iPhone and front door/garage

Thinking about going with CBus and an M1 Ness alarm as the 'safe option'. Only downside is needing both a key for the front door and a key fob for the front gate/garage and alarm. Ideally would all (alarm, front gate, front door) be controlled easily from my iPhone. Does such a thing exist?

 

The M1 supports wiegand card readers connected to a number of their keyboards (not the colour one though!) and also supplies an output to trigger an electric lock if you want to use a fob. If the M1 has a network interface (if not get one!) you can use the iPhone/Android to open the door (remotely if you like), but I find the fob more convenient. They also have 4 button remotes which you can program up to do what you want.

 

In relation to the garage door, most garage door controllers have an aux input that is normally wired to a push button located on the wall. I have wired this aux input back to a dry contact on one of my relay channels. From here any cbus switch can be programmed to open the garage door, i also have a wiser2 so i use my iphone to open the garage door as well. I don't use the fobs at all.

With regards to the front door, there are many smart locks on the market that you may be interested in, some talk blue tooth to your phone and unlock as your approaching and you can also send ekeys to let people in if your not home. some examples are the kwikset-kevo and the August smart lock plus many more.
Cheers

 

@breadknife

Out of curiosity, how are you monitoring the open status of the garage door?
I have the same setup @ home but get quite paranoid when I think I have 'bumped' the garage door open when not home

 

Anything can be done.

I have a single four channel garage door remote.
Button 1 is to open and close the garage door
Button 2 is to open and close a second shed roller door
Button 3 arms the alarm (which in turns closes the garage door and turns off all the lights etc in the house)
Button 4 turns on a set of lights.

This could easily be done from a M1 remote fob instead of the garage door remote and one button could be dedicated to disarming the alarm (and opening the garage door, turning on the garage lights, turning on the outside lights, turning on .......).

My setup uses a 2 ch relay module from the same manufacturer as the garage door motors - that is connected to my PLC, but prior to that being installed it was connected to the M1 alarm panel to do the same tasks. The M1 has a C-Bus card installed so it can talk to C-Bus directly, but it is also connected to the home automation system so that all the goodbye "scene" that runs off button 3 also turns off the A/C, TV's, Amplifiers, fans, closes curtains, turns off PC's and puts the system in away mode so that alerts are sent to me via SMS such as a power failure, RCD tripping on the fridge etc).

Just touching the surface with the above paragraph.

AND it can all be done from my iPhone as well.

 

mrees,
I too was paranoid for the same reason, initially i had no monitoring. I made opening the garage door a two step process (with some help from this forum) via the Wiser2 app and the internal eDLT's so that it cant accidentally be 'bumped' open. First step is there is a 30s timer that needs to be started which then allows the open button/relay to actually operate the garage door. This eliminated any possibility of 'bumping' the door open by me or my partner, as the timer needs to be timing and the open button needs to be operated at the same time, the timer is 'and'ed' in the relay module with the output contacts.

I have only just a few weeks ago installed a reed switch wired back to a bus coupler to give indication and with a bit of code (and more help from forum!) indicate 'open' & 'closed' via the app so that if I VPN in then i am confident of the door status. I have also made the eDLT screen change colour, normally its blue but changes to red when the garage door is open, mainly for ease and peace of mind that my tools etc aren't going to end up on Gumtree!!

 

That's IMHO the best way to do it. One reed for opened and one for closed state.

 

Even better is to put a pot on the door so that the direction of travel can be determined (and if it is travelling at all).

This would also allow partial opening - when value back from pot is equal to 50% full range value then you can stop the door. (I partially open the door for venting air into the garage during hot days - say 10% open)

 

It's about time that garage door manufacturers woke up to automation and save us all a lot of trouble. Even separate open and close contacts would be a start.

 

Yeah, that's always bugged me. Gates has discrete inputs for open,close and stop but garage doors (same manufacturer) don't. What gives?

I have been caught a few times where the alarm does not have to door closed contact made (for an unknown reason) and it opens the door when it thinks its closing it.

I put in a check after 10min of arming to alert me to the door being open and it attempts to close it again. I can also remote in and close the door and check the status if I need to.

 

+1 to that

 

Nice - I thought that having an electric eye to stop the door closing on a car was a step further;but I didn't think of this !!!

 

I have found that Gliderol Garage Doors from South Australia have some roller and panel lift door controllers with Open Close Stop dry contact inputs. www.gliderol.com.au

Of course, many commercial systems have them, but not residential unfortunately.

Stuck in the rut doing the reed switch via alarm system via C-Bus gateway logic programming mambo. Would be good if the other manufacturers thought outside the box a bit?

Take a look if you're considering a new install.

Good Luck,

Brad