Partial Open Issues
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Official comment
Hi Alex. Sorry about the pulse times. That was a typo made by our Android developer. The pulse time settings will be fixed in the next Android app update. That UI bug does not exist in the iPhone version of our app.
It is odd that your opener will not respond to the second pulse to stop the door part way up. Have you tried testing it with the wall control button? Perhaps it's a pulse time setting issue vs number of pulses.
If you press the wall button to start opening the door, and then press the wall button again to stop it, does that work? Are you able to get that to fail if you press and hold the wall button for longer durations?
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HI Scott. The second pulse will stop the door part way through its cycle so that does work, and the wall button does the same. Holding the wall button does not stop the door, but releasing and pressing again does, so a second pulse command is definitely needed for my door opener.
I believe a time setting update will fix my issue with the duration of door travel, but not sure if it'll fix the issue of my door only opening part way with only a short tap from the app vs a press and hold. It would seem that once this second pulse is enabled, any command will only open the door part way.
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Hi Alex,
To clarify, when you say "Holding the wall button does not stop the door, but releasing and pressing again does, so a second pulse command is definitely needed for my door opener" that is a different thing than a 2 pulse command. I'll explain:
When Tailwind wants the door to move, it will send either 1 pulse or 2 pulses. There are almost no openers on the market that require 2 pulses to cause the door to move, so the chances that this is required for your opener are almost 0.
For the partial open command, Tailwind will send a command to start the door opening. Then it will send another command to stop the door after X mS (whatever you set in the partial open setting). The fact that you set the OPEN command to 2 pulses and can tap to open the door and it opens partially tells me your door opener is a 1 pulse opener because the 2nd pulse is stopping the door.
I suspect this comes down to the partial open time and the OPEN pulse time settings. On Android these settings are all messed up at the moment due to a typo by one of our developers. This will be fixed in the next Android app update. This UI issue does not exist in the iPhone app, so if you know anyone with an iPhone you can change the settings using their phone.
I recommend trying an OPEN and CLOSE setting of about 300mS and 1 pulse, and then try setting the partial open time to something larger like 2000mS as a starting point.
Then try reducing the partial open time as necessary to achieve the result you wish.
Again - I realize you won't be able to do this on an Android phone right now. Hopefully the updated app gets published shortly with this fixed.
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Hi Scott,
Thanks for the clarification, and I can completely understand how this feature works now, with the "Partial Open time" delivering the second command it needs to stop the door, rather than a second "Open Pulse". I guess the time settings being messed up at the moment added to my confusion. I'll make a note of your recommended settings and give them a go once the app is updated in the future as I'm afraid I don't own any Apple products.
Thank you once again for your quick reply and explanation. Honestly, some of the best customer support I've encountered in a long time! Best smart door opener I've used too, and I've tried a few different ones in the last few years! Was great to arrive home yesterday and have the door just open!
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Hi Alex,
My pleasure, and thank you for the kind words.
With your permission I can change those door pulse settings for you on the back end so you don't have to wait. It's entirely up to you. Just let me know if you would like me to do that for you or if you prefer to just wait for the Android app update (which should go live hopefully by the weekend).
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Hi Scott,
Many thanks for your offer of adjusting the door pulse settings remotely, but there's no urgent need to go through the trouble of you doing that. I'm happy to hold on for the update when that arrives. It's still early spring down here in New Zealand so the garage temperature hasn't gotten "oven like" just yet!
I was more testing out all the features to make sure I'd set it all up correctly for when the summer does hit. If the northern hemisphere summer is anything to go by, we could be in for a scorcher!
Many thanks once again for your help.
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My pleasure Alex.
FYI you'll know when the Android app has been updated on your phone because you'll launch it and it will pop up the "What's New" screen the first time. I don't know if you have your phone set to automatically update your apps or not though.
Anyways -that's how you'll know it has been updated :)
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So the app updated earlier today which fixed the partial open time settings on my Android phone, but I'm still having issues with the door not partially opening. I have both the open and close pulse times set to 250ms and one pluse and the Partial open time set to 2000ms, but the door still opens fully, as if not recieving the command to stop partially. Not sure if this is another bug, but some insight would be greatly appreciated.
Have rebooted the device, restarted the app, and updated on the device page, but still can't get it to function properly. Pressing and holding says it's partially opening, but still opens fully. Have tried different pulse times between 200-350ms. I'm at a bit of a loss.
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HI Alex,
Sorry for the late response. Just saw your post now. You can tell if the Tailwind controller is sending the pulse to stop the door or not. If it is sending the pulse to stop the door and the door is not stopping, it means for some reason your opener is ignoring the command. I will explain how it works so it may help you to troubleshoot this issue.
Think of the Tailwind controller is nothing more than a glorified wall button. When you are near the Tailwind controller you will hear a "click click" sound (2 sequential clicks) when it sends a command to the door opener. That "click click" is the equivalent of "press then release" on your wall control.
The pulse time you set is the equivalent of "how long you hold down the wall control button".
The partial open time means "after the door sensor detects that the door has started moving up, how long should it wait to press the button again so it stops the door".
You can simulate this using your wall control. Press the button to make the door start moving up. Then press it again to stop the door part way up. If that works, then the Tailwind should also work. Just listen for that second set of "clicks" shortly after the door starts travelling upwards. If you hear it, the controller is attempting to stop the door at that spot.
I would personally try a large partial open time first - something like 5000 to 7000mS (5 to 7 seconds) and see if that works. If it does, start lowering it. If you find there is a spot where suddenly it stops responding, it means that either the garage door opener simply cannot react fast enough to that stop command OR the wall control is rebooting / restarting and interfering. You can help mitigate that by trying to set your "OPEN" pulse time as short as possible, but not so short it stops opening reliably.
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Hi Flemming,
When you say your partial open stopped working, what do you mean by that? Do you mean when you tap and hold on the door icon in the app nothing happens? Or do you mean you tap and hold on the door icon and the door opens, but it opens all the way?
Also, when you say it works on your wife's iPhone, is that on the exact same door or a different door?
I just tested the partial open on a couple of Android phones and it worked fine for me.
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So having a play around with the settings earlier on, I did manage to get the door to partially open once, but I've been unable to replicate this. I've tried partial open times from anywhere between 2000ms all the way up to 7000ms and the door still opens fully. I've also tried various pulse times from 500ms all the way down to 100ms and the door never fails to open, it just doesn't want to stop. The wall switch when pressed stops the door at any point throughout its travel, although there isn't anything special about the switch, it's just a button that effectively shorts the two wires at the wall as opposed to the opener.
My only conclusion is that there is either a communication issue between the app on a Samsung phone (noted that Flemming had the same issue) that is not sending the correct command to the Tailwind device, or the Tailwind device itself is not sending the partial open time pulse to stop the door. I monitored the device closely while the door was opening and didn't hear any clicks attempting to stop the door. Since this seems to work on other devices (Flemming's old One Plus 8 Pro and his wife's iPhone), I'm fairly certain this could be a Samsung firmware integration issue. Is there anyway to send a log or view the partial open data being sent for analysis?
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HI Guys,
Sorry for the late reply on this. My mom is having severe health issues and I am basically living at the hospital these days.
So are you saying that when you tap and hold on the door icon you hear a series of 2 clicks and the door starts to open, but you do NOT hear a second set of 2 clicks to STOP the door????
Scott
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I'll have another play around with some settings over the next couple of days and see if I can't get it to work again, at least partially, and I'll perhaps see if I can place a hand on the unit to "feel" for those second clicks too.
However, there is no rush Scott, and family should always come first. I'm sorry to hear your mom is unwell and I do hope her health improves. You concentrate on your family, our garage doors can wait. Everything else is working perfectly, and one little setting is unimportant right at this moment. I'll report back with what I've found next week.
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Thanks for the feedback and kind words. If it is working intermittently it seems like that would point to something with the garage door opener not reacting to the 2nd pulse, which should stop the door.
Please try temporarily disconnecting the wall control and just have the Tailwind controller connected to the opener. Let me know if that makes any difference.
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That is so weird. I just tested mine with a Samsung S20 running Android 12 and it works 100% of the time. I have 3 doors and all 3 worked multiple times consecutively. Not a single issue after 10 cycles on each door (total of 30 partial opens in a row).
I'm trying to get my head around how this would even be possible. Perhaps you guys can help me with this.
The "partial open" command is a different command vs the open command. So if you tap and hold on the screen and you see the "door is partially opening" message displayed, the app sent the partial open command not the open command.
When the firmware receives the partial open command, it pulses the internal relay to temporarily close the circuit, causing the door to start moving. Then it watches the door sensor input. Once the door sensor indicates that the magnet has moved away from the sensor, it counts the number of mS set for "partial open" and then pulses the relay again to stop the door.
One thing you can do to eliminate anything app side is send a partial open command by tapping and holding. If the door opens all the way and you don't hear that second set of clicks from the internal relay in the controller, please send a bug report from the Tailwind app (you can find it on the main menu - top left corner).
Then ping me and let me know you sent a bug report. That report will tell me what command was sent to the controller. That would eliminate anything app side if the command sent was partial open.
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Hi Flemming. The app definitely sent the partial open command, requesting that the door open for 1500mS and then stop. I see that you set your door pulse settings to 100mS. That is pretty short. I know there are many openers in North America that will be intermittent with such a short pulse. I see you are in another country, and given that your wife's phone works every time I doubt this is a root cause of the problem.
Your firmware is up to date. Everything seems correct. I don't see anything that would cause the door to behave differently regarding a partial open command from your phone vs your wife's phone.
I sent the exact line from the bug report to our firmware team for confirmation and they responded that everything looks correct. Your phone definitely sent a partial open command with a 1500mS delay.
So I'm having trouble understanding how it would be possible for a partial open command from your wife's phone to be 100% reliable while that same partial open command from your Android phone would not. Is it a case of sometimes it works and sometimes it opens all the way when using your phone Flemming? Or it always opens all the way with your phone?
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Hi Scott
Now you are reaching to far.
No I have not.
It make absolute no sense that it should make any difference.
1 I can open and close without any problems
2 when using iPhone It can also partial open with no problems
3 I have checked that the relay in the Tailwind unit only activate once when I try open partial and twice when using the iPhoneSo no. I am not going to disconnect the wall push button. Every bone in my Engineer body says that it can't be the isue.
Question: is it possible to partially open with a Google assistant command?
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Hi Scott.
I have submitted a bug report too, in the hope that it might shed some light into this issue. I have tried the following without any success to try to rectify the issue of the door no opening partially.
1) Wipe data and cache from app. 2) Reboot Tailwind device. 3) Adjust various partial open settings to different pulse times and partial open times. 4) Disconnected wall control (but this is only a simple mechanical switch that the shorts two wires together when pressed). 5) Logout of the app and login again.
My phone is an S22 Ultra running the latest firmware (Android 12) and all installed apps and services are up to date. The screen shows "door is partially opening" when long pressed. It appears that while the phone is indeed sending the command to partially open the door, for some reason this is not being interpreted by the Tailwind device and it simply does not send the second command to the opener to stop the door part way. I can only conclude this is a software related issue (possibly to do with Samsung phones) and not a device one since other phones don't appear to have this problem.
I'm sure with some digging we'll get to the root cause of this issue.
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