Temporary Disable Tailwind Control

Comments

36 comments

  • Official comment
    Scott Riesebosch

    Thanks Thomas. That's a great idea. Do you envision that only the device owner could temporarily disable it? Or guest users as well? I would think only the device owner should be allowed to disable it.

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  • Jenifer Slabaugh

    Scott, I would rather see it as a "Snooze Auto-close for x [hours/minutes]" function, than having to manually disable and re-enable it. That achieves the same objective without introducing potential human error in forgetting to re-enable it once you're done.

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  • Steve Herriford

    Hi Scott,

    I'd second a feature such as this.  Here are a couple of examples where "auto-close" caught me off guard:

    1. When  the weather was colder, my wife and I pop the door and remote start both our cars to warm up. On a particular morning she left before me as I got side tracked.  Auto-close worked great for her, but left my car running in a closed garage. It was only a few minutes before I realized it, so no big deal,.

    2. This one was almost a bigger issue. It was a weekend morning and wife left. I opted to walk outside as she was leaving to pick up the morning paper (without phone in hand).  As I started back towards the house, the garage door started to auto-close! Fortunately, I was able to run up to the door and stick my foot under the closing door to trip the safety sensor to reverse the door.  Without my phone,  I might have been locked out!

    I think both of these could be solved if there was an option to only auto-close if all specified phones/accounts were outside the defined zone. Yeah, I know the auto-features sniffs the BT connection, but isn't this primarily a safety feature for the auto-open?  Maybe a selectable option on auto-close would either disable or prompt for close if any other account holder's phone is still "at home"?  Just a thought... 

    By the way, whatever changes you recently made to the app in regards to battery saving made a huge difference on my phone. Thank you!  System is working great.

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  • Joseph Fiore

    TailWind hack to "pause" the auto open/close... put your phone in airplane mode till you're out of range. Very quick in android... swipe down and click the airplane icon. I imagine Apple is as well.

    This works well enough but not if you're on a call or streaming something. I'd rather it was easier in the app but can't see where it would go. The current procedure is way too long: Tap the app, garage, three lines, vehicle list, pencil, un-check the auto option, Save Settings. Worse yet, you have to all that again to turn it on AND re-enter the distance.

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  • Steve Herriford

    Hi Joseph,

    Yeah... I've also just disabled location on my phone to the same effect.  But my issue here isn't "me" remembering to disable it, but my wife if she leaves and when I might be out working in the yard and want the garage door to remain up.  If the ability to restrict auto-close based on the location of all phones in the house isn't feasible, then some sort of snooze option would be ideal.

    For instance, anytime I am going to be working in the yard, I snooze the motion detection on my Ring doorbell.  I can select any time frame from 15 minutes up to 2 hours.  It's just become automatic for me to simply click an option in the app to snooze the Ring whenever I'm headed out to mow or work in the yard.  Something similar for the auto-close feature would be perfect.  Just a simple-to-access option that I could click to say "snooze the auto-close feature for X minutes."  Then no one else has to remember to disable it when I'm working outside and they leave, nor does anyone have to remember to re-enable any settings as the auto-close would simply kick in again after the snooze setting has passed.  For me at least, this "snooze" feature would solve my needs.

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  • Scott Riesebosch

    We have added a snooze type of feature to our roadmap. Can't say how soon we can get it done, but it's on the horizon - hopefully within a month maybe 2 but I cannot give a definite timeline for it yet.

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  • Scott Riesebosch

    And note that only the administrator / owner of that device will have this privilege. We don't want to give that privilege to guest users because it could really cause a lot of confusion and frustration.

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  • Randy Adams

    Stephen, the easiest way I found to stop the door from automatically closing for me (I do not have/use the sensor).  I go to "Notifications" then remove the check mark on the "Automatically close any doors that are left open".  The door will stay open until you close it manually. After I am finished I go back tot he app and put the check mark back.

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  • Jenifer Slabaugh

    Just want to add my vote to this feature. I work out in my garage every day for an hour, and it would be great to have a "temporarily disable for x minutes" button, rather than having to go multiple levels deep in the notifications menu. Thank you, love the product!

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  • Pedro Nickelsono

    We spent a bunch of time cleaning bugs, leaves, and fallout from the garage last weekend because my wifey never closes the garage door. We're not going to be able to change her, just have to engineer around the problem. Got her the vehicle sensor, so we now have the depart/arrive covered. Now I have to enable the "close if left open after x minutes", which I think I'll set to 10, which is what led me to this thread.

    Feedback on this disable feature:

    1. too many 'clicks': open app (I won't count this one), hit gear icon, tap checkbox, tap "disable until", tap hour, tap minute, set AM/PM, tap OK. I count 7 taps. This is cumbersome, and I don't like the default of "disable permanently" because that'll just get forgotten and left disabled until it's noticed, requiring another venture into the app.
    2. As others said, I need an option for snooze time in addition to the 'time of day' for when to re-enable, and given an option between the two, I'd prefer the snooze time. This could be a drop-down with 1, or 10, or 15 minute increments. Maybe this would cut a bunch of taps out of the process.
    3. when you tap the "disabled" checkbox, default to the last-used period or time of day, whatever was last used, not "disabled permanently"... I for one will never use that.
    4. add a notification, if not already there, that periodically reminds you the control is still disabled, similar to the "left open" notifications
    5. longer warning tone period if the door is closing because it was left open or for night mode, and an app notification warning it will close in x minutes, like 5 minutes, would be super useful too. If I'm working in the garage one day and I arbitrarily snoozed the left-open-close for 5 hours, I might need a good warning for when that time period has ended and the door will auto-close again soon. Maybe even a 5 minute warning beep on the Tailwind unit itself?
    6. I have auto-open upon arrival and close on departure set for every car and phone we have, and it works great. I'd like a quick way to prevent the garage door from opening when I arrive home and I don't need the door to open, or to prevent it from closing when I leave for a very short trip, or if I have any other reason I don't want it to close. Maybe this could be a button that says "prevent (or inhibit or suppress or block) next close as I leave" and another button "prevent next open as I arrive". The app has a ton of white space, there's room for more buttons!!!
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  • Thomas W Armstrong

    Perhaps it could be an option (check box) when configuring a Guest User.?

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  • Scott Riesebosch

    Thanks Steve!

    We will give this some thought and see what we can come up with :)

     

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  • Randy Adams

    Any update or estimate on creating a temporary pause feature on the automatic close feature?

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  • Scott Riesebosch

    Randy,

    This one got pushed back a bit, but I think we can deliver it in October.

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  • Scott Riesebosch

    Hi Randy. It looks like this is going to spill over into November :(

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  • Stephen V Smith

    Any update on this functionality? There are times that I want the garage door to remain open when arriving (disable auto-close). For instance, I’ve arrived home from grocery shopping and while unloading the door closes before I’m done. This is not a good situation. Any new news? Thanks, Scott. Love my Tailwind!

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  • Stephen V Smith

    Hi Randy, thx for the advice. I have the sensor and it auto-opens fine. In the app, I have Notifications set to notify me of open doors after 5 minutes, but the automatic close is not set (unchecked). Seems to always initiate an auto close 5 minutes after an auto open occurred.

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  • Stephen V Smith

    Hi Scott,

    Please provide an update on this feature.  I consider this to be a safety issue that should have priority.

    Thanks!

    Steve

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  • Scott Riesebosch

    Thanks for the input everyone. Your comments are noted. I'll bump this feature back up on the priority list.

    So to be clear, what we would essentially be doing is offering a simple way for the administrator / device owner to disable all door control, including all automations until the administrator / owner goes back into the app and re-enables them. This would be applied at the door level, so if you have multiple garage doors you would have to disable control of each door separately. This would allow someone to disable one door but allow other doors to continue normal operation, or disable all the doors if they want.

    Does this seem acceptable to you?

    Scott

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  • Randy Adams

    That sounds good to me.  I do not have or use the proximity function, so currently I can disable the auto close feature by going to My Notifications and removing the check in the box for auto close any door left open.  The others using Android phone or iPhone vehicle sensor may want to see it on the first page that shows each device. That would make it easier for all of us. Thanks

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  • Stephen V Smith

    To be clear, my request is to actually have the capability to disable the auto close function ONLY. I have the sensor paired to my iPhone and Auto Open functions properly when arriving. In Notifications, I have “Notify me” ON (after 5 minutes). I also have the “Automatically close any doors that are left open” UNCHECKED. Even with the above settings, I’ve had instances where the door starts closing when I’m unloading groceries.

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  • Steve Herriford

    Scott,

    While any easier, more accessible way to enable/disable the "auto" features would be outstanding, I'd say that the ultimate feature would include the following:

    - Access to the disable feature directly from the device page (e.g menu item alongside garage control, vehicle list, etc.)

    - Option to select Auto-Open, Auto-Close or All auto features via a radio button or drop down list

    - Snooze option (e.g. 30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hour) or 'Until re-enabled' manually.

    I understand that only the device owner account will have these options... and I think that is OK to balance that against security needs.  And I also understand the complexity of implementing and testing some of these changes.  So, I believe any combination of the above that can be implemented would be greatly appreciated by all.

     

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  • Scott Riesebosch

    Thanks everyone. We're already working on it. We will probably implement this in phases, adding more complexity and features as we go.

    Stephen - if the door is closing like that please increase your auto-close distance to something like 350 or 400. The only time that happens is when you are within range of your vehicle sensor and your phone's location services report a series of locations that trends away from home and goes beyond your auto-close distance. This is why we have a lower recommended limit of 250 feet for auto-close. This is generally fine but occasionally we run into a phone that can report its position as further away from that (which our algorithm will ignore), but if the location data shows a trend of "driving away" that can trigger an auto-close.

    We are planning on putting the disable feature in the door settings menu, which is one tap away from the default screen that pops up when you open the app. It will open to the door control screen. There is a gear icon to the right of the door, which is the settings screen for that particular door. If you tap on that gear icon you get to the settings screen where you can adjust the pulse time, number of pulses (some strange openers require a double pulse to operate them), as well as the partial open pulse time (for opening the door part way).

    We were just going to add a toggle switch there to disable the door. So a total of 2 taps.

    Next phase would be adding a snooze timer... Disable door control for X hours / minutes

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  • Jenifer Slabaugh

    Scott Riesebosch Wanted to come back in here and say everything about this feature as implemented today is working well for me, except that I would like the ability to assign temporarily disable/enable rights to non-admin users. My husband and our renter work out in our garage, which gets hot with the door closed, and they have to either ask me to disable/enable it for them every time they work out or else keep tapping the button on the wall every 10 minutes. Thanks!

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  • Joseph Fiore

    Whoa! Just noticed the feature and like the implementation. Simple to click on/off and set up a timeout. Now I can drive up to my house without triggering the door when I want. Guess it pays to read the change notes.
    Thanks,
      --Joe

     

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  • Scott Riesebosch

    Hi Jenifer,

    I'll speak with our team to see if we can figure something out for that. I can't promise anything but we will kick it around for a bit to see if we can implement something in one of our updates.

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  • H.I.

    HI, A little late to jump in on this, but this is the #1 complaint/ request form my customers about TW

    As Smart Home installer I have placed 20 TW into my customer base.  I have had to remove a few do to this issue. I have paused 

    I'm in SoCal so the garage is more tans car storage. I my self have half of my garage eas as a shop so It would be nice to have a Delay all ops "Button" or "Dial"

    I / They don't want to have to dig down or remember to reset in ap..

     

    thanks

     

     

     

    am a Smart Home installer and I recommend and install  TW numerous times... 

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  • Scott Riesebosch

    Hi H.I. I'm not sure what you mean by "this is the #1 complaint/ request form my customers about TW". Can you please elaborate? The OP requested a door disable feature and we implemented that a long time ago. You an disable it until a certain time, or until you re-enable it manually.

    Is there something else your customers are complaining about?

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  • Peter Ward

    We love our Tailwind but like others here have mentioned often get caught (locked out) with the 'Automatically close any doors that are left open option' or disable it then forget to re-enable it again.  I don't want to stop using this function as I see my neighbor often leave his garage door open by accident.  A snooze option just to temporarily disable the auto-close from a drop down list would be so useful.

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  • Scott Riesebosch

    Hi Peter. Tailwind already has this. Tap the gear icon beside the door icon. Then tap "disable". Once you do that another box pops up asking if you want to disable until a certain time.

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