What is the best option for increasing garage door opener range?

[bmah]

Yes, I am happy to report that all I did was buy a wire from the hardware store, connected it to the short antenna sticking out of the garage door opener and ran it all the way out of the garage and down the side of the garage door frame.

I no longer have any issues opening the garage door but I'm having major issues trying to get the car to automatically open the garage door as I arrive.

Glad the range problem is solved.

One cautionary note about auto-opening...in my experience most garage door openers don't explicitly "open" or "close" the door...they make the door move to the opposite state. So if the garage door was already open, "auto-open" would actually close it. Might want to test and make sure it does what you expect under various circumstances.

(Sorry if I've posted about this too many times in various threads, but it's an example of something not working the way people think and having unintended consequences. And it's not really a Tesla problem, it's more in the way the Homelink protocol works.)

Bruce.

 

[DCEV]

I am happy to report that these garage door opener LED bulbs works great for me! I had already extended the garage door opener antenna but still had a few issues at the end of my driveway. These LED bulbs prevent RF interference and the garage door opener is now operating very reliably. Wish I bought these sooner!

Also like the fact that these are 100W equivalent when the other bulbs I found were only 60 equivalent.

 

[jlv1]

They are less expensive than the Genie bulbs

The 2 pack of these (100W equivalent, 1600 lumens) is $17.19 at Amazon. The 2 pack of Genie (60W equivalent, 800 lumens) is more expensive, but if you opt to buy the 1-pack of Genie, it's only $5.98 each. Thus, two of the Genies is less expensive than these.

But like you I'd prefer the 1600 lumens bulbs.

 

[Galinette]

Using a randomly long cable as antenna is not the way to go, it may improve as well as degrade reception.
My system works on 433MHz, so I purchased a 433 MHz antenna on amazon, and a long 433 MHz extender with SMA connectors, and placed it behind a wall where there are no metallic parts.

I cut the final sma connector and connected the central wire to the garage motor antenna header, and the shielding to ground.

And tadaaa, geolocated tesla homelink is now flawless!

A few links:
https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B07DNLBHH6/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_kxphDb4RVMP63

https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B079YT7NM3/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_DyphDbQFMMVCX

 

[DCEV]

Glad the range problem is solved.

One cautionary note about auto-opening...in my experience most garage door openers don't explicitly "open" or "close" the door...they make the door move to the opposite state. So if the garage door was already open, "auto-open" would actually close it. Might want to test and make sure it does what you expect under various circumstances.

(Sorry if I've posted about this too many times in various threads, but it's an example of something not working the way people think and having unintended consequences. And it's not really a Tesla problem, it's more in the way the Homelink protocol works.)

Bruce.

This is a super good point and the reason why I don't have Homelink set to ever auto close the garage door. I always make sure the garage door is closed before I leave so it should not not be open (hopefully!) when I arrive and should only trigger the door to open. Even if the door was open, I would see it close as I pull in the driveway because extending the antenna with wire and using these interference free LEDs have solved my range issues:

The wire I bought from a hardware store and it was more expensive than I thought. If you have copper speaker wire handy, that should do the trick as well.

 

[DCEV]

PSA: If you extend the garage opener antenna, don't let the wire touch the ground. Not sure what the technical reason is (perhaps someone can explain!) but my range degraded to almost nothing just now and I fixed it by making sure the antenna extension wire did not touch the ground.

 

[lroach]

Okay, back to looking into an easy way to extend the antenna. Has anyone just spliced a certain gauge wire and just strung that outside the garage to increase the Model S garage door opener range?

Yes and it did not work for me

 

[lroach]

Yes and it did not work for me

I am going to move the receiver to the garage door using bell wire and tuck the antenna out side on the top side of the door or drill a hole and poke it out. I would think it will do the same thing that others have tried by adding long wire, it did nothing for me. The other option would be coax camel and soldering it to the board and at the other end they solder the old antenna wire to it. The first option is easier to me.

 

[Charlie Brown]

Low power radio frequency (RF) does not require a thick wire guage. AWG #24 is ample thickness. Simply extend the opener's short antenna wire 10, 20, or more feet toward the approaching vehicle. Make a good electrical connection and either solder or secure with a wire nut. Locating this antenna wire outdoors should provide greater range because it delivers the signal through garage wall.

Low power radio frequency (RF) does not require a thick wire guage. AWG #24 is ample thickness. Simply extend the opener's short antenna wire 10, 20, or more feet toward the approaching vehicle. Make a good electrical connection and either solder or secure with a wire nut. Locating this antenna wire outdoors should provide greater range because it delivers the signal through garage wall.

Low power radio frequency (RF) does not require a thick wire guage. AWG #24 is ample thickness. Simply extend the opener's short antenna wire 10, 20, or more feet toward the approaching vehicle. Make a good electrical connection and either solder or secure with a wire nut. Locating this antenna wire outdoors should provide greater range because it delivers the signal through garage wall.

Hi do you know if i would Be able to connect something like this antenna if my automatic gate receiver has a antenna wire just hanging out. Like the garage openers? Thanks