Hello everyone, I am not sure where to start with this. I have moved and my new garage door opener has built-in WiFi. I want to repurpose my Garadget to be used for car detection. I want to set this up so the laser points across the inside of the door like your garage door laser sensory does to see if there is something in the way of closing the door. This would tie into my homeassistant install.
The idea is the car would break the laser as it was driving into the garage and once the car is far enough into the garage the laser would hit the pad again completing the ‘circuit’ so you know the car is far enough into the garage to close the door. I would then have homeassistant turn a light on when the garadget goes from closed > open > closed.
What I have found is the laser takes about 15 seconds to go from open to close so that is too long of time. is there a way to make it instantaneous?
The time it takes for Garadget to detect the reflection from the sticker (door status goes from open to closed) is determined by the scan period setting (up to 1 second by default). The same applies for detecting the lack of reflection (door status goes from closed to opening). If you check for “open” status that will be delayed by the door motion time (default 10 seconds) after the reflection is gone. You may want to reduce that to get the open status sooner or look for “opening” status.
For the fastest response times make sure to use MQTT integration with HA.
Initial test shows this will work great for a parking assist! I switched it form cloud to MQTT and mounted the Garadget in a location that will give minimum distance to the garage door to the back of my car when closed. I setup an automation to send me a text and turn on a light in homeassistant when the Garadget goes from open to closed. The car is breaking the laser. So I am very happy i was able to repurpose the Garadget for this purpose. Thanks!