My garage has two 8x8 garage doors. Apparently, the previous owner never put garage door openers in the garage for the past 15 years.
I want something reliable, not super loud, not too slow. It would be great if I could use my phone to open and close it as well. Especially since I'm bad at remembering if I closed my garage door or not.
Sears - 12 years old. First one had nylon gear issues after 10 years. My family treats the garage door as our front door and it bugs me.
I bought a thingie that gives you the app and history. Easy to add as it's kind of another remote, in theory. Look at My Q
Genie DC drive with the belt. Silent, soft start so it doesnt snatch itself off the wall or break the door, powerful, and works every time.
Edit. This one.
I put a Chamberlain side mount (direct drive on the shaft) on one of mine recently.
Pro's: quiet, no overhead obstructions, install was pretty straightforward.
Con's: needs something to start the door down or else the cables will slack up and bird's-nest. That "something" can be a sloped track rather than horizontal, a pusher spring, or in my case, I just set the upper limit low enough that the bottom panel is still vertical, and thus gravity is trying to pull it down.
Learned the con the hard way. Got to rewrap my cables on their pulleys after it all went sideways. I think I'll eventually add pusher springs to get the full vertical opening, but works for now.
I would stay away from apps and IOT devices. This is a door to your house, you don't need it going through some cloud service with security holes and shoddy coding.
No comments on opener choices, I haven't bought a new one in 15 years and I don't recall what that one was.
Toyman! said:Genie DC drive with the belt. Silent, soft start so it doesnt snatch itself off the wall or break the door, powerful, and works every time.
Edit. This one.
Was going to recommend the same exact one. I just put a pair of these in (two single doors) replacing 20+ year-old mismatched openers. Wife wanted battery backup, and with Lowes 10% veteran discount they were just the ticket. Now we have matched openers that work with Homelink and that can share a single remote. As an added bonus they come with the outside keypads too.
In reply to Toyman! :
That looks like a great option, especially the battery backup feature.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
To be honest. I was less worried about the cyber security side of things. Given my knowledge on data encryption and network security, I figured a smart garage door opener is safest option vs regular ones that probably use rolling codes to keep from being hacked. But I don't know everything and I've always admired your wealth of knowledge. I'd love to hear why is a regular garage door with remotes more safe than a smart garage door opener?
Just the level of exposure. Trying to get into a single garage door is a very targeted attack that requires effort for each one - and with rolling codes, there's a time factor. Downloading a leaked database of keys from some script kiddy website gives many attackers access to thousands of doors at any time. It's like the difference between pulling credit card slips from a restaurant dumpster and downloading a spreadsheet of cards from Target
Given the number of "security" companies that have had amazing faceplants in the past year, I have to assume that a company that is trying to be secure is still potentially liable to have a breach, and the majority of them aren't trying. It should be possible to get a rock solid secure connection with good infosec. But how do you know the company is actually doing that? Most of them are chasing the buy box on Amazon instead.
The garage door opener on my shop is ultra high security. The antenna inside isn't good enough to receive a signal from outside if the door is closed on the steel building. Sure, it's inconvenient because you can't actually open the door from a car, but it's secure! :)
In reply to Toyman! :
I just put in the same thing minus the battery backup a few months ago after the previous one got zapped in a power outage. ( learned that surge protectors for openers are a good thing).
Genie has this Aladdin app which I like as not all members of my family are good at garage security. On more than one occasion I've had to close it from work.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
I feel like anyone talented enough to get through a Smart door data encryption system could get through a rolling code door as well. And they're wasting their talents on the junk in my garage. Either way, forced entry will be my most likely problem.
Datsun310Guy said:Sears - 12 years old. First one had nylon gear issues after 10 years. My family treats the garage door as our front door and it bugs me.
I bought a thingie that gives you the app and history. Easy to add as it's kind of another remote, in theory. Look at My Q
I have this one, branded as a LiftMaster. It's been great, easily programmable, quiet and reliable
Yep, liftmasters. A side mounted one for the center door with the lift, then two "regular" ones for the other two doors.
We have a Chamberlain, which is the same as Liftmaster, I think. We've been using the MyQ app for years. The convenience more than makes up for the small (IMO) security risk.
My wife has a fear theory that if we leave a garage remote in a car in the driveway overnight Jack the Ripper is breaking into the car and opening the garage door.
Then finding our hidden door key, grabbing the big sledgehammer ax I have and slamming it into our heads while we sleep.
So it's nice to use the Q app to open the door so she can relax. (She just got her Illinois gun card so she can have that not ready)
We're on a tight budget, so after the power surge took out the last one, I've been using the Armstrong brand. 
Coincidentally, the same company that made the power steering for my first few cars.
yupididit said:In reply to Keith Tanner :
I feel like anyone talented enough to get through a Smart door data encryption system could get through a rolling code door as well. And they're wasting their talents on the junk in my garage. Either way, forced entry will be my most likely problem.
That's the thing. You don't need to be the talented one with broken security or a breach. You just follow someone else's instructions. For example, the very recent Eufy screwup. Once the talented person has figured it out, it's simple to enact.
But as long as this is a deliberate decision to acknowledge the risk and decide it's worth the tradeoff, go for it.
In reply to Datsun310Guy :
There is only one thing that stops someone that motivated to harm others and it isn't an app.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
In that case regular garage doors with remotes are more vulnerable to that than smart ones.
For a certain type of individual attack, sure. For a mass breach, no. I live in a quiet neighborhood on a cul de sac, so I know when there's someone hanging around trying to execute some sort of man-in-the-middle attack. But if my encryption key and address get leaked/sold along with a few thousand others - the most likely type of breach - then it's quick and easy to drive up and open the door. That's my thinking, anyhow.
I am not a big fan of tying durables to ephemeral consumer devices, generally speaking, as I assume the manufacturer will either decide to start monetizing users (see Cricut) or will simply lose interest and stop maintaining the code (RIP my Innovate OT-2 OBD-II reader).
In reply to Keith Tanner :
I get it. The likelihood of that just doesn't register on my things-to-worry about list. Lucky for all of us most garage breakins are from opportunist and addicts and rarely ever mr hacker-man lol
Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) said:We're on a tight budget, so after the power surge took out the last one, I've been using the Armstrong brand.
Coincidentally, the same company that made the power steering for my first few cars.
I've got the standard security system for my brand (with the addition of some cameras outside).
yupididit said:In reply to Keith Tanner :
To be honest. I was less worried about the cyber security side of things. Given my knowledge on data encryption and network security, I figured a smart garage door opener is safest option vs regular ones that probably use rolling codes to keep from being hacked. But I don't know everything and I've always admired your wealth of knowledge. I'd love to hear why is a regular garage door with remotes more safe than a smart garage door opener?
If your house has a security system already, you should be able to get a sensor for the garage door?
I have the older version of this Chamberlain.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09B2MZVVP/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1
Belt drive, battery back up, WiFi. The first two are absolute musts IMHO. Belt drive is sooooo much quieter than chain drive and a lot less maintenance than screw drive. We use our garage door to get into the house 99% of the time. If the power goes out we can still get into the house with the battery back up. I don't even carry a house key anymore. WiFi is nice because it can be set up to alert you if the door's been open for more that a certain time or during a window. I get an alert if it's open for more than 10 minutes or between 10PM and 7AM.
In reply to CLH :
Me three. Have one in daily duty on the insulated 8x16 on the shop and it's fantastic.
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