Auto Garage Door Opener Problems

[Frosted Abe]

I just had the Homelink Automatic Garage Door Opener hardware installed today and spent more than 3 hours trying to get it to function properly. I programmed, then deleted and re-programmed about two more times, then rebooted and again programmed and re-programmed and again re-booted and finally got to open and close the door via the manual use of the icon on the display.

Once it auto opened on approach and once auto closed on departure but had to stop and unfold the mirrors.

Any help of getting it to work properly welcome.

Is the function fed by blue tooth, by wifi, or by cellular signal. I did notice that I had a weak wifi broad signal with only the dot at the bottom---Could this be the problem?

 

[640k]

not sure what you're asking. are you asking about the auto open/close feature or is the homelink simply not opening your garage?

couple things to note/check:
1. homelink is positioned in the front bumper of the car. if the opener doesn't have line-of-sight or anywhere to reflect off of (think TV remote), then the signal will likely not work.
2. have you tried opening and closing the garage with the car inside/outside the garage to make sure that it functions properly?
3. from what i can gather, homelink uses GPS to decide when to open/close the garage. i've personally found it better/more reliable to set it to 100' as it will open the door as i approach, which allows me to back in.
4. if you have LED bulbs installed anywhere in your garage, there's a high probability that the frequency of the bulbs interfere with the garage signal. they make LED bulbs that operate on different frequencies, specifically for garage applications. check in to replacing those bulbs.

 

[SalisburySam]

HomeLink uses RF, not Bluetooth, WiFi, or cellular. See www.homelink.com for details.

If you programmed your installation with an existing remote control for the garage door, that may be the source of the issue. Both HomeLink and Tesla recommend using a remote control with a brand new battery in it to do the programming. Apparently, the strength of the remote control signal somehow affects the strength of the resulting HomeLink broadcast and therefore how well the unit actually opens and closes the garage. This is not particularly intuitive to me, but I’ve had similar issues in other vehicles and now when I program a HomeLink setup I always use fresh batteries in the remote. Haven’t had an issue since. Cheap to try in any case.

 

[hmgolds]

Was the "Homelink Automatic Garage Door Opener hardware" an external unit that wirelessly connects to a Liftmaster unit? If so, there can be compatibility issues between the Liftmaster homelink "bridge" and certain Liftmaster units.

 

[CharleyBC]

Once it auto opened on approach and once auto closed on departure but had to stop and unfold the mirrors.

Note that the mirrors (strangely) do not unfold at the same location as where Homelink closes the garage. In my case, it closes the garage as I’m backing out of my driveway, but the mirrors unfold about two houses down the street.

 

[Dogtone]

The mirror unfolding typically takes a a couple of hundred feet

 

[Wennfred]

I just had the Homelink Automatic Garage Door Opener hardware installed today and spent more than 3 hours trying to get it to function properly. I programmed, then deleted and re-programmed about two more times, then rebooted and again programmed and re-programmed and again re-booted and finally got to open and close the door via the manual use of the icon on the display.

Once it auto opened on approach and once auto closed on departure but had to stop and unfold the mirrors.

Any help of getting it to work properly welcome.

Is the function fed by blue tooth, by wifi, or by cellular signal. I did notice that I had a weak wifi broad signal with only the dot at the bottom---Could this be the problem?

Your garage door opener, does it have a LED light? If it does, remove it and give it a try.

Fred

 

[Frosted Abe]

Your garage door opener, does it have a LED light? If it does, remove it and give it a try.

Fred

FRED: thanks---replaced LED with tungsten bulbs---which were the originals---and functions are much more stable now---will see over time how it goes.

 

[SalisburySam]

Datapoint: I have two garage door openers of unknown vintage. I’ve refitted both with 100watt-equivalent LED bulbs. HomeLink works flawlessly using remotes, the car (v32.12.2), and the Tesla app (v3.10.1) on an iPhone7 (v13.2).

 

[CharleyBC]

FRED: thanks---replaced LED with tungsten bulbs---which were the originals---and functions are much more stable now---will see over time how it goes.

This made all the difference for us when I went back to tungsten a year or so ago. Probably the only tungsten bulbs in our house nowadays.

I still don’t really understand it. I mean, I get that a CFL or LED might emit some RF noise that interferes. But if so, why doesn’t it interfere with using the garage door remote, but only the Homelink signal from the car?

 

[jjrandorin]

This made all the difference for us when I went back to tungsten a year or so ago. Probably the only tungsten bulbs in our house nowadays.

I still don’t really understand it. I mean, I get that a CFL or LED might emit some RF noise that interferes. But if so, why doesn’t it interfere with using the garage door remote, but only the Homelink signal from the car?

I had a similar problem with LED lights in my garage door opener, and trouble shot it down to the bulbs as some of you have. I wanted to stay with LED bulbs, so did a bit of googling and found that there are actually LED bulbs made specifically for this purpose.

Some people say "well I use regular LED bulbs and it works for me" (like @SalisburySam ), but I was able to definitively troubleshoot "MY" specific homelink issue down to the bulbs.

Anyway, for those of you who have this "LED interfering with homelink" issue, who dont mind spending a little money on replacement LED bulbs, you can try using the ones I found and now use:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B077TFHR9G/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I use these now, and they work perfectly. No more homelink interference issue, after having interference with my other LED bulbs in the garage door opener.

 

[Wennfred]

FRED: thanks---replaced LED with tungsten bulbs---which were the originals---and functions are much more stable now---will see over time how it goes.

Glad it helped, I could not for the life of me get the home link to program, I kept seeing the LED lights on the opener strobe when I tried to program the home link with the remote. Being a Ham Radio operator I thought about interference and figured I remove the LED and that did the trick.

have a good day

Fred

 

[Wennfred]

This is the LED I had to remove, pretty strong.

 

[davida1111@aol]

Have a 2017 Model S. Recently installed a new LIftmaster Modell 84505R garage door opener and wasn't able to get the auto operner feature to work despite multiple attempts. Spent one hour or so on the phone with support without success. Followed the recommendation on this thread to add the Homelink Compatibility Bridge in order to auto open and close the garage door. After two tries and moving the bridge closer to the front door it worked!