I have been looking for a GarageDoor control for years to add to my smart home. I can’t tell you how many times I have gotten to the store or work and wondered if I had left the garage door open. A remote opener would be a perfect way to solve this issue but there weren’t too many options.
I considered devices like Chamberlain’s MyQ, but the reviews didn’t really give me confidence. When I saw the Meross Garage Door control on Amazon, the reviews looked promising but I wanted a HomeKit version. It was just my luck that a few days later, the Meross HomeKit Garage Door Opener came out, I ordered it right away.
Disclaimer: I signed up to test this unit and Meross provided the unit for free. They only asked that I review this unit on Amazon, but played no influence in my opinion or views.
Meross HomeKit Garage Door Components
The Meross Garage Door Opener consists of a few parts:
- Control Unit
- Sensor Unit
- USB Plug Adaptor
It is important that you check your compatibility with your current garage door opener. It seems like most are supported and you can check your compatibility on the Meross site here.
Install Process
Time needed: 1 hour
Before I started the install, I powered up the unit to connected it to my home Wifi. I wanted to make sure that the the device connected properly before getting it all wired up in the dusty garage and having issues. I followed the normal HomeKit process with no issues (scan code, add to room, name the device, etc).
I am not the most handy person (I have installed a few Lutron Switches) but the install was not hard and took about an hour. A more skilled person could probably do this in 30 min. Your specific steps may vary, but the overall process should be the same.
- Disconnect power from the garage door opener.
Safety first! You don’t want the door to accidentally open or close while you are working.
- Connect the Meross control unit to the garage door opener.
This involved opening the plastic covering for the light to access the screw contacts where my wired remote button connects to the opener. These are the same contacts that I used to connect the Meross unit to the opener. (This was the hardest part because the Meross wires wires were the fine copper type and were a little hard to wrangle into the screw contact.)
- Mount the garage door sensor to the garage frame and the magnetic sensor to the garage door.
Meross gives you plenty of wire so you can mount the garage door sensor to pretty much any point on the garage door frame. The only requirement is that the sensor and the magnet be within 1″ of each other. Since my garage is metal, I opted to use the 3M sticky pads to mount the magnetic sensor.
- Route the sensor wire back to the opener and connect to the Meross control unit.
I used a power stapler to do the job. It’s what I had on hand and it made quick work of this step.
- Power up everything and then test.
It’s a good idea to test everything before cleaning up. There’s nothing worse than putting everything away and realizing something is wrong.
HomeKit Connectivity
With everything installed, I can now control my garage door from within the HomeKit App. One tap of the “Garage” icon, and the door opens. Another tap and it closes. It really is as simple as that.
I can ask Siri on my iPhone and Apple Watch to open and close the garage. It just works.
I was also able to setup 2 automations within HomeKit:
- Turn on a light when the garage door is open
- Turn off the light when the garage door is closed
This was possible because I have several smart plugs throughout the house and HomeKit allows me to trigger an automation when a device is controlled. It’s great to have visual reminder inside the house when the garage is open.
Meross App
The Meross app has a few more options like an Overtime Reminder, Overnight Reminder, AutoClose, etc. While I don’t usually use anything but HomeKit to control my devices, I do recommend downloading the manufacturer app in case of any issues. Sometimes the manufacturer app has ways to force an update or adjust settings that the HomeKit app cannot do.
Misc
- This version of the Meross Garage Door control also works with Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. It costs a few dollars more than the one that does not work with HomeKit, but for me, its worth it for maximum compatibility.
- I appreciated that Meross included a few extra accessories like the 3M sticky pads and a zip tie for excess wires. It really helps the install look more professional.
- Siri Voice control works as well as you would expect. One nice thing, when you try to open your garage door by asking Siri from your locked screen, you have to authenticate via FaceID (or TouchID I would assume) in order to open that. It’s a nice extra layer of security.
- When I use a remote or the wired button to open the garage door, the HomeKit app sometimes displays the garage icon as “Opening.” But if tap the icon, the icon updates to the correct status of the garage door. I suspect that this will be resolved with an update in the future.
Minor Improvements
- These are VERY MINOR. I would recommend that Meross upgrade the contact connectors to either a solid copper wire that can be shaped to go around the screw or to those little “U” shaped connectors. This would make installation even easier.
- The Meross app does allow the user to add a “Door Alarm” when the door is closing, but this alarm beeps at the same time as the garage door is closing. I would recommend that this option be adjusted to set the alarm to beep for 2 seconds before the garage door closes.
Conclusion
I am very happy with the Meross HomeKit Garage Door opener. It was fairly easy to install and it has been great to be able to control the opener with my Apple Devices. I would definitely recommend this to anyone looking to bring their garage door opener into HomeKit and I look forward to integrating this into additional automations in the future.