Alert when the garage door successfully closed
Hi Scott,
I'm new to the community. I have been using this for a few days and I was a discussion the auto open and close feature with my mom. She asked me a question I not sure how to answer or find the answer. I notice that the sensor trigger the door close when I'm about 250 feet away that is about 3 or 4 house down the street. My mom asked me what happen if an animal or a burglar ran across the sensor to stop the garage from closing. The next alert is the 10-15 mins when the door is still open. I could be 5,10 maybe 15 miles from home and I might not turn around to check and just use the app to close it. She said the more effective would be an alert that the door close successfully when it actually closed. I'm not sure if that could possible but she said to just suggest it. I understand the limit 250 feet for safety so it wouldn't close the door base on the faulty GPS position, but 3 or 4 house down the street I barely able to see my garage door in the rearview mirror. Would it possible if there a better limit like 200 or 150? I know it could risk the faulty GPS position, is there a way to improve on that? Also, could it be possible if the open/partial open/close be flashing different light? like open flash white, partial flash yellow, close flash red?
Thank you
BenjaminÂ
-
Official comment
Benjamin,
You would immediately get a notification that the door did not close successfully. You can try it yourself. Just block the door from closing and send a command to close the door from the app. You'll see the notification come. You will also get locked out. You can clear the lockout by cycling the door using the wall control, a remote, or restarting the Tailwind controller.
We actually used to allow down to 150 feet, AND we had a substantial warning dialog box in our app with large, bold red text warning that the door could close unexpectedly if set at such a low. Customers had to tap "I understand" - and still customers would set it to the lowest value of 150 feet. The door would close unexpectedly and they never remembered tapping on that box or even reading the warning.
Plus, it generally takes time as you leave for your phone to move to the mobile network anyways, so there was no appreciable improvement in how soon auto-close would work anyways because the phone has no internet access for a short time as you leave your wifi network. Many phones take up to 60 seconds to switch over.
That's why we always say auto-close is "in case you forget" to close the door it will close it for you. You can always use Siri, Google Assistant, Alexa, the widget, Android Wear Watch, or Apple Watch to close the door. Personally I use an iPhone and I find Siri so simple to use. I set up a Siri shortcut and simply say "Hey Siri close the garage door" and that's it. Done. It can close the moment I am out of the garage. Google and Alexa can do the same thing.
Comment actions -
So this is what I notice is when the trigger to set the motor to close the door I immediately get a notice that "ABC closed the door" even though the door just starts to close or only 1/3 the way down. That is why my mom and I, we discussed what happens if something or someone ran across the sensor to stop the garage from closing. The only warning after the initial notification is 10 to 15 mins later when the garage still open. I have an iPhone, but my parent is not that tech-savvy. I understand we can use Siri or press the garage HomeLink with the car to close, but I was testing it out to see what is the limit of the system. Since I purchase all the function I might well test it. That is what I notice even when we use the wall control the second the trigger to close we get a notification that the door closed on the phone even though it just started or only 1/3 the way down. I haven't test running across the sensor to see if the app send me a 2nd notification that the door didn't close. I don't know if you can code it so that the system checks to see if the garage door closed before the send out the notification.
-
Benjamin,
That should not happen. Tailwind only sends notifications when the sensor detects that the door state has changed. So if you send the command to close the door, the app will pop up with a message saying the door is closing and the animation will show the door closing, but the actual push notification does not come to you until the door actually closes. It should NEVER send the notification that you closed the door until the door sensor detects the magnet (and the door has closed completely).
If you use the wall control to close the door, and Tailwind sends a push notification that the door closed just after the door starts moving it means something is definitely not right with the connections.
Please post a picture of your door sensor installation. Did you leave the red and black wires connected to the sensor or did you move them somewhere else?
-
I got the update yesterday from Tailwind in the Apple App store and it seems to fix the problem. Now I get the information about 2-3 seconds after it closes. I tried to upload photos on here but it keeps freezing the page. Is it ok if I email it to the support email? I haven't touched the red and black wire at all the way you install it in the video is the way I have it.
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Comments
4 comments