We’ve been here over eight years now, and the past several years I’ve been installing smart home products to add convenience and piece of mind to our home. This past Christmas I picked up a Chamberlain MyQ smart hub that was on sale for $17 (now regularly about $39). Finally this month I installed the unit in our garage.
The smart MyQ units mate seamlessly with the Chamberlain garage door units I installed a few years ago. What they allow me to now do is through the MyQ phone app I can see if the doors are open or closed, get alerts when someone opens a garage door, and generally have more piece of mind when I’m away from home or don’t feel like walking outside to check on the garage doors.
The system consists of a hub that connects to your home wi-fi, and a module that goes on your garage door. The hub communicates with the door module and understands its position – up or down. I can also use the app to actually open or close doors from anywhere where I have an internet connection. This is awesome for vacation or late at night. I can also push a signal if someone needs to get into the garage and it is locked and I am away.
Installation is incredibly easy, though it did take me an hour or more because I move slow and had to fiddle with the app a bit when I inadvertently lost my place. The hub is basically ready to go and the app walks you through step by step, and also the app indicates what tools you need.
Basically you plug in the hub and sync it with your phone and the door sensor module. You then mount the door sensor on the upper right or left panel of your garage door. There is a video in the app so there’s really no way to screw it up.
Note, before I mounted the hub I did have to press the yellow button on my garage door opener to sync it to the hub. I also made sure everything in the app looked and worked well.
Once everything is synced and ready to go, you mount the hub near an outlet, anywhere in the garage where people can see it, about 6′ off the ground minimum, and not near any metal. I was going to mount it on the ceiling but could not find a suitable location away from the metal struts holding the garage door and opener up. Instead I mounted on the back wall. The reason you need to see the hub is because if you are remote opening or closing the hub has a bright LED light that illuminates to alert anyone who is in the garage as to what is about to happen – the door is going to open or close – and they should get out of the way. There is an audible alert too.
The system works great. I can see from my phone when the door is opened or closed last, as well as its current status. To operate both garage doors, I have two separate ones, I need to get another door module and adhere it to the other door. The extra module costs about $30.
Overall I highly recommend the Chamberlain MyQ unit. It is easy to install and adds a lot of practicality for very little cost.
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