Homelink auto close reliable for you?

[boaterva]

Why would the receiver’s quality have anything to do with the car’s ability to try to transmit a signal to it? There is no two way communication in Homelink.

And that’s the whole problem. If there was it would work a lot better. It can’t even tell if it’s opening a closed door or closing an open door. It says that right in the manual. There is no state information or two way data. The car is transmitting in the blind, as the saying goes.

 

[rainman50]

Same here. Auto open has worked without a hitch. Auto close hit and miss like others have said. I have a 2014 P85 without Auto Pilot.

When auto close would work OK, I put it in reverse to pull out of the garage and there would be an extra indicator saying it was going to auto close and would let be press a button if I did not want it to do so. But when it would not auto close, when I would put it in reverse that extra indicator would not come up saying it was going to auto close. So in that case the door was not closed and I would have to press the button manually to do so.

So in summary, I knew it would not auto close if that extra indicator did not show up when put in reverse.

 

[jjh1234]

I think auto close might not work as reliability since when the car wakes up in the garage, it doesn’t have a great GPS fix and might not know when to trigger the close because of this. Just a guess. I noticed that I had better luck setting my open location when approaching my house after driving around vs. backing out of the garage with a cold GPS.

 

[thimel]

When I received the 2017.40.1 update, I enabled the auto close for homelink for the first time.

Set the distance and all that.

It’s pretty cool...when it works. For me, it probably works about 6 out of 10 times. When the little pop-up comes up with the “countdown” (closing in 20 ft, 15 ft, etc) then it always works fine.

But 30-40% of the time, I get in the car, start car, put the car in reverse and...it just offers the “manual” button for Homelink.

Auto Open when returning home works 100% of the time. Never failed. But the auto close when leaving garage has been hit or miss for me.

Anyone else seeing the feature behave inconsistent? Or just my solo bad luck?

I have exactly the symptoms you describe. I’m now on the same release as you, but the problem started for me in an earlier release. For years before that it worked perfectly.

 

[davinci2017]

Another feature that was working reliably for me ruined by an update. It has worked flawlessly for me until the latest update. Now even manually pressing the button to activate the garage door refuses to work. Restarting the system makes it work once (so the code is clearly still saved and correct) and then auto-open/auto-close pings but nothing happens again.

I hope they fix it soon, it was a nice feature that worked well for me.

 

[CameronB]

When auto close would work OK, I put it in reverse to pull out of the garage and there would be an extra indicator saying it was going to auto close and would let be press a button if I did not want it to do so. But when it would not auto close, when I would put it in reverse that extra indicator would not come up saying it was going to auto close. So in that case the door was not closed and I would have to press the button manually to do so.

So in summary, I knew it would not auto close if that extra indicator did not show up when put in reverse.

That’s what I was trying to say. I surely (and quickly) know when it won’t work (if the “countdown” dialog doesn’t show up). If that indicator isn’t shown, and I’m only offered the standard AutoLink button to manually close the garage door... I admit, I’m just a tad dejected. I know, first world problems! Haha

 

[303JeffB]

My late 2016 S75D (AP2) has been nearly flawless. I can recall only a few instances with non-responsive auto close, and like most others have reported, it was clear when I started backing out that I was going to have to manually close the door since the countdown didn't start. I've had limited chance to see what 2017.40 will do (was on 2017.34 for the prior to that), just got it this weekend but has worked fine since I installed it...

 

[RGagne1975]

Homelink auto open and close worked great for me until I brought my car in for an AP issue that dealt with the angle of the forward facing cameras. After the front array was readjusted to correct the AP issue my garage door would only open and close about 50% of the time. My driveway has about a 30 degree incline so that might be part of the issue. But, every since I received 2017.40 the feature was pretty much broken. The button wouldn't even do anything 90% of the time. I just received 2017.42 a88c8d5 so I am going to see if that fixed my Homelink.

 

[jeffro01]

Auto-close has NEVER been reliable for me, not since they offered the feature... I'd say it works roughly 60% of the time... It's odd that the homelink box will drop down but you never see the ft countdown so I know it's not going to do it so I have to manually tap it myself. The auto-open though has worked so well I can't remember the last time it didn't open the door...

Jeff

 

[cmd_keen]

The Homelink auto-open/close is reliable for me but ONLY after tweaking the "activation" distance. I have to play around with it so that it would activate when I approached the edge of my driveway with the front facing the garage. If I backup... doesn't work most of the time. If I set the activation distance closer... didn't work, farther away, not as reliable either. So there was a sweet spot for me likely due to elevation (my driveway is fairly inclined), so line of sight / reflections with the receiver.

 

[RGagne1975]

The 2017.42 uodate has fixed my Homelink issues. The auto open/close has not failed since the update was applied.

 

[CameronB]

The 2017.42 uodate has fixed my Homelink issues. The auto open/close has not failed since the update was applied.

Good to hear. I just got notified of an update and I assume it is probably 2107.42. Will install it tonight and then report back in a few days to see if it has solved my currently inconsistent auto-close.

 

[rscott0]

Just in case it wasn't clear, there are 2 issues that seem to have been introduced:

[1] Auto-open failing. You come home, the garage door doesn't open as expected. For me, this is something that used to happen occasionally, now a lot. This is the tricky one; it sound like a bug, but hard to prove (radio waves aren't 100% perfect).

[2] Manual open/close (Homelink icon) *broken*. The Homelink icon is there, you press it, and nothing happens (no chime, no radio waves appearing in the icon). You press it again, nothing happens. That's an obvious bug, and the one that is likely really bothering people. If Auto-open fails, you have to press the Homelink icon to open the garage door (quick and easy, just a bit annoying). But if the Homelink icon doesn't work, you have to get out in the rain.

That said, the idea behind the update is nice: I had always wished the auto-open would occur about a second sooner, and this will (hopefully) allow for it.

 

[TheGremlin]

On our car auto open and close worked reliably for a long time, since the update a week or so ago it works almost not at all, either manually or automatically. It works like 1 out of 5 times. This is super frustrating as my wife's currently on crutches and has to get out of the car to open the door manually now.

 

[Acho]

I have theory why it works on open and not always work on close. I might be wrong but sounds possible.

When car is parked in garage it may loose GPS signal and on the way out it may not know if it is in the zone to activate homelink.

Even if there is good GPS reception in the garage when the car goes to sleep it is possible that the gps goes to sleep too. On startup even if it locks fast it has low accuracy until it locks on more sats. On the screen it looks like it is spot on but I was working a lot with raw gps data and if there are no enough satellites locked or short after initial lock the accuracy is pure andthe reported position may be way off. If that happened the computer has no idea that you actually leaving the garrage and not sending "close" command to the homelink.

Can't prove it but sounds logical to me.

 

[1speed]

It is working for me. Auto Open always works and still does. Auto Close works about 80% of the time for me. Most of the time it doesn't work seems to be when I do something out of the ordinary like stop the car outside the garage and get out (usually forgotten coffee). I haven't seen any changes since the update, and I have not changed the 20ft setting.

 

[speedy]

and I have not changed the 20ft setting.

Auto-Close has no settings and defaults to 20 ft. The new Auto-Open has the adjustable distance.

HomeLink was broken in 2017.40 but fixed in 2017.42 and 2017.42.1

 

[JenniferQ]

Why would the receiver’s quality have anything to do with the car’s ability to try to transmit a signal to it? There is no two way communication in Homelink.

And that’s the whole problem. If there was it would work a lot better. It can’t even tell if it’s opening a closed door or closing an open door. It says that right in the manual. There is no state information or two way data. The car is transmitting in the blind, as the saying goes.

And this has been a real problem. Sometimes I will pull up as my hubby is exiting the garage and it will start to close on him because it's open and it doesn't know if it's open or closed. Yet the Liftmaster app for my phone always knew which state it was in. I guess this is only 0/1 but rather dangerous and has almost caused accidents. I guess it's a good thing that it now rarely works after the last update. Sigh.

 

[boaterva]

And this has been a real problem. Sometimes I will pull up as my hubby is exiting the garage and it will start to close on him because it's open and it doesn't know if it's open or closed. Yet the Liftmaster app for my phone always knew which state it was in. I guess this is only 0/1 but rather dangerous and has almost caused accidents. I guess it's a good thing that it now rarely works after the last update. Sigh.

How does the app know? Is there a special communications channel with the door opener that tells it the state? Good to have if so!

I have an alarm contactor on the door, so I can tell also, but it's sure a poor system when the basic door controller can't tell you which state it's in.

 

[cbdream99]

Before 2017.40, it works 70-80 % of the time when leaving. After 2017.40, it actually worsen - even if it beeps the door may not be closed. Approaching used to works 100% of the time but I have seen similar behavior where it beeps but nothing happened. Also, it happens many times when I manually press the button and nothing happens - before it always work.

Just got the 2017.42 update this morning, can't really tell it's been fixed.