1
00:00:02,080 --> 00:00:08,800
back in 2019 i took my 1980s garage door

2
00:00:05,839 --> 00:00:13,120
opener which used to work like this and made it smart meaning that i could

3
00:00:10,639 --> 00:00:17,760
control it with my phone unfortunately while it worked perfectly at the time

4
00:00:14,880 --> 00:00:22,320
the two years that followed have been less than stellar to say the least see

5
00:00:20,160 --> 00:00:26,080
look here's the board we were using it's not in there anymore is it

6
00:00:24,640 --> 00:00:30,960
fortunately today i think we finally have the

7
00:00:28,960 --> 00:00:35,760
ultimate solution and since this video is sponsored by pulseway that should

8
00:00:32,960 --> 00:00:39,440
give you some idea as to what the solution is

9
00:00:37,520 --> 00:00:45,399
for those of you who are a little slow it's a server

10
00:00:41,120 --> 00:00:45,399
it's always a server isn't it Jake

11
00:00:56,160 --> 00:01:02,320
when i bought this house it still had the original garage door openers from

12
00:00:59,680 --> 00:01:06,479
the 1980s so when i wanted to add some kind of smart remote control

13
00:01:04,479 --> 00:01:12,400
functionality to it the most obvious solution was to just replace them so i

14
00:01:09,840 --> 00:01:17,040
went on amazon and bought a smart chamberlain garage door opener with the

15
00:01:14,159 --> 00:01:21,600
intention of installing it myself only to read through the documentation and

16
00:01:18,880 --> 00:01:25,840
realize that it was a one dollar a month subscription fee for if this and that

17
00:01:24,080 --> 00:01:30,720
integration so i could use my google assistant a dollar a month i was

18
00:01:28,400 --> 00:01:36,240
outraged i'm not paying a subscription fee so instead i spent a whole year

19
00:01:33,840 --> 00:01:40,640
subscription worth of money on this cheap chinese relay thing that connects

20
00:01:38,640 --> 00:01:45,520
to your wi-fi and will actually press the button just by bridging the contacts

21
00:01:43,600 --> 00:01:49,119
for you and as i said before it worked perfectly i'd give my voice command it

22
00:01:47,680 --> 00:01:54,159
would go through my if this than that recipe and then click click it would

23
00:01:51,439 --> 00:01:58,320
activate the door the only non-ideal thing was that this has no way of

24
00:01:56,640 --> 00:02:02,159
knowing if the garage door is open or closed but that was easy enough to

25
00:01:59,920 --> 00:02:06,799
install with a little roost device or with a garage security camera only it's

26
00:02:04,719 --> 00:02:11,680
traumatic to think about that time now because that's when the first major

27
00:02:08,720 --> 00:02:16,000
thing went wrong i had the audacity to replace my wireless access point i went

28
00:02:13,760 --> 00:02:20,800
from my ruckus one to my Ubiquiti one which should have been fine except that

29
00:02:18,879 --> 00:02:26,319
my relay wouldn't connect to the new access point even after i changed the

30
00:02:23,520 --> 00:02:29,440
ssid and the password to exactly the same one

31
00:02:27,520 --> 00:02:34,400
no problem i thought i've seen that before all i gotta do is a factory

32
00:02:31,440 --> 00:02:40,720
resell my god there is no way to factory reset this

33
00:02:38,080 --> 00:02:46,160
thing you actually just have to throw it away if you don't remember to change the

34
00:02:43,200 --> 00:02:50,800
credentials on it before you change your wi-fi so that's okay i went and bought a

35
00:02:49,040 --> 00:02:56,319
more expensive and feature-rich four-channel sawn off one and it was

36
00:02:53,120 --> 00:02:57,519
back to working perfectly until

37
00:02:56,319 --> 00:03:00,720
it will open the vault garage door

38
00:03:02,640 --> 00:03:08,480
one day it randomly stopped working

39
00:03:06,640 --> 00:03:13,040
after some quick googling it turns out that e we link stopped allowing if this

40
00:03:10,959 --> 00:03:18,239
than that integration free of charge which after i threw a temper tantrum on

41
00:03:15,599 --> 00:03:23,360
twitter i found out was because if this and that changed their billing policies

42
00:03:20,959 --> 00:03:27,840
making it so that e we link had to pay far more per user

43
00:03:25,519 --> 00:03:30,799
i had a call with if this and that ceo where it was off the record

44
00:03:29,440 --> 00:03:35,200
unfortunately so i can't really share all the details but ultimately they

45
00:03:33,200 --> 00:03:39,519
walked me through how if this and that is to survive they basically have to

46
00:03:37,280 --> 00:03:44,480
make some kind of change and they feel like allowing individual users for free

47
00:03:42,159 --> 00:03:49,440
to create up to three recipes of their own and then use an unlimited number of

48
00:03:46,720 --> 00:03:53,440
other already existing recipes seems like a reasonable middle ground

49
00:03:51,120 --> 00:03:57,439
unfortunately for me that means that something as simple as

50
00:03:55,120 --> 00:04:02,239
open odyssey garage door closed odyssey garage door open bolt garage door and

51
00:03:59,680 --> 00:04:07,680
close volt garage door exceeds the freaking limit no bother said i i will

52
00:04:05,280 --> 00:04:11,920
just change all of the voice commands to activate odyssey garage door and

53
00:04:09,760 --> 00:04:17,120
activate volt garage door since quite frankly the relay stupid doodad whether

54
00:04:14,879 --> 00:04:21,120
it's this one or the sonoff has no idea if it's open or closed anyway it was

55
00:04:18,880 --> 00:04:25,440
just kind of like a user friendliness thing then it really hit the fan my

56
00:04:23,759 --> 00:04:30,080
ancient garage door opener that i had spent all this freaking time smartifying

57
00:04:28,800 --> 00:04:34,800
outright died so when i called a local garage

58
00:04:32,880 --> 00:04:39,040
door installer company because frankly i didn't feel like installing it myself

59
00:04:36,560 --> 00:04:42,960
they basically said look there's only like one unit that we install and

60
00:04:41,199 --> 00:04:47,759
everything so either you take it or you don't and i kind of went yeah okay sure

61
00:04:45,280 --> 00:04:51,840
i come home from work and sure enough there it is a brand new lift master and

62
00:04:50,320 --> 00:04:56,160
those of you who know anything about the industry will probably know that like

63
00:04:54,240 --> 00:05:01,680
eyeglass frames the garage door opener industry is basically a monopoly and

64
00:04:58,720 --> 00:05:05,440
liftmaster is owned by you guessed it chamberlain the company that i was

65
00:05:03,520 --> 00:05:10,320
trying to freaking avoid because of their subscription fee in the first

66
00:05:07,280 --> 00:05:13,120
place no problem said i i'll just take

67
00:05:10,320 --> 00:05:17,919
the same leads off of my relay and plonk them onto the back of the wall unit just

68
00:05:15,039 --> 00:05:22,639
like before no subscription fee for me is what i thought but the installer

69
00:05:20,800 --> 00:05:26,639
explains to me this was very helpful that these smart garage door openers no

70
00:05:25,039 --> 00:05:31,280
longer actually work the way the old ones did where they just pretty much

71
00:05:28,560 --> 00:05:34,800
closed a circuit these ones are only powered by the wires in your wall and

72
00:05:33,199 --> 00:05:39,360
instead they actually transmit wirelessly to the garage door opener

73
00:05:37,199 --> 00:05:43,440
units just like the fob that you have in your car

74
00:05:40,560 --> 00:05:49,840
so you can't use a relay in the way that you used to where you just kind of well

75
00:05:46,000 --> 00:05:49,840
bridge the contacts at the back

76
00:05:50,000 --> 00:05:56,479
not to be defeated i quickly grabbed one

77
00:05:53,039 --> 00:05:59,120
of the pcbs out of a wall unit and

78
00:05:56,479 --> 00:06:04,080
soldered some leads of my own to the activation switch so that

79
00:06:00,960 --> 00:06:06,080
effectively my relay going off was just

80
00:06:04,080 --> 00:06:11,440
pushing the same switch that i would normally push with my finger

81
00:06:08,800 --> 00:06:15,039
genius too bad the system worked too well

82
00:06:12,319 --> 00:06:20,160
i sent this video over to maddie from electroboom showing that while my google

83
00:06:18,080 --> 00:06:25,440
voice assistant commands to open and close the door did in fact work with my

84
00:06:22,720 --> 00:06:29,840
soldered leads here unfortunately the garage door would also just randomly

85
00:06:28,080 --> 00:06:34,160
activate itself he explained it to me and it's something

86
00:06:31,520 --> 00:06:38,240
to do with analog circuitry and having a very high level of sensitivity to

87
00:06:36,160 --> 00:06:43,680
electromagnetic interference essentially what it means is that these

88
00:06:41,600 --> 00:06:48,720
wires coming off of the switch were acting as antennas and triggering it

89
00:06:46,479 --> 00:06:53,039
sometimes repeatedly in the middle of the night i mean that's a bit of a

90
00:06:50,400 --> 00:06:57,600
security problem don't you think with guidance from eddie i salvaged some

91
00:06:55,440 --> 00:07:02,080
capacitors and resistors from a random donor board that i had kicking around

92
00:06:59,680 --> 00:07:05,599
and attempted to put some kind of filtering on this circuit in order to

93
00:07:03,840 --> 00:07:08,880
prevent it from happening but after spending an entire afternoon on it i

94
00:07:07,440 --> 00:07:13,280
thought you know what enough's enough my wife will not get off

95
00:07:11,199 --> 00:07:17,120
my case about how the garage doors don't freaking work properly

96
00:07:14,960 --> 00:07:22,880
i'm just going to use chamberlain's own myq software how bad can it be

97
00:07:20,720 --> 00:07:27,199
terrible it turns out so here's my current setup then with the

98
00:07:24,880 --> 00:07:31,199
chamberlain myq app you can from anywhere in the world see the status of

99
00:07:28,960 --> 00:07:34,800
your garage doors how long they've been in that state so here you can see the

100
00:07:32,880 --> 00:07:39,440
volt's been open for four minutes and you can activate them either way

101
00:07:37,840 --> 00:07:45,039
what's so bad about that that sounds pretty great well a couple of things for

102
00:07:41,599 --> 00:07:48,319
starters it constantly logs both me and

103
00:07:45,039 --> 00:07:50,720
my wife out seemingly whenever our ip

104
00:07:48,319 --> 00:07:55,440
address changes like oh i don't know say for example when we're just coming into

105
00:07:52,800 --> 00:07:59,120
wi-fi at home or just leaving the range of our wi-fi and switching over to

106
00:07:56,879 --> 00:08:03,440
cellular data that seems like a pretty small problem and lioness you might say

107
00:08:02,080 --> 00:08:07,680
i mean why are you pulling out your phone anyway this whole journey freaking

108
00:08:05,840 --> 00:08:10,879
started because you wanted to open and close your garage door with a voice

109
00:08:09,840 --> 00:08:15,759
command why not just use my q's integration with

110
00:08:13,360 --> 00:08:19,520
if this than that which by the way they don't charge a dollar a month for

111
00:08:17,199 --> 00:08:25,360
anymore they now provide it for free well i'll tell you why because it only

112
00:08:22,160 --> 00:08:28,160
allows you to close the door when i get

113
00:08:25,360 --> 00:08:33,120
home at the end of the day i cannot say okay people open the garage door

114
00:08:31,039 --> 00:08:36,959
it doesn't allow it through if this and that so i'm stuck with one of the

115
00:08:35,360 --> 00:08:41,919
following a a relay that randomly opens my garage

116
00:08:39,839 --> 00:08:44,159
doors and does randomly close them as well so that's good that's a good

117
00:08:43,200 --> 00:08:48,880
feature b an app that constantly logs me out so

118
00:08:46,720 --> 00:08:54,399
i have to log into it in my driveway in order to go home to my house or see a

119
00:08:52,240 --> 00:09:00,160
voice assistant that only closes the doors but does not open them oh right

120
00:08:57,279 --> 00:09:04,160
also there is d i could just use the stupid fob thing that goes on your visor

121
00:09:02,240 --> 00:09:07,200
like a normal human being but

122
00:09:05,360 --> 00:09:11,839
it's a huge security problem to keep those things in your car and quite

123
00:09:08,800 --> 00:09:13,600
frankly i cannot be arsed to like carry

124
00:09:11,839 --> 00:09:15,920
it around with me all the time so i know i'll end up leaving it in my car which

125
00:09:15,200 --> 00:09:21,839
is how people break into your house so what this whole experience has highlighted

126
00:09:19,519 --> 00:09:26,640
for me is a couple of the big problems with smart home stuff in general

127
00:09:23,760 --> 00:09:32,399
one is unexpected service interruptions or policy changes that can brick already

128
00:09:29,839 --> 00:09:36,959
perfectly functioning setups and number two is poor or incomplete

129
00:09:35,040 --> 00:09:41,440
interoperability between different brands and platforms

130
00:09:39,360 --> 00:09:45,760
now there's only so much we can do about the first one terms of service can

131
00:09:43,279 --> 00:09:51,040
change but at least for the second thing there actually is a solution and it's

132
00:09:48,000 --> 00:09:52,640
called home assistant conveniently i

133
00:09:51,040 --> 00:09:56,800
already have a home server that's perfectly capable of running docker

134
00:09:54,160 --> 00:10:00,640
containers or virtual machines already running on raid so we're going to show

135
00:09:58,800 --> 00:10:04,800
you guys the steps that we went through to get home assistant up and running now

136
00:10:02,959 --> 00:10:09,839
what we're doing with it today is pretty basic taking a myq device and having it

137
00:10:07,200 --> 00:10:14,560
work with google assistant but there is so much that you can do with this that

138
00:10:12,880 --> 00:10:18,880
we are barely even scratching the surface it's super cool

139
00:10:16,640 --> 00:10:23,519
in a nutshell home assistant is an open source home automation platform it's

140
00:10:21,279 --> 00:10:29,040
kind of like if this than that except that you can host it yourself and it's a

141
00:10:26,480 --> 00:10:32,959
lot more versatile basically if you can dream it or well at least

142
00:10:31,120 --> 00:10:36,880
program it it's doable with home assistant our first home assistant

143
00:10:34,959 --> 00:10:41,760
inspired solution was based around using my existing sonoff inching relay opener

144
00:10:39,519 --> 00:10:46,320
and then a cheap zigbee hub and a door sensor the idea was that after issuing

145
00:10:44,399 --> 00:10:50,399
our chosen voice command through google assistant home assistant would run a

146
00:10:48,480 --> 00:10:54,880
little script in the background to check the door status and then decide whether

147
00:10:52,800 --> 00:10:59,120
or not to trigger the garage that would be to prevent me from accidentally

148
00:10:56,720 --> 00:11:02,959
opening a garage door that was already open which would actually close it and

149
00:11:01,680 --> 00:11:06,640
vice versa now this is a great configuration

150
00:11:04,959 --> 00:11:12,240
because it relies on fewer cloud services but for me the whole zigbee

151
00:11:10,079 --> 00:11:16,640
thing is a rabbit hole that i'm not ready to go down

152
00:11:13,760 --> 00:11:20,399
yet partly because i don't have to it turns out that the fancy new garage

153
00:11:18,399 --> 00:11:24,959
door openers that i splurged on have a direct integration thanks to home

154
00:11:22,560 --> 00:11:27,440
assistant with support for opening the door

155
00:11:25,760 --> 00:11:31,760
which really makes those other limitations seem pretty frustrating and

156
00:11:29,760 --> 00:11:35,279
arbitrary doesn't it it'll just take some setting up first

157
00:11:33,519 --> 00:11:38,959
off because of the way google assistant works a few things need to be in place

158
00:11:37,200 --> 00:11:43,200
for it to be able to access your self-hosted home assistant instance

159
00:11:41,519 --> 00:11:47,040
first you'll need a domain name that you can use so google knows where to look

160
00:11:45,279 --> 00:11:51,680
second you'll need an ssl certificate set up for that domain for security and

161
00:11:49,680 --> 00:11:55,600
third you'll need remote access to that instance by way of port forwarding

162
00:11:53,760 --> 00:11:59,519
luckily for us there are a few ways that we can make this a lot easier than it

163
00:11:57,600 --> 00:12:02,480
sounds but for those of you who don't want to dabble in all this techno

164
00:12:00,880 --> 00:12:06,560
wizardry there is a workaround that avoids all of it as well as helping with

165
00:12:05,120 --> 00:12:10,880
the security concerns of having your home assistant instance being public

166
00:12:08,240 --> 00:12:13,600
facing it's called home assistant cloud it's a partnered service run by the

167
00:12:12,240 --> 00:12:17,279
founder of home assistant where they host it in the cloud for you and then

168
00:12:15,440 --> 00:12:21,680
you can actually just tie it into google assistant directly without any annoying

169
00:12:19,120 --> 00:12:26,240
manual configuration however that means that you are again relying on a cloud

170
00:12:24,000 --> 00:12:31,120
service to host it as well as paying a bloody subscription which was what i was

171
00:12:28,079 --> 00:12:34,160
trying to avoid so here comes the more

172
00:12:31,120 --> 00:12:36,240
diy fun way to do it featuring my unraid

173
00:12:34,160 --> 00:12:41,200
nas let's check that out real quick this is my combination home nas and server so

174
00:12:39,040 --> 00:12:46,320
it's got about 60 terabytes of storage which is more than i need at least for

175
00:12:43,519 --> 00:12:50,320
my personal projects 14 core processor 64 gigs of RAM and

176
00:12:48,480 --> 00:12:54,240
naturally it's running pulse wave for monitoring so i can keep tabs on it have

177
00:12:52,480 --> 00:12:58,720
remote access and of course get notifications if anything goes wrong to

178
00:12:56,720 --> 00:13:02,160
help you guys follow along a full text tutorial on the Linus tech tips forum

179
00:13:00,560 --> 00:13:06,560
will be linked in the video description because it is simply too much to fit

180
00:13:03,920 --> 00:13:10,160
into a video first up snag a domain from your favorite registrar for the purposes

181
00:13:08,240 --> 00:13:14,560
of this video we'll be using autopilot to nowhere.com if you have a static ip

182
00:13:12,639 --> 00:13:19,440
just set it in your dns provider but if your ip is dynamic that means changing

183
00:13:16,880 --> 00:13:23,680
you'll need to set up dynamic dns or a program that updates your dns record

184
00:13:21,360 --> 00:13:27,920
when your ip changes since our domain is managed through cloudflare the unread

185
00:13:25,600 --> 00:13:32,000
community app cloudflare ddns works perfectly for this then to proxy our

186
00:13:30,399 --> 00:13:35,839
local home assistant instance into a public-facing domain and to handle the

187
00:13:34,160 --> 00:13:39,839
free automatically renewing ssl certificate we will use another

188
00:13:37,200 --> 00:13:42,959
community app called nginx proxy manager before we can set up the ssl certificate

189
00:13:41,680 --> 00:13:48,160
in it though we'll need to set up our port forwarding rules so that we can actually verify that we own the domain

190
00:13:46,800 --> 00:13:51,920
this is going to vary based on your router so use your google foo if you

191
00:13:50,240 --> 00:13:55,360
aren't familiar but in the Ubiquiti control panel anyway it's super easy

192
00:13:54,000 --> 00:13:59,040
note by the way you'll want to make sure that your unraid nas or other machine

193
00:13:57,440 --> 00:14:03,519
that's running all this gear actually has a static local ip otherwise those

194
00:14:02,079 --> 00:14:07,519
poor forwarding rules that you set up could just break unexpectedly back in

195
00:14:05,760 --> 00:14:11,519
the proxy manager set up your ssl certificate as well as the host proxy

196
00:14:09,360 --> 00:14:15,360
with your domain and bam we install home assistant and we can

197
00:14:13,279 --> 00:14:19,440
access it remotely the sky is now officially the limit

198
00:14:17,680 --> 00:14:24,399
but like really with home assistant you could make it uh

199
00:14:22,160 --> 00:14:28,639
turn off all your lights when all paired devices leave a geofenced location like

200
00:14:26,560 --> 00:14:32,880
your house or you could have it turn on your sprinklers for you at a certain

201
00:14:30,240 --> 00:14:36,240
time unless your moisture sensor in your yard has detected rain or if you don't

202
00:14:34,560 --> 00:14:43,040
feel like one of those you can also just integrate it with the local weather report or you could make a sawn off

203
00:14:40,320 --> 00:14:47,440
button work with a yi light bulb the possibilities are endless in our

204
00:14:45,279 --> 00:14:51,760
case we're just simply going to link my garage door openers myq program to home

205
00:14:50,000 --> 00:14:56,720
assistant and then set up google assistant integration this is a pretty

206
00:14:53,839 --> 00:15:00,160
long process for self-hosted peeps so follow the instructions linked in the

207
00:14:58,000 --> 00:15:04,240
description for that but once it's set up we can add it directly to our google

208
00:15:02,639 --> 00:15:07,760
home app and boom two garages

209
00:15:06,240 --> 00:15:11,199
yes so it's all working in theory

210
00:15:09,680 --> 00:15:15,680
what about in practice okay nerd open both garages

211
00:15:20,000 --> 00:15:23,680
it finally works

212
00:15:23,680 --> 00:15:31,600
oh man i know right so

213
00:15:29,040 --> 00:15:38,079
big thank you to you for watching thank you to Jake for fixing my garage again

214
00:15:34,560 --> 00:15:40,320
and of course thank you to pulseway for

215
00:15:38,079 --> 00:15:45,839
sponsoring this video pulse way if you guys aren't familiar is the solution to

216
00:15:43,360 --> 00:15:50,639
monitoring your systems and your servers they've got support for Windows mac and

217
00:15:48,880 --> 00:15:55,440
Linux and they allow you to see all kinds of important steps on your systems

218
00:15:53,040 --> 00:16:00,880
like what the CPU usage is RAM usages storage basic stuff like that but also

219
00:15:58,000 --> 00:16:05,440
apply custom scripts roll updates and remotely access your machines and all of

220
00:16:02,959 --> 00:16:11,519
that stuff can be done from the comfort of your lawn chair through their mobile

221
00:16:08,240 --> 00:16:13,440
apps available for iOS and Android so

222
00:16:11,519 --> 00:16:18,000
naturally i use pulseway for all kinds of things to let me know if my server is

223
00:16:15,920 --> 00:16:22,639
down or unresponsive or if my storage is reaching a critical level but you can

224
00:16:20,079 --> 00:16:26,959
use it for basically anything so learn more at the link down below and check

225
00:16:24,800 --> 00:16:30,880
out pulseway for yourself even personal users can actually get a lot of benefit

226
00:16:28,800 --> 00:16:34,160
so guys do go check it out if you guys enjoyed this video and you

227
00:16:32,560 --> 00:16:40,079
want the full history of how this got started maybe check out the original

228
00:16:36,160 --> 00:16:41,519
where we smartified my og 1985 garage

229
00:16:40,079 --> 00:16:46,639
door openers it's like a disk it's so slow i hate

230
00:16:44,800 --> 00:16:50,000
that but because we're using the myq integration there's no getting around it

231
00:16:47,920 --> 00:16:53,839
when i was just using the relay i didn't have to wait for that

232
00:16:51,680 --> 00:16:58,240
yeah so if i could still use the relay honestly i would

233
00:16:55,279 --> 00:16:58,240
but this is fine