I don’t know a single person who hasn’t left their garage door open when they didn’t mean to. Even the mom from Home Alone thought leaving the garage door was the reason she felt super anxious on her plane flight to France (when in actuality, she forgot her child. Whoops.)
Whether you’ve been laying in bed at 3am or two days into a cross-country road trip, we’ve all had that moment when it pops in our head and we’ve realized our mistake. And you’re either too dang tired to get out of bed or hundreds of miles away.
Unless you’ve got people in your neighborhood you trust and can get ahold of, normally you’re out of luck until you get home. Which puts your home and your possessions at risk for theft or damage. Luckily for us, we live in the era where our appliances are getting smarter and smarter. Now there’s a solution that’s about to make your forgetful days a whole lot easier.
Smart Garage Door Openers are small devices that work in conjunction with your garage-door opener that’s already installed. They allow you full control (to open or close) or even just give you the status of your garage door when you aren’t home (or when you just don’t want to get off of the couch to go see if you closed it–no judgment here!) Everything is controlled through an app on your smartphone and some even connect to voice assistants in your home like Siri, Alexa, or Google.
Here’s 3 things you need to know about Smart Garage Door Openers:
1. It works with the garage door opener you already have - no need to get a brand new one!
Installing an actual garage door opener is pretty complicated and we really only recommend having one installed by a professional (Hey there! Nice to meet you!) Smart garage door openers are different because it’s not actually an opener itself. It works to take the one you’ve already got up a few notches technology-wise. Which is really good news for you when it comes to the cost (see point #3!)
2. They are super simple to install.
While we don’t recommend taking on the challenge of installing an actual garage door opener by yourself, smart openers are easy breezy. Most can be completely installed in about 10 minutes and don’t even require power tools. Plug in the hub and follow the instructions to sync it to your wifi. Attach the sensor to your garage door with velcro or screws (usually they come with the opener) and then sync the hub to your actual garage door opener by simply pushing the button on the unit. BINGO BANGO BONGO, you’re done (don’t fret, detailed instructions will come with it, but I promise it’s easy.) Now you just control it in the app!
3. They are very affordable.
I mentioned earlier that a smart opener isn’t really an opener–it just makes your existing opener, “smart.” Which means no purchase of a new garage door opener and more money in your pocket. A quick search online shows that most smart openers on the market are under $50. The ones that were more expensive were much more expensive and jumped to $100 and some almost $200. But truthfully, I couldn’t find anything that jumped out at me to justify that expense. Even the lower priced models had the ability to make schedules that automatically open or close the garage door at certain times or that will alert you if your garage door has been open for a specified amount of time. My one piece of advice is to make sure to pay attention if the particular model you are interested in requires you to have a monthly subscription for their app. Some do, some don’t–so just make sure you read the fine print before ordering!
Installing a smart garage door opener is easy and affordable–and will certainly save you time and heartache when you have a moment of forgetfulness.
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