Recommendation for unlocking my garage door when I get home

Other Devices & Integrations Door Locks & Sensors
1

Hi all,

I’m hoping to get a recommendation for what to purchase for my project.
I have Vera Edge and am starting my journey on home automation.

One of the killer usecases i’d like to support is that when I cycle home from work the floodlight turns on and I can unlock my garage from my phone, rather than having to dig my keys out of my backpack. For the floodlight, i’m just planning on a bog-standard external PIR-enabled floodlight, connected to a zwave switch so its only enabled between sunset and sunrise.

For unlocking the garage door, what would you recommend? Its a barn door garage door (rather than up and over). A key backup is desirable, but not essential as I can always go through the house if I needed to. There is easy access to power, so can either be battery powered or mains. for the iphone control, I was thinking of using Veramate to trigger it?

Any thoughts, recommendations, opinions, would be very much welcomed…

Thanks

Casp.

2

Can you be more specific about what kind of garage door you have (or attach a picture?) and more importantly does it currently have an automated opener today? If it doesn’t have an opener what kind of lock does it use? Currently automation is mostly focused on door/gate openers, and dead bolt style locks (normal door locks), if this is a like a hook lock or sliding door lock of some kind, there really aren’t HA options yet.

For the flood lights, if you truly only want to sense motion from dusk till dawn and turn on the floods, most modern floods have a build in motion and day light sensor and will do just what you want, no home automation needed, turning them on and off with a z-wave relay can actually do weird things (some security floods go into by pass mode if you rapidly turn them off and on for example), so I would just start with standard security flood lights, and then maybe add a z-wave control if you want to override the normal behavior.

3

+1 on the motion lights. I use these both on the front for the garage and front entry and 2 sets in the back to light up the yard for when the dogs go out. They work great and Costco has them on sale for about $30 regularly.

I’ve not found the need to control them with ZWave as they do just fine by themselves.

4

yah it’s strange how he said “unlock” don’t people usually open their garage doors?

5

If it’s barn style doors it will need some form of lock and then motorised openers. Don’t forget sensors to detect people and cars in the way, sounders to warn of operation, etc. etc.

Suddenly starting to look expensive.

6

I mean this could be considered Barn doors on a garage but it takes a standard deadbolt so alot of options.

Then again not all have locks from the outside.

7

Thanks guys and sorry for the tardy reply. I really appreciate the feedback.

My garage door is essentially the same the link they posted: http://www.woodgaragedoor.com/images/barn2.JPG

What would you recommend as a lock for that type of door? I don’t want an automatic opener, just that the door can unlock itself when I get home.

Thanks

Casp.

8

[quote=“caspartfg, post:7, topic:190161”]Thanks guys and sorry for the tardy reply. I really appreciate the feedback.

My garage door is essentially the same the link they posted: http://www.woodgaragedoor.com/images/barn2.JPG

What would you recommend as a lock for that type of door? I don’t want an automatic opener, just that the door can unlock itself when I get home.

Thanks

Casp.[/quote]

Well that door in the link has a regular round dead bolt like any other door. So if yours is the same you can just use any z-wave deadbolt lock on it. I have the kwikset 910’s

9

Are you sure you don’t want openers on the doors. It would be cool to have it unlock and then watch the doors swing open.