- Oh no, I reversed the polarity,
which doesn't matter. - It doesn't matter.
- [Linus] 'Cause it's a momentary switch.
I know!
Do not wanna do this
four times. - Aw, muffin.
- Okay.
- I'm gonna die.
- It's no secret that our previous attempts
at DIY smart home solutions
have not always gone according to plan.
The smart garage door opener at my old house
ended up de-smartifying itself,
when the wires we soldered started picking up
some kind of radio waves,
that caused my garage door to inexplicably open and close.
And our attempts to use GE Enbrighten smart dimmers
with motion sensors on them for presence detection,
blew up in our faces when we discovered that Jasco,
the company that actually develops the switches
and the firmware for them,
won't send out firmware updates to individual users.
And the freaking things were broken
'cause they were on four-year-old firmware.
But not today!
Today, we are taking our second crack
at smartifying a dumb garage door opener,
and it's gonna go flawlessly.
Thanks to this Enforcer open and close sensor.
And this Fortrez...
- Multi input, it's a MIMO, it's called the MIMO.
Multi input, multi output.
It takes the sensor,
it writes to the garage door like a relay.
- What could go wrong?
- Nothing, I tried it before.
- Just like you tried those switches.
- Well, I told you to buy different ones.
- And just like I tried to segue to our sponsor.
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(upbeat music)
The main functionalities you want,
out of any smart garage door opener, are twofold.
One, you wanna be able to open and close the door
from an internet connected device,
like a Google Home or an Echo or your smartphone.
And number two, you want to be able to check the status
of the door so that you know if it's open or closed,
that way you can configure automations
like, say for example,
if my garage door is still open at two in the morning,
that's probably not intentional.
Please go ahead and close that.
As you can see, the garage door openers that I have,
have neither of those things.
Now what I could do is I could buy myself
a prefab kitted out smart garage door opener.
The issue, as I discovered at my old house,
is that Chamberlain,
who has a near monopoly on garage door openers
at this point,
forces you to go through their MyQ platform
in order to access any of those controls.
It's super closed down and just has boneheaded limitations.
Like, when you go to close it, it goes,
(controls beeping) beep, beep beep,
beep, beep, beep, beep,
and the light flashes for like, 10 seconds
before it will actually start to close.
I don't need that, I just want the door to close.
Chamberlain openers also don't play nicely
with simple momentary switch buttons like these ones.
So you're forced to use theirs
which prevents you from using any other ecosystem.
So the obvious answer is to save myself hundreds of dollars
by converting my old dumb openers into smart ones
using just a couple of really cool devices.
- And some of them are pretty simple, like this!
- Yeah, that's super cool.
I can't believe we didn't think of this last time,
we had that little Roost thing
that you can't even buy as a consumer.
They sent it to us, but it's battery powered,
which means the battery died and then I never replaced it.
- This is about as simple as it gets.
It's literally just a magnetic contact.
You see these on commercial garage doors
all the time. - All the time.
We even have them at the office.
I didn't think to use them. - Yeah.
Literally all we need to do is mount this guy,
which is the sensor, it's got the wire
attached to the frame.
And then this guy, which is our kind of contact to the door.
(metal clanging)
Oh my God.
- Like that's how it touches?
- [Jake] Something like that.
- Ah, that looks kinda janky.
(metal clanging) (Jake yells)
I think this is tightened down and like bending this.
And I think that's why it's not wide enough
to just come on here.
- Oh, hey, there's other parts.
- Oh, well that makes sense.
- This L-bracket might be useful.
And here's some self-tappers.
- Our contractor's on hand and he's just like
watching this stupid way that I'm gonna do things,
he's like, "No, no really there's a better way, Linus,"
It's like, "Dude, I know."
But I'm gonna do it this way anyway.
See, watch!
(drill buzzes)
There we go, see it worked.
No, I'm not taking it out, I just wanna-
(metal clanging) Whoops.
So how does it go on?
Do we actually need to loosen this bolt or no?
- Oh, I see an example,
but now I'm just kinda more confused.
- Yeah, look see it bends, now it bends,
so I bet I can put it on there now.
- Sort of, not really.
- While he's figuring out how to test it,
I'm just gonna YOLO and install it.
- [Jake] Put it like very close to the bottom,
so it will detect even if the garage is open.
- For sure! - [Jake] A little bit.
- [Linus] Can I have some self-tappers?
No, I need more.
Oh, that's definitely, okay, that's too much.
- [Jake] Okay, we'll just have 'em, it's fine.
(Linus sniggers)
- Everyone just goes full snark-mode,
as soon as they start doing anything for me.
It's like, "Oh, that's not quite enough,
here's three times as many."
This is interesting.
(drill buzzing)
Ah, you got...
They look like horse hoof trimmers, but they're for
tools. - Horse hoof trimmers?
- No they look like this.
Hold on. - Horse hoof trimmers?
I am at a loss.
- [Jake] Straight hoofing bud.
- Everyone's talking to me like I'm crazy,
you know, horse hoof trimmer, what do you. (mumbles)
I want one of those.
- [Jake] Oh. - Oh.
- [Brandon] Oh.
- Oh man, that's not easy to get at.
(Linus groaning)
And look at that, please get in there please.
- [Dan] Remove the screw, trip the end off-
- Oh that's a good idea - And then
just screw it back in.
- [Linus] That's way smarter, thanks Dan.
- [Dan] You're very welcome.
- These are both excellent ideas.
I like Reese's way better.
Oh wait. No, no. Reese's idea doesn't work.
Yep. Nope. Sorry, we're back to Dan's solution.
- [Jake] Good job Dan. Dan, you win.
- [Dan] Yay.
- [Jake] I don't know what you win.
- Oh my God!
These are not gonna cut this.
This is, wow, what is this screw made of?
(grinder buzzing)
- [Dan] Jesus Christ.
(Dan chuckles)
I'm employed by this man.
- Check it out, it's all good.
(door whirring)
- [Jake] Totally fine.
- [Linus] All right, rock on. Then we're good enough.
- [Jake] Is that ethernet or is it two conductor?
I told them to run two conduct-
- This is CAT6.
- [Jake] Okay, well, pick some pairs and...
- All right.
Wonderful. Thanks so much, Dan.
I knew we had you here for a reason.
Dan's here by the way.
So far, he has handed me this CAT6 stripper.
- [Jake] He's a stripper.
- What pairs are you feeling, Jake?
Should we be green boys today?
- [Jake] Yeah, I'm down with green.
- Feeling green for success.
Why did you have them run CAT6A
if we only need two conductors.
- I didn't, I told them to run two conductor
and they ran CAT6A anyways,
and they also ran ethernet from up there
to the mechanical room I'm pretty sure for some reason.
Don't know why they would've done that.
(indistinct chattering)
- That might've been my fault.
I didn't know that it was gonna be all wireless.
Okay, Jake, I'm hooked up, we ready to test it?
- Okay, time for you to get up on the ladder.
- On the ladder?
- I mean, yeah, the cable goes up there.
- [Linus] Oh.
Yeah, it's an A-frame ladder, I don't think it
goes that high. - It'll stand twice that
height, you know.
- That's extremely sketchy.
I would probably die. - Okay let's use ladder
on that garage door, and we'll just do one
for today. - Hold on a second.
Let's just think for a second here.
Hey, you know what? Dan's tall.
- [Dan] Oh, God.
- Don't worry. You always wanna put it on the last rung.
That's the safest one.
- I'm gonna die.
Why are we doing this on top of the ladder
instead of bringing the ladder down?
- Well, because we thought that we could do it
from on top of the ladder, obviously,
(Dan mumbling) Dan.
- [Dan] Dan.
- [Linus] Dan.
- [Dan] Everybody's being mean now.
- You totally damned it. (Dan groans)
- Hinge must be locked fully before using.
Really, not partially? - This is what I'm
trying to say.
- [Jake] What are you, working the logistics department?
Stop being so logistical about it, just let it happen, Dan.
- He pays our bills. Sometimes.
- Is that the only reason you don't want me to die?
- Yeah, you'll also get blood all over the floor.
- This is awesome. Okay, we're great.
You can make it up to me by
buying a desk pad on lttstore.com,
making your workspace look so pretty.
- I'll buy two.
- This CAT6 run is the same one
that's hooked up to the door sensor.
So I strip the same pair, the green pair,
and now what I need to do is,
I need to wire it into my MIMO module here.
This is Z-Wave Plus compatible, which means
that our smartphone or whatever other smart device
communicates over wifi to our Z-Wave controller.
In our case it's an Aeotec Stick.
And that is gonna communicate over Z-Wave
to this buddy right here.
Now, because of another issue we ran into
with those GE switches,
that they don't seem to support any kind of Z-Wave
security or encryption,
it seems like we might be having
some signal strength issues.
Because they also don't seem to pass through that signal
for devices that do require security.
For a light, I don't care.
But for garage door opener, I care a lot.
So in the meantime,
Jake has plugged in a couple of Aeotec smart receptacles,
to act as a relay for us.
Just to get the signal from the mechanical room to here.
Whoo, okay.
- [Dan] So is that ladder locked at all or no?
- Don't move around. It's locked a little.
- Oh. (Dan laughs)
- Yeah, safety patrol.
Okay. I should be powered now, Jaco.
- [Dan] Jack who?
- I see lights.
Ah! (switch clicking)
Yes. It's working.
- When I just had it set up over there,
it was barely working like maybe one at every 10 tries.
Now that I've added the repeater plugs
and told that Z-Wave device to heal its connection,
every time I click the button, it turns on.
Hey, you wanna see again?
(button clicking)
Eh? - Nice.
Signal two and ground?
- [Jake] Yeah. And, well, the appropriate ground.
I'm sure you can figure that
much out. - I'll find the ground.
Well, there's actually three grounds.
- [Dan] What? - One for power,
one for SIG 1,
one for SIG 2. - Oh, Jesus Christ.
- I'm just...
- [Jake] Why did I even listen to what you said?
Oh, I have to, ah, that makes sense.
I was tinkering with it over there
and I was playing with the sensor and it wasn't updating.
You have to switch it from periodically update
to on change,
which is what we want, right?
Do you have it hooked up now?
- [Linus] Should be.
- [Jake] Yeah, it's definitely reporting a different value.
Okay, where is it right now?
- It's on. It's like next to it.
- [Jake] Pull it away.
Oh, yeah!
- Oh, nice! So I can screw this onto the door then?
- [Jake] Sure. - Nice.
Okay. Oh, this is great.
This is actually going shockingly smoothly.
I guess that's what happens when we pretest.
- I tested the (beep) outta these.
(drill buzzing)
- Ah, ow, I pulled something. Ow!
I'm weak. I'm weak guys.
It's closed right now then, right?
- [Jake] I believe so, yeah. It's at four.
Should I open the garage?
- No. - I'm gonna open the garage.
- No, one sec! - I'm opening the garage!
- One sec! - Are you ready?
Can I do it now?
- Yeah, you're good.
- [Jake] Which one is it? The bottom one?
- No, the bottom one is the close one.
- [Jake] Wow. That's stupid.
Open!
- Okay, stop. - [Jake] And open.
And...
- Ah, oh, I'm in the sensor.
(door whirring)
Okay, yeah. Go ahead.
(door whirring)
- And closed. Immediate.
- [Linus] Nice.
- Yes. - Yes!
- [Jake] That works so well. (chuckles)
- And we don't even have to have any janky wiring
over by the buttons.
They'll just work completely as normal.
They have no idea that any of this is even here.
- [Jake] Yeah, you just have to stick a little wire
onto the button now.
- I have to stick a wire onto the button? Sorry, what?
Oh, right, okay, the button. I'm working on it.
Jake, you don't happen to know which contacts I'm...
- I mean, there's not- - Bridging here.
- [Jake] Is there really that many?
- Well, there's three.
- [Jake] Three?
- So I'm just gonna cut myself a nice big ol' chunk of this.
- I'm not sure what voltage a garage door button runs at,
but it's probably like 12 volt DC.
So a garage door opener, or something sending signals
is gonna be way too low voltage to trigger that.
'Cause this is door two, right?
- Where does it even go into?
- [Jake] It's signal two, right?
- Yeah, well, they're called no two, com two, and NC two,
which I'm assuming is no connection to.
- No, no, no that would be normally open,
and normally closed.
You'll want normally open two and com two.
Okay, sorry. One more time, door two?
- I'm sorry. I can't look at that right now.
- [Jake] Can you look at it for a sec?
- No. - [Jake] Yes, you can.
- Fine.
- Door two? - Yes, that's door two.
Brandon, can you even see from there?
There's little lights turning on
and it's going click, click.
(controller clicking)
So can we...
Wait, what? There's like caulking here, why?
- [Jake] You ready? - Hold on,
no, no, don't do anything.
- [Jake] You're not ready?
- [Linus] Nothing.
- [Jake] What do you mean nothing?
- I mean, it doesn't work.
- [Jake] I don't believe you.
- [Linus] Okay go!
(switch clicking) Nope, nothing.
- [Jake] What the. - Okay, hold on,
hold on, Jake, let's try the red and white one
just to humor me.
- I thought you were trying it both...
That's what you said. You tried it the other way.
- No, and then I reversed the polarity,
which doesn't matter - It doesn't matter.
- [Linus] 'Cause it's a momentary switch,
I know! - Oh, my God!
- [Linus] It's been a rough day,
Jake. - Oh my God!
(Brandon groaning)
- My bad, my bad.
- [Jake] Stick it on there!
- This is so uncomfortable.
I do not wanna do this four times.
- [Jake] Aw, muffin.
- Okay. My back hurts.
- [Jake] Well, move the ladder so it's more
ergonomic, you tool.
- [Linus] Just get in there!
Jake, hit it.
(switch clicks) (both cheering)
- [Jake] It works!
And the sensor updated immediately.
- Okay. - Oh, my back hurts.
- Now it's time to melt this boy.
So like, I mean, I guess here is fine, right?
Just go for it?
- Brother, whatever you want. - Ah, don't do that.
- What? Don't do what?
- [Dan] You can't get the cover on
if you mount it to the ceiling first.
- Oh my God. The cover screws on from the back?
- Yeah. - Why?
Now we need to hook up jumper then,
so that I can control the other one as well?
- [Jake] Yeah.
- Jake, I'm doing it.
- [Jake] What? - I'm undoing it.
- [Jake] What? - Right now
I used the green pairs for both the sense
and the signal from the button.
But now that I know that we have to have two of the pairs
coming from over there, one for signal, one for sense,
for whether it's open or closed,
I would like to color code it.
- [Jake] I don't care, it's your house.
- Okay.
- The one downside to an approach like this,
is we don't really have a way to tell the garage door
to open or close,
we just have a way to tell it to activate.
Which, depending on where it is, will open or close.
So I added a little bit of like, logic to the sensor.
So that if the garage door is closed and you say,
"Hey, Google Assistant close the garage door."
It's not gonna then open the door.
'Cause that would suck.
It'll only close it if it's open.
But here, look at that.
(door whirring) - You gotta tell me when
you're gonna do that.
- Why? Oh, wow!
Yesterday at 7:00 p.m.,
you drew almost 8,000 watts concurrently.
- That's a little. - Did you have
the oven on, maybe?
- All right. (groans)
I think I did it. Ow, my back.
- In order to get voice assistance like,
Google Assistant and that other one from Amazon to work,
the best way to do it is to use Home Assistant Cloud,
which is a paid service, it's only like five bucks a month.
But it is run by the people that make Home Assistant. So...
- I thought the whole idea was
I didn't want this to be cloud bound.
- Okay, well how is it gonna be not cloud bound
if you wanna use Google Assistant?
- I don't know.
- So, once you have that set up,
all you need to do is add...
you don't need the Home Assistant app for this.
- I don't? - Well, you can get it later.
- Oh, okay. - You need to activate
the Home Assistant cloud skill for Google Assistant.
You can set it up without the cloud thing,
but you have to use like a test app and you gotta
like re-off it every two weeks, it's awful.
You might as well just pay the $5.
- Okay, set up a device.
Okay, so we're done setting up a device,
which means we should be good to go then?
- Oh. - Oh, whoa. No way!
Open the lower big garage.
(door whirring)
Yes!
Yay!
- Is the lower big garage closed?
It's open. Lower big garage D2 is open.
- And it is!
- Shut all the garage doors.
(doors whirring)
- Sweet. That's amazing.
- It tried to do that one. (chuckling)
- And I tried-
- [Dan] I heard it!
- To segue to our sponsor!
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If you enjoyed this video,
go check out our previous attempt at it,
where we got it working,
but it caused a lot of problems later.
This is a way better way of doing it.
We're gonna have everything we used, links down below.
This is definitely the better way of doing it.
(Jake groans) Yay!
- We did it boys.