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I’m having high lift doors put in my new shop and I’d like to use jackshaft door openers as the standard pull type apparently won’t work with high lift.
The most common model appears to be the liftmaster 8500 or the chamberlain (same company)
But my research shows that they are charging a subscription fee to use the app to control the door.
I really don’t like the subscription business model if I can avoid it and may still get a liftmaster and use a seperate network integration solution.
but I’d like to know if anyone else has any good experience with other brand jackshaft openers.
Duke
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01-31-2019, 08:35 PM
(This post was last modified: 01-31-2019, 08:41 PM by EricU.)
didn't know about the subscription, I stopped using the app. I was mostly worried about them having a stupid little computer on the internet for no good reason. I would much prefer a local server, but the IoT model is to have a big remote server.
I just logged in and saw that my garage door has been offline for 700 days. They didn't ask for money. on edit: I see they charge for "premium" accounts.
I thought about plugging it back in and scraping packets and then blocking it at the router level and writing my own software. What other network integration solutions are there?
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I have liftmaster 8500's on both doors and both are connected. I can open/close the doors from my iphone, see the history of each doors operation and have it set up to alert me by text/email if a door gets left open for a set period of time. There are some other options for alerts that can also be setup. Can do these same things from the computer by logging into mychamerlain.com. Don't need or want any services beyond these, not sure what the premium account would consist of. I see no reference to a subscription nor do I have anything nagging me to upgrade when I log in or open the app.
Never had to pay a fee and there was no mention of one when I signed up. Been using the app for a couple years and it's been pretty reliable. I also added a security camera in the garage so I could see the doors for remote operation, I prefer to actually see what's happening rather than just trust the app. On rare occasions I've had the doors be unresponsive to the app or report the door's position incorrectly. It doesn't happen very often, it's only ever been a minor annoyance rather than a real problem. Usually just retry a couple minutes later and it works.
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If you want to open/close the door with google home, you gotta pay.
Looks like opening and closing with Alexa has open source solutions, however
I really want the open door alert box they sell, so I might have to hook it back up to the internet.
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(02-01-2019, 03:01 PM)EricU Wrote: If you want to open/close the door with google home, you gotta pay.
Looks like opening and closing with Alexa has open source solutions, however
I really want the open door alert box they sell, so I might have to hook it back up to the internet.
Okay... I am a techie, work in the IT industry for 30+ years. But WHY in the world would you put your garage door on the internet? Do you WANT someone to be able to open it and walk in? I mean really...is it that hard to hit the button on the remote?
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(02-01-2019, 05:15 PM)vernonator Wrote: Okay... I am a techie, work in the IT industry for 30+ years. But WHY in the world would you put your garage door on the internet? Do you WANT someone to be able to open it and walk in? I mean really...is it that hard to hit the button on the remote?
So you can close the door from work when the kids leave it open.
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(02-01-2019, 05:15 PM)vernonator Wrote: Okay... I am a techie, work in the IT industry for 30+ years. But WHY in the world would you put your garage door on the internet? Do you WANT someone to be able to open it and walk in? I mean really...is it that hard to hit the button on the remote?
My wife has a bad habit of leaving the door open and the garage is heated. (She also repeatedly locks her keys in her car) Really, it's almost an every week thing. Over the years we've had every manner of discussion about this from civil to screaming and I can't make it stop. It gets frustrating, but after 35 years of marriage, I'm not going to let this become a dividing issue, so I just used a little technology to help solve it. I need it to notify me and I need the ability to close it. It has a close timer but that is not guaranteed in all conditions.
She drives both vehicles. Hers sometimes and other times the full size handicap van used to transport our 27 year old wheelchair bound son. With zero use of his legs and only about 10% in his hands, she's been his caregiver most every day for the last 17 years. Let's just say she's got a lot on her mind every minute of the day.
There's some stuff in the garage, it's covered by security cameras, by insurance and by the 2nd amendment. The door into the house has a keypad lock so it automatically locks every time the door goes shut. Guess if someone really wants to come to corn county Iowa and hack my garage door opener they could give a try, might be their last mistake. Fairly sure it would be about a thousand times easier to just walk up to any garage and kick the door in or break a window. The secret is to just pick the right one, this one probably won't be it.
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(02-01-2019, 05:15 PM)vernonator Wrote: Okay... I am a techie, work in the IT industry for 30+ years. But WHY in the world would you put your garage door on the internet? Do you WANT someone to be able to open it and walk in? I mean really...is it that hard to hit the button on the remote? I know, it's really stupid. That's one reason I wish the server was local. But it is really nice for many of the same reasons other people have mentioned. my family has a bad habit of not closing the door. And I have stuff out there that I would rather not have stolen by tweekers. Fortunately we don't have that problem much here, but who knows, it really only takes one.
Front door isn't locked anyway, they can get in that way.
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I understand the use case scenarios, however these IoT devices are NOTORIOUSLY insecure. I mean like they are co-opted en mass into bot nets et. al. Until and unless you have proof of the vendors ability to defend the device AND their own network from outside entities I would be VERY hesitant on using one to secure my home.
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02-04-2019, 09:35 PM
(This post was last modified: 02-04-2019, 09:36 PM by EricU.)
I disconnected mine when all the webcams got hacked by that botnet. I agree that they probably don't know what they are doing to the extent that I trust them to be on the internet. I see Chamberlain no longer sells my version, they have something else
They could have a little server on the device and do most of everything I want. Sure, it would be nice to be able to see if the door is open from across the country, but I can live without that. Wonder how hard it is to hack into it.
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