Huge Smart Home Drama

Chamberlain and MyQ have been rug pulling their customers over the last couple of weeks, with an announcement that they were cutting of API access to all of their users, forcing all of those users to use the MyQ app and suffer a much worse experience. Let's talk about the situation and what you can do in the future to make sure this never happens in your smart home again.

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[elmonte]

Yup, local solutions all the way. Anything requiring cloud can always be taken away from us at anytime by corporations.

[embeddedtech]

As one of the 20, 000 who experienced this first hand I can sum up the experience. I went from being excited that chamberlin built in this functionality out of the box to appreciating the community for fixing the MyQ integration(multiple times) to viewing Chamberlin as a villian for shutting down 0.2% of their user base who just want to use the hardware they bought to make their lifes easier.

[wildekek]

In the Netherlands, smart utility meters are required to have a local interface to which you can connect. The protocol even needs to be implemented according to a standard. It would be so nice to have this requirement for all smart home appliances in the EU. Especially since the energy grid is changing and we need more interoperability to unfuck this.

[mattt]

Fantastic video, we need more from online influencers calling out companies like this for their bad behaviours. Well done.

[rgalik]

Lesson: don't EVER use anything that needs cloud to work. It will always backfire.

[robertjackson]

Before MyQ or anything like that was around, I used a momentary relay and a Zigbee switch. It has been flawless and it is totally local.

[chrchie]

I installed my RATGDO last weekend and it is amazing. So happy to be off the MyQ cloud. Better functionality with RATGDO than I had with MyQ and so easy to integrate into Home Assistant. Plus, it gets rid of the beeping when closing the garage door remotely!

[adox]

I've hooked OpenGarage to the push to operate contacts on two garages. They have ultrasonic distance sensors so mounted to the ceiling can tell if there's a vehicle present and, for up and over doors, if the door is open or closed. The newer model has a second set of contacts for a wired door position sensor which I used for my roller door where the distance sensor can't see the door.

HA integration works great and the board / case is well built around an ESP 8266 so simple to connect over WiFi.

[hellomoto]

It would be really nice to get a good summerisation video on local/open source alternatives to the common smart devices. (blinds speakers, doorbell, lights etc) for anyone that wants to get more involved as its a real minefield out there

[cuber]

Yep. This royally screwed my garage door automations over. I ordered a couple ratgdo units a few weeks ago which were just delivered yesterday. I can't wait to get them installed!

[johnperrone]

The Rug pull really really sucks. I can't stand losing functionality I used to always have. I totally plan on voting with my wallet, but the problem in this case is that for both residential and commercial applications Chamberlain/Liftmaster are the makers of the vast majority of garage and gate openers in the United States. The other options that exist tend to be vastly inferior brands that tend to break over a relatively short period of time. I went the route of purchasing the Ratgdo and will power down my MyQ as soon as it comes in.

[KevinSchaefer]

As one of those myq users, I've been aiming to switch as much to local-only control for a while now, and kept putting off the garage door since for the last while, the myq integration has actually been pretty good for me. So this incident gave me the "opportunity" to switch to something local for it as well. And the ratgdo was very easy to install and gives me more features than before, as you can control the lights, lock remotes, and open the garage door to a specific position in addition to opening/closing.

[scottbeale]

Thanks for this video. I have been unhappy with MyQ from the outset, but as you say they have virtually a monopoly on openers in the US. I took this opportunity to learn a bit about hardware and came up with my own solution. There is a device called the Aqara Dual Relay Module T2. You can use it to trigger electrical pulses. Because my garage door is newer, I couldn’t just wire it into the opener, so instead I took a backup remote I had laying around and soldered 2 wires from the T2 to the switch on the circuit board inside the remote. It works perfectly. Also, since the T2 has 2 channels, I was able to get a very cheap sensor and wire it into the second channel to report back whether the garage is open or closed. I was able to integrate it into Home Assistant very easily to run all my automations. The whole setup works fantastic and was a very inexpensive and reliable solution! I couldn’t be happier being able to completely remove everything having to do with MyQ from my setup.

[cromefire_]

Someone really needs to tell Chamberlin about API key and rate limits...

[Rhynri]

I had been locked out of MyQ through everything but my alarm account, so I dodged this bullet. That said, these companies are just asking for someone to come around with a local API. Everything should have a local option. At least Weatherflow still gets it.

[JFloridaTech]

I just got my ratgdo up and running a few days ago. Being able to open the garage door to a set position has been awesome. Added “open/close garage a little/lotta bit” commands to Alexa

[darkgtprince]

local all the way. got a new home years ago, it came with a myq garage opener. i thought about using it, but ultimately decided to just use a relay and team that with a tilt sensor to monitor my garage door. has been working solid for years. it may not be the most optimal way, but it works

[tjdeerinck]

Lewis, Thanks for the video. I was banging my head on this dying on me. I grabbed the Meross unit and install in about 5 minutes. I made sure to update the Meross HACS integration and it works perfectly!! My wife is happy now! 😎

[traskth]

6:21 I found it Hilarious that when you said Ads, a youtube ad played

To throw my 2 cents in, ive been thinking about adding MyQ to my homeassistant green (as soon as it arrives from EST store), but clearly cant do that now. Ive been Advocating for local control in my household and now only buy devices that dont require the cloud. I really hope the community project to locally control garage doors takes off.

[rteune]

As a home integrator I can tell you it even worse then just shutting down the API. The latest Charberlain doors use a proprietary wireless (maybe blluetooth who knows) standard to talk to the door. The 2 wires provide the power to the button. Contact closure what used to open and close the door doesn't work anymore. Even soldering contact closure on the buttons directly for the smart ones under us creates conditions the door will open on it self randomly. So if you want to integrate your garage door into a 3rd party don't buy MyQ from Chamberlain and the other brands they sell .