My Quick Chamberlain MyQ Review

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I bought the MyQ kit for my garage door. Then I returned it. While making my garage door "smart" isn't my highest priority, the MyQ kit had a few pros on paper. 

  1. Price. It was just under $40. 
  2. No Wiring. I'm not afraid of wiring, but the idea of it pairing with my opener just like any other RF remote was appealing.
  3. Popularity. The default MyQ app sucks, but a LOT of people buy these things. While it is not natively HomeKit supported, a lot of the retrofit smart opener controllers aren't, so I was running Homebridge or HOOBS anyway. Due to the amount of people with one of these devices, the plugin for it is very popular, actively developed, and there are integrations available for most other HA platforms. Compared to the iSmartGate units, the Aladdin Connect unit from Genie, or Insignia's discontinued controller, the MyQ features the best platform mobility should I ever leave HomeKit. 
Initially, the setup isn't hard and the app walks you through it. I got my unit connected to my Wifi, and it's tilt sensor paired to the main device. Next, was to pair the MyQ device with my opener. This is where it went bad. 

Simply press the learn button on your opener, the app said. My opener documentation said to press and hold for 2 seconds and that a purple LED will flash when it is in learning mode. After maybe 8 or 9 attempts, I gave up. To make sure my existing RF remotes worked, I opened the garage door. When the MyQ device is paired with it's tilt sensor but NOT with the opener, the MyQ is said to be in "monitor mode", where it can tell you when the garage door is open, but not allow you to close it or vice versa. However, with the garage door open for 20+ minutes, the opener still said it was closed. 


After being unable to pair the MyQ with my opener and the monitor mode not working AT ALL, I quit right then, boxed it all back up and it's on it's way back to Amazon now. 

I still want to make the garage door smart. However, the desire is much lower. The whole ordeal made me really think about how important having a smart garage door is. 

For my home, it's just us and both of us are very good about keeping the garage door shut. From our perspectives, a smart garage door has 3 values. 1, Being able to remotely open/shut the garage door, 2, being able to see the open/closed status of the garage door, and 3, being able to automate the opening & shutting of the garage door. I see point 3 as the most important, though admittedly, it only saves you the single button push of opening or closing the garage door. Point 2 is mostly about piece of mind, which I can see value in. Point 1 either only matters if you did point 3 poorly or have the rare situation of having to open the garage door remotely for a friend, family member, or neighbor (it's rare for me, might not be for you). 

When I do get back around to this, I'll look at using a Shelly 1 with a small reed switch contact sensor. I'll still use Homebridge to expose it to HomeKit, just like I was planning with the MyQ. The Shelly relays are very popular in the DIY home automation crowd, so many other platforms can integrate their products. I'll talk more in-depth about the Shelly 1 once I get one in. 

As a bonus, after this project, my wife and I were working outside with the garage door open and then suddenly, the garage door starts closing. We were able to break the sensor beam to stop it from closing all the way (locking us out). Later that evening, we hear the garage door open randomly. Most likely, during all those learning mode sessions, the opener picked up some random signal. That or Ghosts. We unplugged the opener overnight. 

The next morning, I erased all remotes from the opener and manually re-added them. That was fun. 

I honestly thought all of the bad reviews on this product were the result of people with $40 of disposable income and no clue what they were doing. Poor Wifi, mounting the MyQ unit next to a light or high-voltage power source, etc. Some people got this to work and really like it, so I figured I had a shot. 

I suppose we can't win them all. Oh well. 

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