Ideas to build a device to detect if garage door left opened

batrarobin on 22/12/2015 - 18:32
Last edited 22/12/2015 - 18:32

We have inadvertently left our garage door open overnight a few times in the past and our house being on a busy street with a footpath at the front, I would like to implement a solution that alerts me of if our garage door has been left opened for more than half an hour.

I am looking for ideas to build this little device probably with a proximity switch and a buzzer etc or through a wifi interface that alerts me on my phone through some app etc.

I have 2 devices (QNAP NAS and Android TV box) that run 24x7 if anyone of these can be of any use to "ping" the transducer for the wifi solution

I am open to the ideas…whether it's a local wired buzzer or a wifi solution, as long as it doesn't cost more than $20-$30.

Thanks guys.

Electrical & Electronics

Comments

  • spackbace on 22/12/2015 - 18:41
    +5

    Ideas to build a device to detect if garage door left opened

    Just look above your shoulders, you'll find said device…

  • p1 ama on 22/12/2015 - 18:46
    +1

    It depends on how much of an elegant solution you would want and how familiar you are with circuit design.

    If you want to hack together a solution, my advice would be to construct a circuit which will trigger after 30 mins. Glue a flat push button switch to the ground (or the bottom of the door) in the corner and use a 555 IC to time it. Shouldn't be too bad if you know circuit design. To be able to get the sound inside the house, I would simply hack a wireless doorbell. Leave the speaker unit inside, and simply wire up the two terminals of the button to the 555, such that it closes the circuit after 30 mins, triggering your bell to run. You can either power this using batteries or a simple AC adaptor if you have power in your garage. This will be under $50 for sure, either use a home-etch PCB kit with a dalo pen or just use one of those breadboard things.

    Another solution would be to go full blown customisation with something like an Arduino or Raspberry Pi, but this is really complicated and you probably would have to write up some code (pretty easy to be honest, it'll be like 5 lines). I'm not sure you'd be able to get this in under $50 though, especially once you start thinking about stuff such as sending notifications to your phone because that would require a client side app as well.

  • [Deactivated] on 22/12/2015 - 18:48
    +3

    You could make one
    http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=66582.0
    buying one is costly
    http://www.amazon.com/AutoCloser-Automatic-Garage-Door-Close…

    • hotwinter on 03/01/2016 - 11:02

      The XCELTRONIX auto closer is the easiest and most cost-effective way to get the door closed. Had my one installed 5 years ago, still works perfectly. Of course less fun compare to build your own.

  • chumlee on 22/12/2015 - 18:55

    Why not have CCTV that you can access with your phone?

    • Euphemistic on 22/12/2015 - 19:25

      That could also double as a security camera with recording potential.

      I like the wireless doorbell hack idea too.

      I've often wondered a bout a similar thing. Can't see the garage door from the house, can see it open from the street. I would prefer a visual warning. My solution (if I ever get around to it) would be for a light somewhere inside activated at all times the garage door is open, in our house probably in the kitchen area. Only needs to be an LED for low power consumption with a remote switch activated when the door is open. Option one: switch is closed immediately the door opens , option two stitch closes when the door hits the top, other times the switch is open so no power used. Does require running a lead from garage door to light location though.

  • [Deactivated] on 22/12/2015 - 20:03
    +2

    Waste of time trying to design your own solution. Take my advice, get something like this:
    http://www.homesecuritystore.com/skylink-gm-318

  • [Deactivated] on 22/12/2015 - 20:16
    +1

    Tie a string to the bottom of the door, and run the string through some pulleys to a monitoring station in your house with a weight on it.
    Based on the position of the weight, you can tell if your garage door is open or closed.

  • No on 22/12/2015 - 20:31

    Have a look at the Broadlink S1. It comes with a door sensor which you could put on the garage door. You can use it to check if the garage door is open via the broadlink app, you may be able to set an alarm as well. If you think you could use this let me know and I will have a play around. I am paranoid about my garage door as well so should probably do it anyway.

    Edit: Had a play around and it wouldn't work. There is options to do things if the door is left open for 30 mins but an alert isn't one of them. You could however make a rule to on a lamp or something with one of these but Im not sure if thats very helpful for you.

  • Donaldhump on 22/12/2015 - 22:03

    my wife leaves door open every other night

    • spackbace on 22/12/2015 - 22:49
      +4

      Front door or back door?

      Lol sorry :P

      • mmd on 23/12/2015 - 01:36

        My gf left the front door open until we got married.

      • Looking4Bargians on 23/12/2015 - 10:37

        Any door. won't mind :)

      • Donaldhump on 23/12/2015 - 12:51
        +2

        rofl… seriosuly ever other night i come home, garage door open… asleep on couch, no idea..

  • Efendy on 22/12/2015 - 22:06

    We have a garage door with Merlin MR850EVO roller door opener and we bought the compatible sensor which closes the door after a certain amount of time as long as the path is not blocked (to avoid injuries). It was around $60 from bunnings. I am guessing other brands would have something similar. Of course this is useful if you have a door opener already.

  • Bonsaichop on 22/12/2015 - 22:28
    +1

    If the garage is connected to the house, easy.

    Per garage door:
    1x Jiffy box
    1x 3v lithium battery with holder
    1x long arm microswitch
    1x LED
    x amount of small gauge wire.

    Mount microswitch so that when the door is closed it presses against the microswitch. Run to lengths of wire from microswitch to jiffy box located in house. in the box have the wire soldered to the battery and then to the LED to form a complete closed circuit. When the door is open, the circuit is closed and the LED goes on. When it's closed it's off. If you are concerned about battery life you can have a momentary switch in the circuit so it only draws power when you press to check and a second LED that connects just to the battery to confirm that the battery has power so you're not second guessing yourself if the battery is dead.

    If you want to get particularly fancy you could even have a 3rd wire run from the microswitch so that you have a LED confirm that it is open or closed.

    • g12345567 on 03/01/2016 - 15:59

      Thats exactly what we have setup for our Merlin garage door. This tells us when the garage door is open open or closed, When the filament light located conveniently inside the house is on door is open. As for the battery. We just share it with the backup battery that we have installed for the house alarm system.

  • OldSchoolHarry on 23/12/2015 - 02:59
    +1

    Get a cheap WiFi router. Place a switch so that whenever the door is closed the power for the router turn on. You can look whether the SSID is available in search or not to determine if the door is closed. Alternatively, do the same with any cheap test mobile or similar device so that it connects to your existing WiFi (the one you use for all the devices) whenever the power is on. And then monitor whether the test device is connected from your router's mobile app.

  • batrarobin on 04/01/2016 - 16:47

    Thank you everyone for your suggestions - much appreciated.

    I just happened to scroll through the manual for my garage door (Avanti brand) and it has an inbuilt option to auto-close the door however this needs to be used in conjunction with Safety infrared beams. So I have ordered a pair of safety beams from ebay for $10 and will wire it up with the Door closer. Hopefully I can get it up and running without much hassles.

    Thanks once again guys.

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