MQTT Garage Door Control for LiftMaster & MyQ GD Openers

[taylormia]

I recently installed a LiftMaster 8550W and the old method I used to locally control the garage door (GD) became non-functional since the new Security 2.0 compatible 8550W uses codes sent from the wall or portable remote to trigger the opening/closing. The built in MyQ WiFi function relies on a cloud connection to trigger the device and I prefer to avoid the cloud for HA whenever possible. Also, the MyQ API changes often which make the existing HS3 plugins not as reliable as I would like. My biggest concern going this route was my lack of soldering skills - which I soon realized was not a big deal after a couple of practice runs.
The setup described here allows for a very reliable local control of the garage door opener and the garage door open/close status. It integrates into HS3 via MQTT and ZWave and allows Alexa voice control as well.

The following components are used:
- Sonoff 4CH Pro with Tasmota fimware: https://www.amazon.com/Sonoff-4CH-Pr.../dp/B072M4CRD9 ; https://github.com/arendst/Sonoff-Tasmota
- 882LM Wall Remote: https://www.amazon.com/LiftMaster-88.../dp/B00AZL8MO0
- Ecolink Z-Wave Plus Tilt Sensor: https://www.amazon.com/Ecolink-Intel.../dp/B01MRZB0NT
- Soldering Kit: https://www.amazon.com/Tabiger-Solde.../dp/B074W3W55T
- mcsMQTT Plugin for HS3

The Sonoff 4CH Pro is used as the relay to trigger the connected 882LM Wall Remote which sends a signal to the 8550W to open or close the garage door. The Ecolink Z-Wave Tilt Sensor shows a realtime status of whether the garage door is opend or closed.

Here's a diagram of the setup:



Procedure:

1. Configure Sonoff 4CH Pro DIP switches for Inching Mode and 1000 ms delay. The steps to do this are described in the Sonoff 4CH Pro Wiki here:

https://www.itead.cc/wiki/Sonoff_4CH_Pro


2. Flash Sonoff 4CH Pro with Tasmota and configure MQTT.
The SonOTA over the air flashing method does not work with the newer 4 CH Pro firmware - so flashing with a serial connection is the way to go.

Here's the Tasmota Wiki page on flashing the 4CH Pro:
https://github.com/arendst/Sonoff-Ta...CH-and-4CH-Pro

Here's a doc with the detail on configuring Tasmota and MQTT on the Sonoff 4CH Pro:
https://github.com/taylormia/guides/...MQTT-HowTo.pdf


3. Configure the mcsMQTT HS3 plugin to create a control device for the 4CH Pro. The process is described here:
https://github.com/taylormia/guides/...MQTT-HowTo.pdf


4. Solder the two legs of the button on the 882LM Wall Remote circuit board as shown below to 22 AWG or 24 AWG wires. Use the 22 AWG if the cable run is going to be longer. Here are pics of the 882LM circuit board showing the button legs to solder.






5. Connect the wires from the 882LM button legs to the NO and COM terminals of any one of the 4CH Pro relays.






6. Connect the RED/WHITE contact onthe 882LM to the RED/WHITE terminals of the 8550W GDO.






7. Power on the Sonoff 4CH Pro and use the HS3 Garage Door control device to toggle its relay to trigger the opening/closing of the garage door.


8. Include the Ecolink Z-Wave Tilt Sensor into your Zwave network and place it on the upper part of the garage door. The opening and closing of the door will show an Opened or Closed status on the sensor's HS3 device.




9. Here are the HS3 Garage Door Devices:




10. Use Alexa Routines to enable voice commands to open and close the garage door. You will need the HomeSeer Smarthome Skill enabled and your Garage Door MQTT device discovered.

Reference Website Credits not mentioned above:
https://www.007systems.com/blog--how...ike-the-vera#/
https://forums.stringify.com/t/linea...workaround/302

[Michael McSharry]

Excellent endeavor to overcome what I see as the security built into the GDO. Very well documented so that others have a change to take the same path.

How did you know what pickoff points you needed to get direct relay control of the pushbutton input of the GDO? The approach that you used to discover it may be useful for those who have other brands.

I understand the tilt sensor to assess the door state. In my approach I used the existing sensors (micro switches) use by the GDO circuit board to be able to measure both open, close, and well as somewhere in between. Why did you elect to add another sensor? As a side note I saw a YouTube of somebody who used a ultrasonic distance sensor (which is cheap in the robotics world) to measure distance from the ceiling to the obstruction. It was either the door, car or the floor. It allow them to confirm the car was in the garage when the door was closed. It could also be interfaced via the Sonoff and reduce the number of interfaces needed to support the GDO.

Now that you have soldering skills you will be able to accomplish this with a Sonoff Basic rather than a Sonoff 4CH Pro. A few dollars saved but more significantly a smaller form factor for finding a desirable place to mount the Sonoff.

[shodge]

taylormia,

I've had a z-wave tilt sensor on my door for a long time and in the last two weeks, I just took the same direction as you. I used a 9V wall-wart, a Sonoff SV and this switch from amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Did some soldering as you, put it all in a small black box and used MQTT to put it on Homeseer.... Works great....

-Stan

[taylormia]

Excellent endeavor to overcome what I see as the security built into the GDO. Very well documented so that others have a change to take the same path.

Thanks for the comments. I have learned so much from other users like you - just want to give back to the community.

How did you know what pickoff points you needed to get direct relay control of the pushbutton input of the GDO? The approach that you used to discover it may be useful for those who have other brands.

Nothing really scientific. Since there are four legs for the button, I used two ends of a wire to short the different combinations of leg pairs to find the one that triggered an open/close of the GD. I suppose you could also trace the leads at each leg to see where it went and make an educated guess on the correct pair of legs to short.

I understand the tilt sensor to assess the door state. In my approach I used the existing sensors (micro switches) use by the GDO circuit board to be able to measure both open, close, and well as somewhere in between. Why did you elect to add another sensor?

I already had the tilt sensor and did not want add extra wiring in the garage. Also the battery life on the sensor is excellent. I have been using it for almost a year with 2-4 garage door open/closes per day and the battery level still shows 100%.

INow that you have soldering skills you will be able to accomplish this with a Sonoff Basic rather than a Sonoff 4CH Pro. A few dollars saved but more significantly a smaller form factor for finding a desirable place to mount the Sonoff.

I wanted to make sure that my solution was rock solid and reliable for every day use and had a high WAF ....which it does (especially with Alexa control). Now, I plan to start experimenting with a Wemos D1 Mini/Relay Shield or a NodeMCU that I have as well as a Sonoff SV - all of which can use Tasmota.

[Pete]

Here did similiar using a Sonoff WiFi basic and added a temperature sensor.

Used the little mini small footprint 883LM Liftmaster button (same wiring), two reed switches wired to garage door (up level and down level) and one 1-wire temperature sensor.

883LM Liftmaster button modes. NOTE: Do not forget to program digital button. This is a mini version of the larger button. The side switch is for the lighting.


2 - SonOff WiFi basic modes with temperature add

Used terminals on case here:



3 - wired two magnetic contact switches to terminals on SonOff basic.

xxx

[kideon]

Wondering if this would work with the smart button (lcd display). Have debated taking it apart and wiring to the physical button terminals. Another question with homelink is there a way to just trigger it like another remote would? My car can so that if I get around to setting it up

[taylormia]

Wondering if this would work with the smart button (lcd display). Have debated taking it apart and wiring to the physical button terminals.

The 880LM Wall Remote with LCD shown below is the one I have. I opened it up this morning and tested. When the lower two button legs for SW2 or SW3 as shown below, are bridged or shorted, the GDO triggers to open and close the GD. These would be the legs to solder wires that connect to the relay you would use. In my case, the Sonoff 4CH Pro from my post.

Another question with homelink is there a way to just trigger it like another remote would? My car can so that if I get around to setting it up

I don't understand this question. Could you elaborate?

[kideon]

[QUOTE=taylormia;n1302535]

The 880LM Wall Remote with LCD shown below is the one I have. I opened it up this morning and tested. When the lower two button legs for SW2 or SW3 are bridged or shorted as shown below, the GDO triggers to open and close the GD. These would be the legs to solder wires that connect to the relay you would use. In my case, the Sonoff 4CH Pro from my post.








I don't understand this question. Could you elaborate?[/QUOTE

those buttons built into the car it’s a tech called homelink that allows you to pair your car to the garage door opener. I know there’s a way to use it and have the buttons trigger HA(on the list) but never researched if it could go the other way a ha device that is paired to the opener. It would see it as another remote control.

[taylormia]

those buttons built into the car it’s a tech called homelink that allows you to pair your car to the garage door opener. I know there’s a way to use it and have the buttons trigger HA(on the list) but never researched if it could go the other way a ha device that is paired to the opener. It would see it as another remote control.

I'm familiar with Homelink but am not familiar with Homelink triggering HA. As far as a HA device that is paired with a GDO...since the MyQ protocol is proprietary - only the remotes that are MyQ compatible i.e. those made by the Chamberlain Group or car remotes with the newer version of Homelink can directly trigger a MyQ / Security 2.0 GDO. That's why we need to use one of these MyQ remotes with our HA device/relay to trigger the newer Liftmaster/Chamberlain GDOs.

[taylormia]

taylormia,

I've had a z-wave tilt sensor on my door for a long time and in the last two weeks, I just took the same direction as you. I used a 9V wall-wart, a Sonoff SV and this switch from amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Did some soldering as you, put it all in a small black box and used MQTT to put it on Homeseer.... Works great....

-Stan

Nice job! Yes, any of the MyQ remotes will work with the correct button legs soldered to accept a trigger from a HA relay device such as the Sonoff, Wemos DI Mini, NodeMCU etc.

[taylormia]

Here did similiar using a Sonoff WiFi basic and added a temperature sensor.

Pete, I have seen your implementation earlier in another post somewhere. It and other posts inspired me to try soldering to find the solution in my post. Thanks!

[Pete]

What has helped me a bunch with soldering SonOff / MagicHome controllers is a lamp with a magnifying glass on it on my workbench and a small soldering iron tip.

The lamp I utilize today is probably 50 years old now and uses a florescent circular bulb.



Have a look see at the MagicHome controller mods with a digital on/off dimmer pot with Michaels firmware. He has two versions. One to add a temperature/humidity sensor and one to utilize the IR remote control. I am currently using these for new under kitchen cabinet LED lamps and recently added one over the kitchen cabinets.

Using MQTT you can remote control these with Homeseer and manually control them with the modifications.

Here the GDO button and sensors are also wired to the OmniPro panel.

So added more sensors for door for said MQTT endeavor.

[dbmet]

I recently installed a LiftMaster 8550W and the old method I used to locally control the garage door (GD) became non-functional since the new Security 2.0 compatible 8550W uses codes sent from the wall or portable remote to trigger the opening/closing. The built in MyQ WiFi function relies on a cloud connection to trigger the device and I prefer to avoid the cloud for HA whenever possible. Also, the MyQ API changes often which make the existing HS3 plugins not as reliable as I would like. My biggest concern going this route was my lack of soldering skills - which I soon realized was not a big deal after a couple of practice runs.
The setup described here allows for a very reliable local control of the garage door opener and the garage door open/close status. It integrates into HS3 via MQTT and ZWave and allows Alexa voice control as well.

The following components are used:
- Sonoff 4CH Pro with Tasmota fimware: https://www.amazon.com/Sonoff-4CH-Pr.../dp/B072M4CRD9 ; https://github.com/arendst/Sonoff-Tasmota
- 882LM Wall Remote: https://www.amazon.com/LiftMaster-88.../dp/B00AZL8MO0
- Ecolink Z-Wave Plus Tilt Sensor: https://www.amazon.com/Ecolink-Intel.../dp/B01MRZB0NT
- Soldering Kit: https://www.amazon.com/Tabiger-Solde.../dp/B074W3W55T
- mcsMQTT Plugin for HS3

The Sonoff 4CH Pro is used as the relay to trigger the connected 882LM Wall Remote which sends a signal to the 8550W to open or close the garage door. The Ecolink Z-Wave Tilt Sensor shows a realtime status of whether the garage door is opend or closed.

Here's a diagram of the setup:



Procedure:

1. Configure Sonoff 4CH Pro DIP switches for Inching Mode and 1000 ms delay. The steps to do this are described in the Sonoff 4CH Pro Wiki here:

https://www.itead.cc/wiki/Sonoff_4CH_Pro


2. Flash Sonoff 4CH Pro with Tasmota and configure MQTT.
The SonOTA over the air flashing method does not work with the newer 4 CH Pro firmware - so flashing with a serial connection is the way to go.

Here's the Tasmota Wiki page on flashing the 4CH Pro:
https://github.com/arendst/Sonoff-Ta...CH-and-4CH-Pro

Here's a doc with the detail on configuring Tasmota and MQTT on the Sonoff 4CH Pro:
https://github.com/taylormia/guides/...MQTT-HowTo.pdf


3. Configure the mcsMQTT HS3 plugin to create a control device for the 4CH Pro. The process is described here:
https://github.com/taylormia/guides/...MQTT-HowTo.pdf


4. Solder the two legs of the button on the 882LM Wall Remote circuit board as shown below to 22 AWG or 24 AWG wires. Use the 22 AWG if the cable run is going to be longer. Here are pics of the 882LM circuit board showing the button legs to solder.






5. Connect the wires from the 882LM button legs to the NO and COM terminals of any one of the 4CH Pro relays.






6. Connect the RED/WHITE contact onthe 882LM to the RED/WHITE terminals of the 8550W GDO.






7. Power on the Sonoff 4CH Pro and use the HS3 Garage Door control device to toggle its relay to trigger the opening/closing of the garage door.


8. Include the Ecolink Z-Wave Tilt Sensor into your Zwave network and place it on the upper part of the garage door. The opening and closing of the door will show an Opened or Closed status on the sensor's HS3 device.




9. Here are the HS3 Garage Door Devices:




10. Use Alexa Routines to enable voice commands to open and close the garage door. You will need the HomeSeer Smarthome Skill enabled and your Garage Door MQTT device discovered.

Reference Website Credits not mentioned above:
https://www.007systems.com/blog--how...ike-the-vera#/
https://forums.stringify.com/t/linea...workaround/302

Thanks for this tutorial.. I wonder if there is a lesser Sonoff that I could use to do this with since I dont really need 4 channels..

[Pete]

You can utilize a Sonoff Basic V1.0 hardware modifying per MCS MQTT documentation.

Here added a temperature sensor and used wired reed switches on the garage door.

So I have the SonOff basic module pressing the button, sensors for open / close door plus a temperature sensor.

No need here for additional ZWave sensors.

[taylormia]

The Sonoff 1CH should work fine too: https://www.itead.cc/sonoff-re5v1c.html
Also, most ESP8266 or ESP8285 based relays that are supported by Tasmota should work. See: https://github.com/arendst/Tasmota/w...ported-devices

I chose the 4CH Pro since I didn't have to find a case or mcgyver a power supply connection to the device and the reduced hassle was worth the extra cost.