Hi everyone,
Im looking for a way to automatically open my garage door when I pull up on my motorcycle.
Either by carrying a key fob or using my cell phone bluetooth
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated
Mike
A key fob would be better than Bluetooth. You would need to run an app to use Bluetooth and wait for it to connect after you are in range which could take longer than several seconds. If you are impatient like me, you want that door to start opening when you are a half block away.
Does anyone know of some type of key fob and relay that I could use for this application?
I wondering why a commercial garage door opener doesn’t cut it. My guess is your use of the word “automatically”. That is you don’t want to push a button to open the door (PITA on a bike), but rather just be able to pull up, have it sense your presence and open. If I’m right you have 2 choices (that I can think of ATM).
First and easiest would be to use the fob that comes with the opener (I’m assuming you’ll have one) and basically “tape” the transmit button down. In actuality you’d want to do this electronicly and have the transmit function activated every few seconds. I forsee 2 potential problems. First you’ll run the batteries down quickly but you could fix that by wiring the fob to your bikes power (via the appropriate regulator). Second I’ll bet most garage door systems have a rotating security code like your car alarm/lock does. I’m not sure that missing as many transmission cycles as you would, will leave the system working when you pull up. If you already have a door opener, you can experiment and see if my concern is valid.
If the above doesn’t work then you need a way to trigger the fob/remote so it transmits only when it’s in range of the garage door receiver. A way to do that would be with another RF transmitter at the garage door and an RF receiver attached to your fob. The RF transmitter sends a constant code at all times and when the receiver picks this up (as you drive into range), it then activates the fob to send the proper security code to the garage door opener. SF sells a number of RF transmitters and recievers that would accomplish this function but before you go further down that route let’s see if I’ve understood your desires first and see if anyone else comes up with a better idea.
Again I’ve assumed in the above that you’ll end up buying (if you don’t have on already) a commercial garage door opener since you’ll need all the mechanics and motor in any case. Thus I’ve been trying to work with the “pre-existing” parts rather than do it all from scratch. My belief is that if you go with the second idea above, you’d probably be able to replace the fob + additional receiver with a single, smaller transceiver … but let’s take it in steps right now.