑 Welcome home to Xavier!"
 message: "Would you like to open the garage?"
 Data:
 press:
 Category:open_garage

Please note the additional data I am submitting and theopen_garageCategory.

In meconfiguration.yamlFile Next, I created a category for this actionable notification (open_garagewith the handleOPEN_GARAGE).

I also putauthentication requiredto true, therefore FaceID/TouchID is required before the garage can be opened. Better be on the safe side!

ios:
 press:
 categories:
 - Name:open underground parking
 identifier: 'open_garage'
 Behavior:
 - identifier: 'GARAGE_OPEN'
 title: 'Open garage'
 activation mode: 'Background'
 authentication required: real #Erfordert FaceID/TouchID
 destructive: INCORRECT
 behavior: 'Originally'

When the user clicks on "Open Garage", an event is created in Home Assistant. It is then used by another operator to open the garage and close it after about a minute. So I have enough time to park my bike and go home:

- I would like to:6c18050e-baby5-455f-bd52-4a1d5ad50cbd
 pseudonym: '[📣📲] Callback notification to open the garage'
 Deduction:
 platform:event
 event type:ios.notification_action_fired
 event_data:
 action name:OPEN_GARAGE
 Plot:
 - Service:capa.open_cover
 Data: {}
 identity:cubierta.garage_door
 - delay: 00:01:00
 - Service:capa.close_cover
 Data: {}
 identity:cubierta.garage_door

This is how it looks on my phone:

Actionable notification on iOS

automate the lights

Here's another useful automation: when the garage door opens (and it's dark outside), it turns on the lights. Then turn them off again 30 seconds after the garage closes.

These two actions are automated with a single automation:

- I would like to:79d7fa44-a2bc-4856-ba6d-f42a58fe6080
 pseudonym: '[💡] Garage light on when door opens/closes'
 Deduction:
 - platform:illness
 identity:cubierta.garage_door
 Von:cerrado
 one:Open
 Pro:
 seconds: 2
 - platform:illness
 identity:cubierta.garage_door
 Von:Open
 one:cerrado
 Pro:
 seconds: 30 # Turn off when the garage is closed for 30 seconds
 Illness:
 - Illness:illness
 identity:I am. am
 illness:below_the_horizon
 Plot:
 - service_template: >-
 {% if trigger.to_state.state == "ofensivo" %}light.turn on_{% will end will %}
 {% if trigger.to_state.state == "cerrado" %}light.turn_off{% will end will %}
 identity:light.garage
 Data: {}

It's things like this that make me appreciate Home Assistant. No more running for the light switch in the dark ;)

Conclusion and next steps

I'm super happy with the result. Our "smart" garage door was very reliable, so much so that I didn't even bother taking the remote with me! It also gives me peace of mind to be able to easily check the status of the garage and know that it is connected to the security system.

As a next step, I'd like to automatically open the garage when we drive through it (as opposed to notification). I'm thinking of using a bluetooth headlight in my car. Any idea?

Happy hacked house!