Garage Assistant Ga4 Download
Karlyn Hemmerling
I used this handler instead. Adds a switch to it so can connect to google home. Then made an ifttt trigger that opens garage when I say open garage door. I use ifttt because with the switch it only open or closes when you tell it to turn it on (open) or turn it off (close)
And you get access to all the other apps and device handlers as well. There are some specifically designed to handle garage door people arriving / leaving plus others. Check out the website for all the apps,
FYI, I was able to use the following custom Device Handler for my GD00Z-4 Garage Door Controller to treat it as a switch (on and off instead of open and close) to set up a Custom Routine in Google Assistant to open the Garage Door and Another Custom Routine to close the Garage Door by voice.
To elaborate, I believe the native Device Handler for the GD00Z-4 uses an open/close command which Google locks us out from using voice commands to open and close the door by voice for security purposes. This basically is a workaround by converting it to an on/off switch.
Is this for 2 doors? I have 2 and would ideally like to have them both uniquely identified on the same card if possible. Would love to have some sort of status with the icon that can show if the door is in motion (opening/closing) if possible but not sure how that might be configured.
Basically the goal is to have a single card that lists both main and 3rd stall garage doors. The icon would change colors green for closed and red for open based on the sensor state. Clicking on the garage door icon would trigger the Zooz relay for the respective door and open or close it. Bonus points for the icon being able to show the door is opening or closing as well in some fashion.
This should get you what you want, minus showing the door in motion which you might be able to do leveraging the tamper/shock entity the ZSE43 creates, but that always seemed like more trouble than it was worth when I was using the devices.
I suspect that many inventions in the history of mankind were made because of complaining wives. Washing machine and refrigerator do certainly seem like viable candidates. My tiny "invention" described in this Instructable is an electronic garage parking assistant that is also a result of (yes, you guessed it) wifely complaints. :)
I like parking my car in our garage in reverse for fast exit in the morning. If I park it too far, my wife is unhappy about narrow passage to home's door. If I park it not far enough, then the front bumper is in the way of remotely controlled garage door. The ideal spot is to have front bumper 1-2 inches from the closed door, which is quite hard to achieve every time.
Naturally, the simplest solution is the classic tennis ball on a string hanging from the ceiling. Sure, it would work, but where is the fun? For an electronic hobbyist like me the first thought is building a circuit! There exist at least dozen Instructables describing garage range finder based on an ultrasound sensor, Arduino, and some kind of light signal using LEDs. Hence, to make it more interesting I opted for an alternative solution that takes advantage of an existing safety reversing sensor that is an integral part of automatic garage door manufactured by LiftMaster. The following video explains how it works, saving me a lot of writing.
(Disclaimer: By proceeding to the next step you acknowledge that you are well versed in electronics and are well aware that this project tinkers with an existing safety equipment. It works fine if done correctly, but if you screw something up you risk rendering the said safety equipment ineffective. Proceed at you own risk, I shall not be held liable for any ill effects, such as dead/injured pets, kids, etc., resulting from your implementation of this Instructable.)
Thus, the essence of this problem is how to detect the square wave signal in the 1st image from the DC signal in image 4. There is no need to reinvent the wheel, since this problem has been solved by others with a Missing Pulse Detector circuit. There are many implementations; I have picked one from this Circuits Today page and slightly modified it as shown in the fifth image. The original page describes its principles of operation in detail. In short, the NE555 timer operating in monostable mode will keep its OUTPUT pin high as long as the period of the incoming square wave (connected to TRIGGER) is shorter than the timing interval on THRESHOLD+DISCHARGE pins. The latter depends on the values of R1 and C2. A DC voltage on TRIGGER will allow C2 to charge above threshold value and the OUTPUT pin will go low. Problem solved!
This is a no brainer: use an LED. Keep it off when the IR beam is intact and OUTPUT is high (which happens 99.999% of the time) and turn it on when the beam is interrupted and OUTPUT goes low. In other words, invert OUTPUT signal to power the LED. The simplest switch of this kind, IMHO, uses a P-channel MOSFET transistor, as shown in the above image. Timer's OUTPUT is connected to its gate. As long as it is high, the transistor is in high impedance mode and the LED is off. And vice versa, low voltage on the gate will enable current to flow. The pull-up resistor R4 ensures that the gate is never left dangling and kept at its preferred state. Problem solved!
The Missing Pulse Detector shown in Step 1 needs a steady DC supply voltage. I could use batteries or buy a suitable AC/DC adapter. Meh, too much trouble. How about using the safety sensor's supply itself provided by LiftMaster? Well, the problem is that it carries the IR receiver's signal, which is neither "steady", nor "DC". But it can be properly filtered and smoothed with a very simple circuit shown above. A large 1 mF electrolytic capacitor is a good enough filter and the attached diode makes sure it does not discharge back when the signal is low. Problem solved!
The trick is not to draw too much current from LiftMaster, or else the safety sensor operation may be compromised. For this reason I did not use the standard NE555 timer but its CMOS clone TS555 with very low power consumption.
I have placed the LED and R3 resistor in a cute little Altoids tin and nailed it to the wall. From it, I ran a long cable all the way to the LiftMaster opener on the ceiling. The driver circuit was soldered on a general purpose board and placed in a cute little box I got from Adafruit. The box is attached to the LiftMaster's frame and the pair of supply wires is attached to the safety sensor terminals.
10 days after this Instructable was first published, I built the guiding parking light for my second garage door. It is worth mentioning here since I have made small improvements in the circuit design. See the first image. First, I opted for lower current option for the RC pair described in the previous step where low capacitance of 100 nF matches higher resistance of 100 k-ohm. Next, I eliminated the PMOS transistor and 10 k-ohm pull-up resistor and connected the LED ground directly to the OUTPUT pin of TS555. It is possible because an object in the path of the IR beam brings the OUTPUT voltage low, effectively turning the LED on. There is a price to pay for this simplification, though. With PMOS present I didn't have to worry about LED current: IRF9Z34N can take 19 A, so the LED can shine as bright as I want it to. The OUTPUT pin of TS555 can sink only 10 mA, hence I had to pair the LED with a higher resistor of 220 ohm, which lowered its brightness. It is still well visible, as the fourth image shows, so it works for me. The list of parts for this design is as follows:
Garage Assistant GA4 is a complete garage management software, designed to assist in the every day running of your garage / workshop, from taking bookings or raising estimates and invoices to sending periodic reminders and statements. IT allows you to keep track of your account customers, produce statements, view charts showing the customers spending over the year and more.
I have just got the idea to make a parking garage assist. Would basically use a proximity sensor(IR?) to determine how far a car is away from the garage wall. Basically it will power a Red and Green light that will tell the driver if they can pull forward more or not. Now for a senior project this would be rather simple. I was also thinking of adding maybe an RFID tag to the car. This will tell the proximity sensor and lights to boot up and be active so that the sensor and lights aren't running all the time. But that means I would probably need a RFID tag that works for maybe 10 feet away. Is this the best method? Probably need an active tag? I tried looking around for information on buy tags and what their cost would be. The only things I could really find were like $500 systems. Are the any cheaper systems? I would also maybe hook up the RFID tag to the car fuse box for power so that the lighting system only works when car is on. Is this a plausible idea? Suggestions and where to look for cheap tag systems would be nice.
As an alternative to breaking an IR beam, you could use an ultrasonic ping sensor to measure the distance. Rather than 2 lamps, which won't give you positive confirmation that the system is working, I suggest just one red lamp. When it detects the car, make it flash. Increase the frequency of the flashes as the car gets nearer, and turn it to solid red when the car is close enough. Similar to the ultrasonic parking sensors that many cars have, but with light instead of sound.
Will be using a ping sensor (already using one for my garage door status thingy and I like that sensor). It has a reasonably long range, a couple of meters (some say 4m, but mine gave up after roughly 2m). Planning on switching on the light one meter from the wall or so, then continue checking if the object (the car) is getting closer and closer, and when the object stops moving, switch off the sign.
You could use some form of IR laser gate to activate the unit, and also use it to indicate that you have not actually pulled into the garage yet while the beam is being blocked. Then after a minute, have the device turn off until the gate is triggered again.
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