The Chamberlain MyQ smart garage door opener was one of the first products we reviewed and it remains one of our favorite smart home devices.
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Keeping you sane
Everyone with a garage can relate. You drive away from your house and get down the street or even across town, and wonder to yourself (or to your spouse), “did I close the garage door?” When this happens, what do you do? If you’re lucky you can call someone still at home or a neighbor and have them check. They will probably think you’re crazy, but you will know for sure. If not, you are just left wondering until you return home.
The Chamberlain MyQ solves this problem with an easy-to-install, Wi-Fi transmitter you attach to your existing garage door and connect to your Wi-Fi network.
Once it’s installed, download the MyQ App and connect it and you can begin monitoring your garage door from anywhere in the world. You can make sure it’s closed when you’re not home or open it remotely for the gardener or the dog walker while you’re away.
Multiple Installation Options
When we first bought the Chamberlain MyQ smart garage door opener, our options for retrofitting our door were limited. If you are buying one today, there are several ways you can choose to make your garage door smart. First, make sure your garage door will work with the MyQ compatibility tool — most garage doors built after 1993 should be ok, but we recommend you check before you buy.
Option 1 — simplest and least expensive — Chamberlain MyQ Smart Garage Hub
For most garage doors, the MyQ Smart Garage Hub will do the job. It includes a Wi-Fi hub you connect to your network and a battery-powered door sensor that tells the hub whether your door is open or closed. If you have two garage doors, you can add an extra sensor, so you can monitor and control both. You’ll be able to control your door with Alexa, Google Home and the MyQ smartphone app.
Option 2 — add additional functionality and Apple HomeKit support — LiftMaster MyQ Home Bridge
If you prefer Apple HomeKit and Siri to control your garage door, you can add the LiftMaster MyQ Home Bridge. This Bridge still needs a compatible MyQ product, sold separately, to open and close the garage door. We already had the MyQ Smart Garage Hub, so we installed this last year. Since both of our cars have Apple CarPlay, it’s really easy to ask Siri to open or close our garage door for us when those in-car remotes are being fussy.
MyQ now also has many more devices available, including gate openers and smart lighting products for the garage and home. With the MyQ Home Bridge you can control up to 16 MyQ devices.
Option 3: adding a smarter garage door Button — the Liftmaster MyQ Wall Control
If you don’t want or have a MyQ-enabled door opener, another option is to buy a Liftmaster 888LM Security+ 2.0 MyQ Wall control to replace the opener button on the wall, plus the Liftmaster MyQ Home Bridge above. You will need a Chamberlain or LiftMaster opener manufactured after 1998 with a red or purple “learn” button.
This wall control includes a motion sensor that will turn on the door opener light automatically — no more walking into a dark garage. The button also knows if the garage door is open or closed, without the need to have a tilt sensor. We find the button more reliable than the tilt sensor and there are no batteries required because it’s wired to the door opener.
Option 4: buying a brand new opener
If you are building a new home or replacing your old garage door opener, just look for the MyQ logo on the box to make sure you get smartphone control. There are plenty of options available, from both Chamberlain and Liftmaster, including super durable chain-drive and super quiet belt-drive models.
Confused about the naming? Don’t be. Chamberlain and Liftmaster are the same company. In general, Chamberlain is the consumer brand and Liftmaster the industrial brand, though Amazon sells products under both names that you can buy and install yourself.
Monitoring the door
We have our MyQ set up to automatically notify us immediately after the garage door is opened, both on our phones and our watches. By the time we are about to look at each other to ask about the garage door, we already know that it’s closed. It will also send us a notification if we have left it open for more than 15 minutes. All of these features are easy to adjust in the MyQ app.
We live in a gated community, so beyond the risk of leaving our home exposed to animals and intruders, we could get an HOA ticket if we leave our garage door open too long. Before we had a MyQ, our association called us at midnight to tell us our garage was open. We appreciated the call, but we would have much preferred a phone notification to remind us to close it earlier.
Managing access
When we first started using the MyQ back in 2014, we could only use one account to manage our door, so both of us used the same login to access the app. Chamberlain has made lots of improvements since — now the primary account owner can share access to the door with up to three other people, and those other users can’t make changes, for added security.
Expanded Ecosystem
Chamberlain now integrates with dozens of other premium partners, including Google Assistant, Alarm.com, IFTTT and many more. You can even have your Amazon packages delivered safely to your garage with the Amazon Key service, if it’s available in your area.
Conclusion
If you or your loved ones have a garage, chances are you will love the Chamberlain MyQ smart garage door opener. It’s easy to install and it doesn’t need any speciality networks to use, just Wi-Fi and a smartphone. We think it’s the best smart home investment you can make, to keep your home secure and your sanity intact.
Originally published at https://appmyhome.com on April 26, 2020.
