I have 2 GoControl/Iris GD00Z Garage Door Controllers and have had them for a few years now. For the most part they have been pretty solid. One of my units would need to be reset every 9 months or so, but honestly I haven’t had an issue in over a year now. Until now. Both units stopped controlling my doors. Within Vera, it would send the command and I would get the Successful message back, but the controller would never actually open the door. I spent a few hours, and probably a dozen attempts, this morning trying to get it paired back to my Vera Plus hub. I even moved my hub within a few feet of the Iris controller. Every single time it would detect the device, but fail to exchange security keys. I’m frustrated and looking to move on to something more reliable. I don’t believe these units are Z-Wave Plus, but from the looks of it, you can now only find the garage controllers used.
I did see on Amazon a Zooz Z-Wave Plus S2 MultiRelay ZEN16 that states it will control up to 3 doors. But this unit will not know if the door is open or closed. I know I will have to add some sort of door/window sensor to know if the door is actually opened or closed. I suspect that this multirelay would act as if I’m just pushing the garage door button on my wall and the door will either open or close. How could I add some smarts so that if it detects the door is closed and I send a close the door command, that it doesn’t accidently open. I’m a huge fan of Reactor and think I could cobble something together. With my Iris controllers I loved that if the hub house mode went to anything but Home, it would send a signal to close the doors.
Alright. I feel like I have rambled enough. Any suggestions to replace my Iris/GoControl units? Could the Zooz multirelay be as easy to setup and fail proof that I don’t accidently open a closed door when I really wanted to make sure it was closed?
I have one of the GoControl units that started acting up right after it was out of warranty. It’s been abandoned for support but what I did find in a couple of forums out there was a fix. Rather technical, the problem has to do with the led light/lamp on the board and how the circuit was designed poorly. Most of the problems with the unit are remedied if the led is either replaced or bypassed with a resistor. Involves light solder iron use. In my case, the fix worked great and the GoControl opener has been working flawlessly ever since, including solid connection with Vera Plus over Zwave.
I haven’t had any experience with other "outboard’ opener controls. I have had very positive experiences with three Liftmaster installs using both the built-in wifi on the opener and older models using the MyQ gateway. Integration with Vera was via the plug-in, which has had it’s own ups and downs Chamberlain/Liftmaster continually updates their authorization protocols. There’s a fix out there again but requires some careful attention to get it working right again.
I also have two Linear/Go Control units. One started acting up last year and I did the LED fix on it. That has worked until recently. While it still opens and closes the door properly I’m getting false door open reports which I presume is related to the fix.
So now I too am looking for replacements for both doors and not finding any alternatives. So I’m also asking the community for suggestions. Note, I’m not interested in trying to fix the existing one again or building my own, I have better uses for my time.
Seems to be getting harder and harder to find decent z-wave devices. Ugh
When my GoControl was working, and I would get the false readings, it was due to a low battery on the open/close sensor. I have not tried bypassing/fixing the LED yet though, so I can’t confirm that your issue is exactly the same as I had.
the tilt sensor is not using Z-wave and it uses proprietary 345 MHz. I hope nothing interfering the tilt sensor’s radio in your garage. Make sure also about the range 100ft line -of sight. Battery life is quite good with that approximately 24 months. (of course it depends on how often do you use your garage door)
That is essentially the same controller I have although mine is so old that it was called Linear at the time. While I appreciate the suggestions for getting my current ones to work, or replacing with the latest version of the same controller, what I’d rather do is replace with a different controller. They’ve always been one of my more finicky z-wave devices
Years ago there were several z-wave garage door controllers to choose from but when I search today there seem to be few options. I found this thread where 3rdStng was asking the same question, so thought I’d add my query, since he didn’t receive any responses to this question.
It would seem that the answer is no, there’s no other option today for z-wave. It further seems to me at least, that z-wave is getting less and less support in the home automation market.
Z-wave is under Silabs now. I think they are made some huge changes with 700 series. Personally I did not see any devices with 700 chip yet.
below article quite informative if you would like to read about 700 series. https://aeotec.com/z-wave-home-automation/z-wave-700-series.html
Yes, I had found the Aeotec and it does look interesting but does not seem too be available here in the US. If you click on the “Buy” link at Aeotec’s site it takes you to a link for a “Popp.to” US dealer, who I never heard of, and from there a link to a page not found. I’ve not found another US dealer for this Aeotec device.
