Unable to add LiftMaster 821LM to Alarm.com

I just installed my 821LM that was purchased from SuretyDIY. I completed all of the programming steps, it seems to have learned into my Linear opener perfectly as during the programming process I was able to open/close the garage door with the button on the hub.

I then logged into my Alarm.com account, completed what appeared to be the process to add the MyQ device to my account…but no garage door shows up. On the ADC site for Garage Door I now see only one option for “Add MyQ Enabled device (e.g. MyQ Control Panel (888LM) or MyQ enabled Garage Door opener)” with a continue button…which does nothing other that reports a malfunction.

The mobile app gives an error that my account is enabled for garage control but that no garage opener is registered on the account.

Is it supposed to be this hard? ADC seems to really not work well anytime something new is being added, between this and taking many many hours for new Zwave devices to show up on the portal.

Ok, so if I do the “Add MyQ enabled device” it puts the 821LM into some different mode with a “green and yellow” LEDs on solid. Their is no documentation to explain what “green and yellow on” means.

The complete dearth of documentation for this thing is not confidence inspiring now that I own the device…

Are you using the instructions linked to on our 821LM product page?

The instructions for the Alarm.com portion are pretty limited. There is no option in my portal to add a serial number anymore, there was…I put in the serial number and accepted the terms of service for MyQ but it doesn’t give me any control options.

The documentation is a little vague for those of us that have never done this. It states “7) Follow the instructions presented to add door sensor(s) and garage door opener(s) to the system.” Follow what instructions? There are no instructions presented in the portal after selecting to add a device…so how are these instructions “presented”?

The only thing that happens in the portal if I click to continue in adding a MyQ device is a message that says “Learn mode command sent. The yellow LED on the gateway will turn on to indicate that the gateway is in learn mode.” That is the extent of information that is “presented”.

At this point I have spent more time on this than i ever could imagine it taking, I installed my entire 2Gig system in less time than I have spent jumping through vague documented hoops on trying to get this MyQ thing to work. If I follow the documentation that was included it seems to be working, it is connected to Wifi and during the program process it was able to open/close the garage door. It is the Alarm.com integration that fails and lacks any clear procedural documentation.

-beyond frustrated

I’ll hazard a guess…did you register this on the liftmaster site? If so, you can’t register it on alarm.com (until you unregister it from the other site)

This may be a silly question, but can you confirm you have learned the accompanying door sensor into the 821LM via the packaged instructions? It sounds like your 821LM is properly learned into your account, but the door sensors are what allow the unit to know the status of your garage door. The sensor must be paired with the 821LM ceiling unit.

I never registered the device with lift master, no. I am sure that the adding the serial number to Alarm.com would have failed if I had.

I followed the packaged instructions to the litter other than registering anything with LiftMaster or using the MyQ app. The device is clearly on my network, I can see it from my router. As for adding the sensor, that appears to have worked as well - if I press the test button the hub acknowledges it with a beep.

If I use the “add device” option in ADC it puts the device into a mode that isn’t even documented, the 821LM documentation does not reference anything for what “yellow and green on” means…only “yellow and green blinking” is listed for that LED combo. http://www.liftmaster.com/CatalogResourcesV3/en-us/shared/files/tucmanuals/114A4634.pdf

The “Add Device” option is an alternative to running through the button presses in the liftmaster instructions to learn in the overhead controller into your 821LM. It places your 821LM in learn mode.

Try using the “Add Device” function, then perform the learn procedure on your overhead controller (typically just press the learn button) and allow ADC to update. It may be that you have overwritten the manual process by using the remote function before ADC updated.

Jason, so you are saying to:

  1. click add device option in ADC
  2. press learn button on garage opener

And that is it? So far it doesn’t seem to do anything, the Hub goes into some “learning mode” (i am guessing based on the portal info, not on any actual documentation)…but nothing happens after that. Those steps seem too basic, if the hub can manage 2 doors…how would it know which door to “learn”?

After a long period of time of nothing happening, the garage door opener seems to time out on learning a remote and eventually the wifi HUB LED goes back to solid green, the normal state…and ADC shows nothing different.

When you say “before ADC updated”, is there any defined amount of time this should take? Is it like Zwave devices and ADC that some will be detected almost immediately and others mysteriously appear 24-hours later? If ADC had any status info that would help, or any meaningful documentation. The document Ryan linked says that to “follow the instructions that are presented”, it sure would be great if ADC actually presented anything useful at all other than the message I quote above.

Also, if this “Add device” is some magical way of determining which opener (1 or 2) it is learning…and which model of opener it is out of the 9 different modes you have to set the device to for the corresponding brand/protocol then that is great. I just do not see how that is going to work.

1) Make sure the LED on the Hub is green before registering through the Alarm.com Customer Site. 2) Please make sure the customer account has the appropriate add-ons. 3) Find the “Garage” sub-tab under emPower. 4) Click “Get Started” and enter the Wi-Fi Hub’s serial number. The serial number can be found at the back of the Hub below the barcode. Please wait patiently as this process may take several minutes. 5) Select “Add Garage Door opener with door sensor” and select garage door opener brand. 6) Select “Add Device” for the Wi-Fi Hub that was just added. You may need to refresh the page first. 7) Follow the instructions presented to add door sensor(s) and garage door opener(s) to the system.

So in those instructions I get through step 4. Step 5 never asks for a garage door opener brand, it just asks for anything. It is a continue button and that is it. It appears that ADC is just broken, or the provided documentation is not valid.

The “Add device” screen should give you the option of selecting which garage door opener you will be adding when you have an 821LM gateway. Attached is a screenshot of what you should see when adding a device. It sounds like you’re not seeing that option? If not, something is wrong. The “Add MyQ Enabled device (e.g. MyQ Control Panel (888LM) or MyQ enabled Garage Door opener)” option is for adding devices to an 828LM. The “Add Garage Door opener with door sensor” option is for adding devices to an 821LM. The 828LM gateway does not need to know what kind of opener you have but the 821LM gateway does.

It’s not supposed to be hard at all, it’s supposed to be very quick and easy. The instructions are in the form of a wizard on Alarm.com that walks you through adding the device. I think the problem here is something isn’t working right which I’m sure is super frustrating, I’m sorry about that. Perhaps something went wrong when adding the 821LM gateway to your account or perhaps there is something wrong behind the scenes with your Alarm.com account. I see that your Alarm.com account was created before Alarm.com supported the 821LM gateway. Originally (last year) they only supported the 828LM. Maybe your account is missing some back-end information to support the 821LM? It’s a long shot but it seems possible.

I think the easiest thing to do to resolve this would be to wait until Monday when we can get support from Alarm.com as they have access to more details than we do about your account. However, if you want, we can try the following today:

  1. I would delete your 821LM gateway from your account.
  2. I would completely remove the Liftmaster MyQ feature from your account.
  3. I would add the Liftmaster MyQ feature back to your account
  4. You would then add the 821LM gateway back to your account.
  5. You try "Add device" again and see if it gives you the option to choose an opener like in the attached screenshot.

Like I said, it’s a long shot. The more reliable option would be to wait for Monday and get help from Alarm.com to avoid wasting more time. Do you want to try the steps above today?

In speaking with ADC, this sounds like a rare error which occurs during the hub’s connection process. It is fixable by deleting the device from Alarm.com, resetting the sensor memory of the device, and re-registering. You should be able to see the option to choose the brand of overhead controller while learning in a door after registering the device again.

If you would like to take care of this today, please email customerservice@suretydiy.com or contact us via live-chat when available.

Here are the screens I see:

Yes, by the look of that screenshot, it almost seems like the 821LM was registered as an 828LM gateway. (Otherwise the 888 would not be an option, as this is the MyQ wall button that works with the 828.)

Deleting and re-registering is the way to go here, as there was clearly a problem in the registration communication the first go around. This may be between the device and ADC, or equally likely, between Liftmaster and ADC. Liftmaster’s database technically directly registers the device even when you do the process through ADC.

I had the gateway deleted and then re-added it, it appears to have worked this time. It shows both opener options for the Hub, is there anyway to disable/hide the extra garage control since I only have 1 door?

The extra garage door is something that we can delete from your account. Glad to hear everything else is working correctly though.

I just installed a 2nd 821LM controller to control a 3rd garage door. I can’t see any way to add this to my alarm.com account. Is the account capable of handling only one controller?? Thanks.

Isn’t there an “Add new device” link on the emPower Garage page?

There is, but it seems only to give the option to add another device to the existing myq hub.

Your dealer will be able to help you add the gateway remotely. If you are a suretyDIY customer, please send an email to customerservice@suretyDIY.com with your request to add a second gateway.