How to Monitor your Garage Door. Always Know if it is Open.

Through Alarm.com there are a number of ways to monitor your garage doors and know whether or not they are open at any time. Three methods are shown below.

 

1. The Tilt Sensor (RE206 2Gig, RE106 GE)

Tilt sensors are easy to install, easy to program, and easy to customize with Alarm.com notifications. A few things should be kept in mind when installing a tilt sensor.

  • Tilt sensors are susceptible to false alarms due to strong wind gusts rattling the garage door if it is not a very sturdy door.
  • We generally recommend not to use a Tilt sensor as an alarm sensor. It is recommended to program the Tilt sensor as a non-reporting (local only) sensor. This will still allow you to set up notifications on Alarm.com, however, if you have Sensor Activity Monitoring on your account (10 sensors included in Gold Interactive.)
  • The tilt sensor requires roughly 45 degrees of tilt to activate. Given mounting the sensor on the top panel of a typical garage door, this requires the garage door to be opened 12-20 inches, give or take. This relatively wide gap is not conducive to alarm purposes, and another reason we suggest using this type of sensor as non-reporting.

2. The combined wired sensor with wireless transmitter. (4532L Wired Contact, with RE201 2Gig or RE101 GE)

Using a reliable wired contact to cover your garage door, you’ll avoid most of the issues of the Tilt sensor option, but there is a bit more that goes into the installation.

  • Unlike the Tilt sensor, the Wired contact will send its signal after the door moves past the 4532L’s stated magnetic gap, in this case just a couple of inches.
  • Two garage doors can be independently wired to a single RE201. The RE201 has two on board contact inputs.
  • A properly installed 4532L is much less likely to false alarm.
  • Unlike the Tilt sensor, this installation will require some drilling and wiring, though minimal.
  • If you want to set up your garage as an alarm zone (typically Entry Exit) this is a good sensor option. Using the [Entry Exit 2] option when programming the zone will allow you to set up an entry delay time of up to four minutes.

3. The Liftmaster MyQ Door Control (828LM and 888LM, or 821LM)

If you are interested in knowing the state of your garage door, but don’t want to weigh the cost/benefit of dropping what you are doing to drive home and shut it, this is for you. Discover whether or not you forgot to shut it—shut it with your smartphone.

  • The current state of your garage door will be available through the Alarm.com app as it would be for the previous two options.
  • Unlike the other options, this does not use a zone on your alarm panel, and does not directly communicate with your alarm.
  • This method requires an internet connection, unlike your alarm panel. The 828LM gets plugged into your router or switch. The 821LM connects to your Wifi.
  • Since it does not communicate with your alarm panel directly, you cannot use this method to generate alarm signals. (But you can also add an alarm sensor like the ones above, of course.)

 

 

 

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