Taylor and I both seem to be completely incapable of remembering to close the garage door in all but the most simple arrival scenarios. Okay, maybe it’s me more often that not, but still, it’s a problem. Several times, we have gone to leave in the morning and found that the garage door is already open. Being in such a dense neighborhood, this is also a point of embarrassment, not just security.
So, as I do whenever I need a part of my home automated, I went to SmartHome in search of a handy device to help solve my problem. I found some devices that attempt to close the door if you leave it open, but it seemed like user reviews were less than favorable. I finally settled on this one from Chamberlain that just monitors the door and offers a solid green light when it’s closed and a blinking red light when it’s open. I would prefer to have a buzzer attached to a timer to offer an auditory cue when the door needs checking, but it’s a start.
Of course, I have considered hacking the device and putting a timer/buzzer in place. Taylor doesn’t like the idea of a hand-made project box being anywhere visible, although I think I might just give it a shot and see how “bad” it is. I’ve also thought of making my own, using these neato serial RF transmitters and receivers I found, in combination with encoder/decoder chips. However, I don’t see any reasonable way to have multiple devices on different frequencies, which means I wouldn’t want to waste 8 digital I/O channels on just the garage door. Now I feel compelled to find something else to automate!