Building a Smart Garage Opener

Last year I purchased a smart garage opener with a camera. I looked forward to controlling my garage door with my phone, but soon discovered that their Android app did not work. I decided to ship it back and build my own.

final assembly

This garage door opener is built with a Raspberry Pi, NoIR camera, 5V relay, and a magnetic contact switch. With two docker run commands you get motion capture and an API for the relay and contact sensor. You can easily integrate this into Home Assistant, or use your phone to automate your door with Shortcuts (iOS) or Tasker (Android).

Shopping

WARNING: affiliate links ahead

Raspberry Pi 3 B+ and Micro-USB power supply
16GB microSDHC card and SD card reader
5V Relay module - I used this two channel relay because it was cheaper
Magnetic contact sensor

Night vision camera:

Other tools and supplies you may need:

On the cheap: Use a Pi Zero W and skip the camera functionality. Zero W’s are currently $5 in-store at Micro Center

For multi-door garages: You need one relay channel per door. Buy more contact sensors and more wire

Prepare your SD card

Assembly

Refer to pinout.xyz for a Raspberry Pi pinout diagram

Step 1: Add jump wires for the relay module

Connect red wire to 5V
Connect black wire to ground
Connect yellow wire to BCM 17

step 1

Step 2: Add jump wires for the magnetic contact switch

Connect wire to BCM 24
Connect wire to ground

step 2

Step 3: Connect the camera

Step 4: Insert Pi into bottom half of case. Snake jump wires and camera through top half of the case, close, and secure on bottom with two screws

Step 5: Attach camera module to lid, secure with screws, and close

Step 6: Connect 5V relay to Raspberry Pi

Red wire to VCC
Black wire to GND
Yellow wire to IN1

step 6

Step 7: Add jump wires to the common and normally open relay terminals. This makes it easier to attach and detach your relay from the motor

step 7

Step 8: Secure 5V relay to back of case using foam tape and tuck excess wire into the case. Ensure the relay does not cover the screw or prevent you from attaching the mount!

step 8

Mount your Raspberry Pi

Choose a location for your mount. Consider your field of view and how much wire you will have to run. Also make sure you have a Wi-Fi signal and can plug in your AC adapter and IR illuminator.

Use foam tape or the included screws to secure the mount to your garage. Screw your Raspberry Pi onto the mount.

mounted

Run wires to your garage motor

Unplug your garage door motor before you begin!

On the back of your garage door motor there are two terminals that control the door. You can find the terminals by tracing the wire from your wall mounted garage door opener. Refer to instructional videos from commercial smart garage openers for help (e.g. Momentum Smart Garage Opener).

You will need to connect another wire to each of these terminals and run them to your relay. If your Pi is near the wall mounted opener you can splice the existing wires and make pigtail connections.

Using wire nuts, connect one wire to the common terminal and the other wire to the normally open terminal on your relay. Restore power to your garage motor.

If the door begins to move: you are using the normally closed (NC) terminal on your relay. Unplug your garage motor and swap the wire to the normally open (NO) terminal on your relay.

Mount magnetic contact switch

Decide where to attach your contact sensor. The sensor needs to make contact when the garage door is closed.

Run two wires from your contact sensor to your Pi. Use wire nuts to connect each wire of your sensor to one of your sensor jump wires on your Pi.

magnetic contact switch

Configure your Pi

Power up your Pi
Find the IP address of your Pi
SSH into your Pi (Linux/macOS or Windows)
Run sudo raspi-config

Select option 1 and change your password
Select option 4 and change your time zone
Select option 5 and enable your camera

Run sudo reboot

Install Docker

Paste the following into a new SSH session:

sudo -- sh -c "
  curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com | bash &&
  usermod -aG docker pi"

At the time of writing ARMv6 users (e.g. Pi Zero W) also need to downgrade containerd.

Finally sudo reboot, SSH back in, and docker run hello-world to test your Docker install.

Set up motion capture

We’re going to use RPi-Cam-Web-Interface for our camera. Paste the following into your SSH session:

touch uconfig schedule.json
docker run \
  --name rpi-cam \
  --env "TZ=`cat /etc/timezone`" \
  --device /dev/vchiq \
  --device /dev/vcsm \
  --volume "$(pwd)/schedule.json:/var/www/schedule.json" \
  --volume "$(pwd)/uconfig:/var/www/uconfig" \
  --volume "$(pwd)/media:/var/www/media" \
  --publish 80:80 \
  --restart always \
  --detach \
  bakerba/rpi-cam

Open up a web browser and navigate to the address of your Pi to access your camera. Edit the schedule settings to enable motion capture. Captures are stored in ./media.

Start a web server

We’re going to use gpio_httpd to interact with our GPIO pins remotely. Run the following command in your SSH session:

docker run \
  --name gpio_httpd \
  --device /dev/gpiomem \
  --publish 8080:80 \
  --restart always \
  --detach \
  bakerba/gpio_httpd

Now we can run a couple tests

Type curl localhost:8080/input/17. You should see 0 if the door is closed or 1 if it is open
Type curl -X POST localhost:8080/17/low?ms=250. This should activate your relay and open or close your garage door

Automate it

Now you can check and control your garage door with HTTP requests. These can be made from a script on your PC or an automation app on your phone, such as Shortcuts on iOS or Tasker on Android.

In an upcoming post I’ll show you how to integrate your garage door opener with Home Assistant. We will add a manual door control and set up some automations and notifications.