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Homelink usefullness vs regular garage door opener

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I use a regular garage door opener and it works fine. The range isn’t great, but is acceptable. I also have a MyQ which works perfectly through my phone but don’t use it because it makes a loud beeping noise when the door is closing (as a safety feature) and I leave early in the morning and would rather not bother my family or neighbors. So my question is, why Homelink? Why is this better than a regular garage door opener? Is it so no one can break into your car and steal your opener? Is it convenience of not pushing a simple button? Is it so you don’t have a garage door opener clipped to your visor? I feel like I am missing something here. Like most Tesla owners I’d be happy to pay $300 for a useful feature, but I just don’t get it. Please, help me to understand.

I like that it closes the door when I leave and opens the door when I arrive at home. It is silly and in the grand scheme of things trivial... but I like it :)

Keith
 
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It's been opening and closing our door for over six years now. Very, very rarely does auto close fail to close the door and I'm pretty sure I know what causes that to happen. If it does fail to close just a touch of the button on the screen and its closed. To my knowledge the auto open feature has never failed??

The only change I made to the door was to add a second set of sensors above the standard lower ones. Now the garage door knows if the car will obstruct closing the door. I think they cost me $20.00 and 15 minutes to install. They should be a standard feature on all garage doors. Helped my neighbor add a set to his door after he accidentally closed the door on his car with his clicker.

If it wasn't standard in the car we would gladly pay to add it. It works and one less piece of clutter in the car.
 
I’ve yet to regret just springing for the homelink. Is it overpriced and a ridiculous solution to a “first world problem”? Yes, but what isn’t on a Tesla? All that said, it works exactly like they say it should and I admit to smiling a bit everytime it “just works” without my lazy posterior doing a dang thing but driving in and out.
 
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It’s really nice to have the automatic feature that closes the door as you leave and opens it when you come home. Aside from that, a minor benefit is security. If your car is in the driveway, people can steal the garage door opener and/or use it to gain entry into the garage. Homelink is inactive unless the car is turned on.
Wait. Why would I be parked out side my garage? Isnt homelink built into cars the mirror as well? 🤷🏾‍♂️ So it’s basically less safe than a remote you can take in the house with you. It’s just a fancy auto opener. That can be emulated with the myQ app.
 
Wait. Why would I be parked out side my garage? Isnt homelink built into cars the mirror as well? 🤷🏾‍♂️ So it’s basically less safe than a remote you can take in the house with you. It’s just a fancy auto opener. That can be emulated with the myQ app.
Plenty of people park on their driveway. If you never do then the statement obviously doesn’t apply to you.

The homelink module is in front of the frunk and as I said, it’s disabled if the car is turned off so it’s safer than a regular opener. If you want to have a regular opener abs bring it inside then that works too.
 
I like having homelink in my car but there is one major drawback for my particular model garage door opener: homelink doesn’t know if the garage is open or closed. So if the garage door is already open when I pull up the driveway, homelink will close it. So I find that I use it regularly but manually. Others are correct in that it also does not work automatically when reversing into the garage.
 
I like having homelink in my car but there is one major drawback for my particular model garage door opener: homelink doesn’t know if the garage is open or closed. So if the garage door is already open when I pull up the driveway, homelink will close it. So I find that I use it regularly but manually. Others are correct in that it also does not work automatically when reversing into the garage.
I back into my garage exclusively and it works just fine. I don’t have a clue why anyone would believe it wouldn’t… ok…I “guess” if you’ve got a 1 mile long driveway and like to back in down it, then it might not be oriented in a way that would open it as you approach the geofence, but if you make a normal T maneuver to back into a garage, the built-in homelink “should” (or at least it does on mine) trigger as you approach the garage headed in…
 
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If you live in gated community, the auto open gate is awesome. You can also remotely open up or close your garage door using your app if your car is near the garage. The newer smart WiFi connected garage door could do this already, but the Tesla homelink just change the dumb garage door into smart garage door if your Tesla is near. And if you own multiple houses, or you want to open up garage door of your parent's house, you don't have to carry multiple remotes in your car.
 
> It's nice to not have three different openers in the car
>you don't have to carry multiple remotes in your car.

Do other people's garage remotes all only have one button? I can program up to 3 on the clicker that came with my opener. You can buy aftermarket clickers too. I keep mine clipped in the driver's door pocket down on the left. Homelink is not worth $325 to me when I would have auto-open disabled anyway. My garage is already open half the time I get home from kids playing in the driveway or someone taking the dog for a walk, etc. I don't want it to auto-close when I'm pulling up.
 
What I do find stupid is that the "chime" on open/close happens when the signal is sent to activate the opener. Not when the "Skip’ option pops up that allows you to skip the auto-open/close for that approach/departure. The chime should sound when the pop up shows up to remind you to skip it if you don’t want it to activate.

Small gripe but it just makes no sense to me.

You can turn the chime off in homelink settings...