Chamberlain - MyQ Smart Garage Hub - Black

Pros Works with nearly any garage door opener Includes built in light Includes door tilt sensor Apple HomeKit Compatible Xfinity Compatible Nest Compatible Can alert you when the garage is opened, closed, or left open Cons Google Assistant Capability requires a subscription IFTTT Requires a subscription Not compatible with Smartthings or other major smart home platforms Integrated capabilities limited only to basic scheduling Scheduling process confusing for such limited capabilities Integrated light cannot be controlled separately The MyQ Smart Garage Hub is Chamberlain’s latest offering in what is becoming a crowded market. What is different about the Smart Garage Hub is it works with other garage doors which aren’t MyQ enabled and could potentially be manufactured by competing companies. What comes in the box is a Wi-Fi hub, garage door tilt sensor, and mounting hardware. The tilt sensor communicates with the hub to determine if the door is opened or closed. The hub plugs into an outlet and the sensor is battery powered. The hub also has a light and speaker to warn you when the garage is closing. During setup, you install and app on your phone which asks a series of questions about the type of garage door you have. It will then proceed to tell you how to connect the hub to you garage door by essentially mimicking a standard garage door opener so no complicated wiring is needed. Overall, the hardware installation process is very basic and doesn’t require any special skills or a technician. This is great. What is not so great is the basic theme carriers to the “smart” functionality. You would assume that something labeled smart would focus first on functionality while attempting to make things simple. In the case of the MyQ Smart Garage Hub, anything more than basic scheduling of opening and closing at a specified time is either not available or hidden behind a pay wall. Besides a basic schedule, you can get notifications for the garage opening, closing, or left open. Apple Homekit, Nest, and Xfinity are included at no extra cost but oddly, the big players in the smart home business are either absent or require a monthly subscription. Google Assistant and IFTTT integration are available for a fee but Insteon, Wink, Iris, and SmartThings are nowhere to be found. It was rumored that SmartThings integration was to be available a long time ago, but it appears Chamberlain has decided otherwise. This leaves you with very limited options which arguably offer only the most basic of smart capabilities. This is very disappointing, and many other devices realize that a smart home requires collaboration and not locking you out. A perfect use case example would be if you have a smart home hub which allows basic rules. We have all left the house in a hurry and left our garage open. With the MyQ Smart Garage Hub you could get an alert that your garage was left open and close it via the app. Helpful, but smart homes are capable of so much more even without getting complicated. With integration with the mainstream smart home providers you can set your home so when you leave and your garage door still open, it closes automatically. You haven’t even left your neighborhood and your house is automatically secured. Even better is that they can alert you if the garage failed to close while you are still near your house allowing you to turn around and fix the problem before you go across town. Overall, the MyQ Smart Garage Hub is a nice idea hampered by lack of compatibility and attempts to make what is generally a free system an a la carte subscription based system. The potential is there if they would add compatibility. If you use Apple HomeKit, Xfinity, or Nest this might be right for you to add a little smarts to your garage. If you are building your smart home and want more functionality than just being able to remotely open and close your garage without paying an extra fee and you desire the simplicity of integration, it would be best to look at other solutions

In the growing Smart Home market we are seeing with each month more major products that start from a “smart first” perspective—meaning specifically, primary devices that are intended to do some basic function (wash your clothes, vacuum your house, etc.), and also have smart capabilities to go along with them. For instance, think about the Philips Hue line of light bulbs, which are lights first before anything else, and they also happen to connect to your wireless network for something better. In contrast, some manufacturers are releasing adapter kits for standard light sockets that allow you to take a “dumb” light bulb and make it a smart one. Among the Smart Home manufacturers is Chamberlain, which has a series of smart-first products around garage door openers and light switches; these items are intended to fully replace your existing non-smart-first devices. I’ve been considering replacing our garage door opener with a smart-first garage door opener for some time, and amidst moving and some other craziness in our lives, thought it best to wait. That said, I had opportunity to test out Chamberlain’s myQ Smart Garage Hub, a non-smart-first device that alleges to convert a standard garage door opener to a smart garage door opener with some fairly basic installation steps and configuration. The unboxing was friendly and intuitive, and upon opening, all parts to this adapter were immediately visible; this includes the wi-fi hub, door sensor and installation hardware. The quick start guide was concise and easy to follow, although iOS users will need to refer to the special instruction insert that is not a part of the quick start guide in order to fully configure the Wi-Fi hub. Mounting the door sensor to the top door panel was straight forward and could be done either with included adhesive strips, or with two screws (which were also included). Next came configuring the wi-fi hub, which was not nearly as straight forward as I had hoped it would be. It was after 3 attempts following the quick start guide that I looked for additional instructions in the packaging (the aforementioned iOS device insert), which involved leaving the myQ app and connecting wirelessly to the hub; this step was not much different from connecting to a temporary wireless network when configuring a new router. After completing, the app worked as advertised and the installation continued with the mounting of the wi-fi hub. I found the wi-fi hub’s range to be surprisingly large, as during configuration it was 30+ feet from the door sensor and still worked. There is no physical connection between the hub and your opener, nor is there a physical connection between the hub and your home router. With that in mind, it makes sense there should be some range—and most users should not find themselves limited by the approximately 3’ power cord that comes with the device (although extension cords work just fine, if required). I happened to have a small section of 2x4 mounted to my garage ceiling which made an ideal home for the hub; in theory, any downward-facing surface available to you in your garage (a joist, a metal bracket, etc.) would also work for secure mounting. After physical installation, the final configuration of the hub was completed by pairing the device to my particular opener, which was a fairly straight forward process. Fortunately I just bought a new house and was familiar with the location of my opener’s “program” button, but if in doubt check your particular manufacturer’s instruction manual, likely on line. It’s worth noting that Chamberlain claims compatibility with most openers since 1993, but be sure to check their website before you make a purchase decision. Also worth noting, the programming of the myQ wi-fi hub seemed to wipe the programming from my existing opener, but reprogramming that was straight forward as well. As far as the actual operation of the thing is concerned, it has done a fine job on all fronts. The app gives you a clear indication of how long your garage door has been open or closed. It also has configurable push notifications that will inform you when your garage is opened or closed, and can be further customized to alert you when certain time thresholds of “openness” and “closedness” are reached. You can also setup close schedules, allowing you to automatically close your garage door based upon some predefined calendar. And of course, the most basic of features, after you program your hub to be able to open and close your garage door (and not just monitor its status), you can do so easily with your smart phone from anywhere in the world. The product has a couple of downsides as well. For starters, I would love to see some integrated location-based activities that will automatically open your garage door when you reach a certain set of coordinates, so that when you pull in your driveway your garage door is already open. Second, when closing your garage using your smart phone, the wi-fi hub emits a surprisingly loud series of beeps, undoubtedly for safety reasons. Still, it would be nice to be able to suspend this beeping, or at least suspend it when you are within wi-fi range of your home network. The app itself looks a bit outdated, and it lacks iOS widgets that would make opening and closing your garage door easiest without having to dive too deep into an app. Also, strangely, this product is not (yet) compatible with Amazon Alexa or Apple HomeKit, which is frustrating and not entirely unexpected. According to Chamberlain’s website, HomeKit compatibility can be added by purchasing the myQ Home Bridge. In total, installation required about 45 minutes of my time, and that included some troubleshooting and “wheel-spinning” as well. The operation is simple and straight forward, and for only $100 my old garage door opener is now among my Smart Home devices. As indicated, there are a handful of annoyances and “under-developed” features, but I wouldn’t consider any of those to be deal breakers with this purchase. The myQ Smart Garage Hub does what it’s supposed to do, is relatively easy to configure, and doesn’t break the bank—and as far as Smart Home adapters are concerned, it’s an easy purchase to justify.

Setup was quite easy, and only took me about 15-20 minutes, including reading directions and installation. I have some young kids, so they don't always remember to close the garage door when the come back inside. Also, I can use this to know if they snuck out the garage to avoid me seeing them go through the front door. I think it is great, and gives me some peace of mind, knowing my garage door is open/closed. I have a camera in my garage, but if I saw the door open, and I was not home, I couldn't do a thing. Getting this MyQ Smart Garage Hub by Chamberlain, allowed me to not only close or open the door, but also see a log of when it happened. When setting up the unit in the app, the account verification email took about 10 minutes to come, so I had to wait for that. When setting up the device, it had me connect to the unit via Wi-Fi, so my internet connection was not on. However, it asked me to view directions on a website that I could not reach, because it was connected to the device, not the internet Wi-Fi. So I had to reconnect to internet, then read the instructions, then bounce back to the device. I have had it installed for a few days now, and it gave me 1 false notification that "Your Garage door has been closed" and reset the counter. When it was never actually opened. I like that there is a counter for if I did leave the garage door open. I can also see if someone opened/closed the door, without using the app, and it tells me when they got home. There is also a History portion of the app, that tells me when the door was opened/closed, regardless of if I used the app or car remote or wall remote. There are also Push Notifications that alert me when the door is opened or closed. If I wanted to check to see if my garage door is open or closed, i can go to the "Places" part of the app, and it tells me if it is closed or open, and how long it has been at that status. There are "schedules" that I can make, so it will close it at specific times. So if I set a schedule to always close the door at 9:00pm, then I know it will be closed for sure, every night. I would get a push notifiction or an email when the schedule ran. I only use the push notification. There is a place to "Link Partner Devices" (Nest/Wink/Xfinity Home/Google Assist/IFTTT), and when I linked my Nest Thermostat it gave me the option to turn my nest to Away/Home status. It also tells me the temperature of the thermostats. The downside is that I like to connect my Google Assistant to things, as well as IFTTT, but there is a fee ($1/mo or $10/yr). Sure it is only $10, but most products do not charge a fee to make it 'smart.' Honestly, I have no idea why they put this fee on there, but it prevented me from connecting the full functionality. I would want to use it with my voice, or mainly do things like If I leave, and am a certain distance away from the home, then close the garage door. The MyQ app doesn't automatically close it for me, but it will tell me if I left it open. Overall, it functions as I hoped it would. I would recommend this to a friend

Moderate number of stars since I encountered an issue only half an hour after installation. Existing opener: Five-year-old Craftsman ½ hp (double wide door) Mobile: Android 8.0 (Oreo) on Samsung S8+ Router: Netgear Orbi Signal strength at base: -50 DBm @2.4GHz (quite adequate) Installation: Read and followed the instructions on the sequence of installation elements. This sequence is different from two of the YouTube installation videos, which are different from each other. The instructions are light on details so viewing the videos will help with some things that may not be intuitive. I made sure I only pushed the learn button on the actual opener long enough for the led to come on. Holding it down could wipe out auto and hand-held remotes if they are in the vicinity. Everything connected fine. Tests worked fine. Playing with it gave good, precise results with minimal delay. I was pleased. Issue: While cycling it for confidence (and admittedly enjoying the sense of remote power over the mechanism) it obediently closed the door, but the app kept closing and closing, and finally told me the door closing failed, there was an error: Try again. But the door had closed, the light and warning had turned off. So, after many additional attempts the app gave up on tries and told me to manually reset the door. I did, but the app was hung up on the error. Nothing would get the app working again. Even reloading the app did not rid me of the false read and allow me to open or close. So, I downloaded the Liftmaster MyQ as a secondary app and signed in with my Chamberlain account (the only difference in apps is the color) and it showed the door in the correct position, and I began to successfully operate the door. The Chamberlain app subsequently recognized where the door was and cleared the error. Bizarre. If I was not standing in the garage, if I was hundreds of miles away, this would be a traumatizing failure of the system, letting one believe that the door did not close (all the while telling you to manually reset the door, which would be impossible). One Day Post Issue: After that the system operated without fault several times. A day later I have not had a repeat of the false indication or app stubbornness. Even when I linked it to Google Home (yes, I paid the fee, though grudgingly) and gave it verbal commands, the app showed the appropriate door action and position … but I still am aware that the glitch happened. Other Issues: Despite a year of promises to provide it (I have read), the system does not yet allow multiple accounts. New target: “sometime in 2018”. You can put it on your spouse’s device but only using your id and password. This is a negative. Also, some will be turned off by the fees (though modest) for Google Home and IFTTT links. There is some indication with this experience that Chamberlain development skills for smart appliances and connectivity is not quite ready for prime time. Hopefully they are upping their game to work on their software and firmware and to enhance it with multiple accounts and a few more features. First Impression: It is nice, it works, the mechanics and local connectivity seem quite good, but a security device demands a high level of trust needed for remote operation, and for me that trust still needs to be won. Hopefully I can return and add a star after a good run of glitch-less operation.

There's not much to recommend from this product. The overall experience and advertising of this product definitely puts this smart garage opener at the bottom of my list. The MyQ markets itself as a smart hub but other than garage doors and a plug in switch. If you're looking for a smart home hub, there are far better options for the same price or lower that also offer much more functionality. Set up: in short, it was hard, confusing, and not well organized. You start the set up through the app and then are redirected to the internet, then there's a long confusing process to connect the hub to your phone through the wifi settings and input a serial number. I'm a person that is pretty good at figuring out technology and I had a hard time seeing this up. Almost no thought was put into the set up of this product and someone not as familiar with technology would have a very difficult time. The app: it's ok, not much functionality other than opening and closing the door, setting alerts, and schedules which seem pretty useless for closing a garage door. Comparability: this was the part that truly not recommend this product. The hub is marketed as compatible with wink, Xfinity home, Google Assistant, and IFTT, which would really make it pretty useful. There's one catch. To use Google Assistant or IFTT you have to pay a monthly subscription fee. The fee is not a lot but, for a product that costs $100, there is no reason integration with these two services should have a fee associated. The marketing in this pushing the integration but, then sneaks the subscription wording in at the end. It's misleading and poor marketing. If you want something to link your garage door to your smart home or want to be able to open your garage from your phone, there are much better options for the same or cheaper price.

I had a MyQ garage door opener in my previous house and I loved it. I wanted to convert my new house (with old motor) to be a "smart garage." The benefits are a no brainer, I set a schedule for my garage to close at a certain time every morning and night so in case someone left it open, it's closed. You can literally check whether your door is open anywhere you have internet connection on your phone. Those benefits, were present in my older house (with new MyQ motor) and I was able to obtain with my newer house (with old non-smart motor). The bad part, at least for me, is the lack of any Google Home integration. Now, truth be told, you never really need it. I mean when will you be inside your house and need to open the garage? You generally open the door when you walk into the garage. And when you do need to open it (when you're outside, say you went on a walk) your Google Home isn't there. But I like all of my smart home devices to be integrated into as few apps as possible. I now have a another app (Google Home, Arlo, Linksys WiFi, Nest, Chamberlain, etc.) But again, this is by no means a deal breaker, you won't find yourself (I wouldn't think) using the app all that often, but it is just too convenient when you need it. And $100 is nice piece of mind. Now, onto setup. It's pretty easy. Although I will say that the instructions leave much to be desired. They're not wrong, but they don't explain to you how the device works (i.e. how the hub connects to your "dumb" garage door motor). Ends up, the small controller that attaches to the door sends old school garage door codes (i.e. it's another garage door opener) and that connects to your hub and the hub connects to your WiFi network. Setting up on iPhone was a pain, you have to connect to the hub's WiFi, go to the browser, type in a URL, type in WiFi connection, download app, and then open app. I could not, for the life of me, get the app to recognize the hub. Finally I entered the serial number which was on the box. It wasn't hard, don't get me wrong, but it just seemed more difficult than it needed to be and if the instructions actually had some descriptions in it (other than download the app and follow the instructions) it would have been more straightforward. All in all, I recommend this unversal device. I actually really recommend a new motor with MyQ built in (because I do worry about errors in the app telling me garage door open when it's not and vice a versa, my worries are in part because I don't know how the MyQ devices talk to each other) but that's a lot more expensive. This is a cheap way to get make your home a smart one. But note that you need an additional purchase to make this Apple Homekit compatible! I don't use it or need it, but wanted to put that out there for your Apple folks.

I’m generally not one for home automation, but this garage door system may change my mind. For something compact it gives me great peace of mind and convenience. I actually am very happy with it. If you need to open a garage remotely or monitor it with alerts this simple device is for you. **Installation** Installation this system isn’t overly difficult, its two pieces, a base unit that communicates over your wi-fi and sensor that attaches to your garage door to detect if it is open etc. They recommend your install the base station on the roof next to your garage door unit, and they give the hardware to do, very simple and easy. I do recommend that your place base unit on the ceiling near the door unit as recommended since it has a flashing LED Light to warn anyone nearby that the door will be closing. The sensor too they give you what you need to place on the top of your garage door. Very simple and easy. I had the physical installation done quickly. ***Setup*** Save yourself about 15 minutes of troubleshooting and cursing and after your plug your base unit connect your phone with the application installed directly to the MyQ open access point it sees, then go through the setup with the application. Took me a bit longer than I expected to realize this and get everything working. Wish the directions where a bit clearer, but in the end, I got it up and working. Just note it is not a 100% plug and play, but not super hard either. Once you get it the app working with the unit it will ask to attach to your home wi-fi and then you can setup the unit to open and close your garage. If you don’t need that feature, you can just use it to monitor your door for when it is opened and closed. I opted for the full experience since I am more likely to have my phone on me then wanting to dig in my car for the opener. Took a bit of trial and error to get the right frequency and find the pairing button, but once I got it paired off to the races. *** Use*** Once you have it paired and setup with your account you can either use the app, or connect to the website and open/close/monitor your garage. They make it easy to use and it is straight forward to do. You can even set up alerts, so you get an e-mail or a pop up on your phone when the garage is opened, left open for a time or closed and set a schedule when you get alerted. I love it. No need to worry if I left it open, or the kids left it open for a length of time. I can also open it remotely over the Internet. Handy for when I’m away and we get a package. I can open my garage and have a neighbor drop the package in the garage and close it. This just simplifies life. My only real gripe is the app, if you switch off from it, can get confused and not refresh the status of the garage. The Website doesn’t, but the app can. Usually closing it and opening it again fixed the issue. Also, it was great to see it didn’t get confused when I used the garage door opener to open or close the door. It updated to note correctly what it’s status is. I’m very happy with this and find it to actually be a very useful piece of home automation.

As can be seen via a nearby label, I was given a free unit in exchange for an unbiased review. If you have third-party services that give your security system some semblance of cloud-based control (such as Alarm.com), you'll want to read this review fully. First of all, the product itself -- which comes with a hub (gateway is built in) as well as a door sensor -- really is excellent. The only real issue that I found was that the setup instructions that came with the unit weren't as thorough as I would have preferred; I resorted to one of Chamberlain's own setup YouTube videos that was much more thorough in terms of steps. When the unit is set up, the hub contains an LED-based light that, when closing a garage door, will flash several times and beep for several seconds as a safety measure. After all, if you're closing the door from the app, then (rightfully so) nobody in physical proximity to the door is aware, and so the door doesn't close for about 7 - 10 seconds after you ask it to do so from the app. I think this is an excellent safety feature on Chamberlain's part. Opening the door is the exact opposite; my experience so far is that the door opens about 2 - 3 seconds after I ask it to do so over the app (and this was tested via both wifi and LTE). For overall execution and product design, it's excellent, once you understand how to get it set up (and, really, the reason why it's somewhat complicated to set up is because Chamberlain has had to account for recognizing many types of garage door openers, so that's fair). As far as security system integration, beware: since the product is in a subsequent generation, it might not be fully recognizable by services such as Alarm.com. In fact, I currently have a ticket open between my security company and Alarm.com to figure out why, after my provider enabled all available options for garage door/opener integration, Alarm.com still won't recognize the serial number of my hub (they require this number in order to proceed with security setup). In most situations, this might be due to the fact that you cannot enable the unit with both Chamberlain's app (where I currently have it to test/use) and Alarm.com simultaneously; should we get this issue resolved, I'll be removing it from Chamberlain so that it's freed up for Alarm.com's use. Regarding app usage, in both situations (Chamberlain app and Alarm.com), there are many options to choose in terms of alerts: length of time garage door was open, notifications for when the door opens/closes, geofencing, third-party automation service integration, and so on. And if you have two garage doors, no worries there -- you can get a second door sensor and it should pair with the hub without issue. If you're in the market for a wifi-enabled garage door opener, this is the one to get, in spite of third-party security-related issues (those challenges should get worked out in time). Besides, after enabling in Chamberlain's app, the same app can be used to disable it for other system usage, so either way, you're covered :)