3 Door - control your garage door with your phone, Works with Alexa

Setup isn't simple but it's a necessary evil. The end-result is worth it.Integration with the Amazon Echo is a nice plus but the language processing there leaves a bit to be desired. Still, very pleased!

First, it works with Martin Garage Doors as advertised and does what it sets out to do... control via their Website or via a mobile application your garage doors. No problems there.Just about everything else is unpolished and a hookie hack at this point. The good news is most of this is completely fixable on their end and after they read this they will probably improve some of my gripes... but read so you at least don't get surprised.1) The device only supports 2.4GHz WiFi (luckily my access point is backwards compatible but yours may not be).2) I didn't want to setup all my garage doors only to find out that I didn't like or it didn't work so I only setup 1 door. However once you complete the setup, you can't reregister/resetup the other doors yourself... you must email their support and have them do it for you which will take about a day.3) This leads into the next low mark, no phone support... only web based email... on EST so you will burn a day with every correspondence.4) They don't state this clearly, but all Garageio units are 3-car capable... the only difference is the number of wire sets they sell you... so that is why the price difference is only $10 per door supported. It is a fair price for the wire sets and it would cost more to make them yourself, so no complaints here.5) They are basically using the same contacts that an alarm would use to determine if the garage is open... which leads to my next complaint... there is absolutely no reason for wired contacts. They are more difficult to work with than wireless, wireless batteries last for minimum 5 years, wireless contacts also report battery levels so you know well in advance when they need replacing, and if they used wireless then they could use a "Tilt Sensor" instead of "Contact Sensor" which would be a breeze to install. A Tilt Sensor is just pointed on the top panel of your garage door and when the panel moves from vertical to horizontal... presto! You know your garage door is open. Much better than a contact sensor which has to crammed into the area where your rollers run and left cable is... and if you have a newer garage door which is metal then you have to rely on adhesive to hold the contacts in place which I guarantee will eventually fail. I recommend applying silicon calking to provide extra adhesive support.6) Small gripe but the cables are Dark Gray. Half the population have unfinished garages, half have finished. If you garage is finished it is most likely white. Try hiding dark gray wires... you can't... looks like crap and hence why wireless contacts would be a huge plus.7) Here comes the best part... the app... it only supports open/close, adding users, and a log (without notifications). Doesn't sound bad at first, right? Well how are you alerted to know when someone opened your garage? How do you disable a user without going to the extent of deleting them? How do you have all those cool automations they advertise with Garageio... it is hacked together with IFTTT.com. So playing with IF (The app for IFTTT) it isn't horrible, but it isn't polished either. I will go into some specific examples how good/bad IFTTT is:a) If I have to program my garage door automation then I shouldn't pay such a premium for Garageio. I like having the option to create customization myself but I shouldn't have to just to get the damn thing to play nice.b) So now you are going to have to have 2 accounts for ever user. One for Garageio and one for IFTTT. Each user is going to have to register with different email addresses, and there is no way to share. I am sure you will have as much fun as I did getting my whole family setup... some hours later.c) There is only ONE TRIGGER/ACTION with Garageio right now through... Open/Close. Think about that for a second, not "if closed" or "if open" but a dumb... really dumb... "send open/close" command. That means that if you program something to say if "this" then send open/close it doesn't even take into account the state of the garage (if it is open or closed already). This will become real fun in a second.d) The application does NOT refresh on its own, at least in any short amount of time that I am willing to wait. The best thing to do is to close the app down and then reopen it so you find out if your garage is opened or closed. This goes into the next gripe I have.e) So let's say you "accidentally" swipe the garage door (which is stupid easy, too easy to do, and I have already done it by accident). What do you do? Well you better not swipe the door open/closed again until it has finished it cycle! Why? What happens when you garage door is opening or closing and you press the button on your wall/remote? On most I have played with the door STOPS right where it is. Okay so now you start to have some real fun if you are not at home. So now that you a frantically trying to figure out if you garage is open or closed, if people can get in or not, remember to close the app and reopen it to see if the door is open (no idea how much, it could be partially or completely) or closed. So if you accidentally open your garage, make sure to wait long enough to not accidentally stop it mid flight and get into this mess.f) With this app, it is now super easy to open your garage door... too easy. The application needs a way to disable a user (without deleting them), there should be a way to apply some sort of basic password/keycode or something to prevent your children from "playing" with your garage door, and hopefully no one ever loses their phone.g) So I wrote a IFTTT "Recipe" to send me an SMS every time the state of the garage door changes which was stupid easy and it eliminates having to have ANY app on your phone while still being alerted to people opening or closing it. I was surprised no one published one yet, but I published it if you like to use it: ifttt.com/recipes/394232-if-garageio-door-is-opened-or-closed-then-send-an-sms-text-messageh) Garageio wrote a few IFTTT "Recipes" too. Most require the "IF" app to be installed, such as notification, location, and some other stuff. Just more stuff to clog up your phone.i) Here is the best one of all, it combines a few of the previous gripes for the absolute best "stupid" things about this. Okay, so you install the recipe to either the "Open your garage door when you arrive at home" or "Close your garage door when you leave your home". Wait, I thought you said that they don't have a state of "if open" or "if closed"... they don't! Okay... now you have your wife in the car when you leave, both of you are Garageio users. See where I am going yet? You drive away from your house and now both your phones as stupid as they are try to close your garage door (which might already be closed because you did so from your car or such). Let me just say it is probably the most retarded thing to watch as your door goes through an epileptic seizure going down from one of your phones, the next phone stopping the door mid-flight, then the door going back up as Garageio tries to get to a close state, then finally going back down to get to that magic closed state. Mind you, this IFTTT app was written by Garageio too, so I can't blame a hacker for not thinking this through enough.8) Garageio App forgets password every other time it is launched. Huge annoyance, since you can use IF/DO to control the door, but only through Garageio app can you view the status.9) IFTTT Garageio channel does not always connect correctly. I have two family members who have access to control doors through Garageio but when they log into IFTTT there are no Garageio Doors able to be selected. I have tried deleting, re-adding, disconnecting the channel, re-adding the channel and no luck. Garageio support kicks me IFTTT washing their hand of the problem. IFTTT support is forum based and basically non-existent.9) Final straw, IFTTT’s monthly limit of 100 SMS messages. That is 100 total SMS for all your recipes combined, all your garage doors, every open and every close. What a POS.

It's a great design, concept and product, but be aware of something not mentioned in any literature BEFORE installing. When it asks you the number of doors you are installing BE SURE to put how many you are planning on using this for. I chose "one" because I wanted to physically install only one and try it before installing the others. Here in lies the problem. If you choose less than what you plan on using the firmware/software won't currently allow you to change this yourself NO MATTER what you try. There is no factory reset, or setup options that will allow you to change this. You WILL have to contact customer support to have then add any additional doors.Even though this firmware/software limitation is a huge oversight on Garageio's part there is an even bigger flaw with this issue. There was NOTHING during the installation process that said "Enter the number of doors you plan to operate... Make SURE you enter the number you plan to operate, because you will have NO ability to do this later." Had they even put that information in the installation steps, all of this would have been avoidable in my situation.Regardless, I look forward to the power of using product concept, because of it's ability to be operated through IFTTT and Alexa. The native iOS app is very weak at this point and based on the above mentioned issue, I'm left to assume the company hasn't put a proficient software person on the payroll yet, but as long as it works with IFTTT then I can overlook this shortcoming.

The product works as claimed, including the integration with the Amazon Echo.Installation was mostly straightforward, though in lieu of written instructions or videos, you are forced to reference a website populated with animated GIFs of someone installing the system. The GIFs cover the basics of installation, but don't provide adequate detail when it comes to mounting the sensors to the door. It's nothing that can't be figured out, but more clarity would have been helpful. The rest of the setup was straightforward.There are conflicting instructions about linking with the Amazon Echo. It is not necessary for the Echo and the Garageio to be on the same WiFi network for the linking or integration to work. "Alexa, ask Garageio to start setup" is all that's required. (Don't be bossy with your Echo - "Alexa, tell Garageio to start setup" doesn't work).One thing that folks should note - the "one year limited warranty" is basically worthless. Don't buy this product if you expect the company to repair or replace the "black box" if it fails. The warranty can be found here: https://www.garageio.com/warranty Note that it excludes things like "normal wear and tear", "normal product aging", and "damages caused by use with non-Garageio products". Since I'm attaching this to my non-Garageio Genie garage door opener, and since product failure under normal wear and tear is exactly the sort of thing that most companies include in their warranties, I can only conclude that any warranty claim will be flatly rejected. I contacted the company to express surprise that the warranty was essentially worthless, and I was told bluntly that I could return my product for a full refund.Also, the Terms and Conditions (https://www.garageio.com/terms), which you must accept to make a Garageio account, have a section about monthly fees for premium features. I reached out the company about this discrepancy (since the Garageio product page makes it pretty clear that the service is free if you buy the box), and they didn't seem at all worried about fixing their language. I'm a bit concerned that they will transition the current free service to a monthly paid service at some point.Overall, the product is cool, and I hope that I never need to warranty the device or get surprised by monthly fees for use of the cloud-based service.