How I Fixed My Parents Forgetfulness

My parents always forget whether or not they closed the garage door, so I created my own Raspberry Pi controlled garage door sensor for detecting and relaying the state of the garage door via push notifications. Overall, this project is pretty simple and a great way to learn/play around with some basic embedded systems!
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Useful Links:
Contact Switch: www.amazon.com/s?k=magnet+con...
RPi W with headers: www.amazon.com/Pico-Raspberry...
Breakout Board: www.amazon.com/FREENOVE-Break...
RPi W docs: www.raspberrypi.com/documenta...
Pushover: pushover.net/api
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Timestamps:
0:00 - Intro
1:43 - Components and Testing
4:23 - Programming
8:33 - Building
10:43 - Completed Project
11:15 - Fixes
12:08 - Conclusion
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Music:
All credit to MapleStory BGM and Victor Fuertes!
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Note: Sorry for the changes in video quality, I got a new phone halfway through editing this video!
#raspberrypi #programming #embeddedprojects #microcontroller #homelab

[@brionlund2467]

You know, $5 for an outlet box, about $15 for a gfci outlet (because it’s so close to the garage door). $2-3 for a foot of romex, and for 10 minutes of your time you could mount an outlet in just before the light and clean up that extension cable stretch. It’s a pretty easy job. Just shut down the garage breaker and make sure to test the line for any power flow before you do it, and obviously you need to wire it in before the light switch on the circuit.
All in all, cool project, well executed video, easy on the ears voice, I bet you’ll have a good set of subscribers in no time. Keep it going.

[@navnistuff]

Have similar setup for my own forgetfullness and accidental presses on the remote. Except, I connected the reed switch (more basic version of your magnet switch) to 1 pair of an UTP cable. Used another pair for the other garage door. The UTP connects to the other side of the garage where there is a dedicated outlet for my raspberry pi. But, nicely documented. I will give pushover a try, my setup only have 2 indicator LED' s on a Raspberry pi in the main house.

[@aar0nhickman]

This is awesome! I would definitely consider putting the pi in an enclosure especially if you intend to integrate relays for door control in the future. Additionally just my pickiness, but I would run a low voltage wire from the pi at the door up to the ceiling outlet and located the power adapter there rather than running the extension cable to the pi. Over all though this is amazing!

[@Ryclic]

For sure, I was also planning to sometime in the future print out a little case for it. Never heard of low voltage wire before, I'll check it out. Appreciate the advice!

[@thewolfin]

@Ryclic You would basically take some doorbell wire (20 ga/2 conductor) and splice it to extend the DC adapter for the rPi. This lets you plug the adapter somewhere more convenient and much more easily run thinner-gauge wire along the roof.
But! Long DC runs can incur a lot of noise on the Pi's power input... and the voltage drop across the line will be much more significant. With empirical testing, if it works, it works! Use a shielded cable if noise is a problem - which is doubtful as long as you're not running a microwave or brushed motor power tools nearby.
But @aar0nhickman you're right, I would much sooner prefer to mount a ~10ft run of thin 5V DC, over taping an extension cord to the floor and having an DC adapter dangling off of a duct-taped female end.
For better wire-to-wood cable management, check out "cable saddles". I like the nylon ones that let you run a zip tie through them, but they also work with twist-ties, loose solid-core wire scraps, velcro, and they pair really nicely with reusable zip ties!

[@tsobf242]

I've done this myself in a much less exciting way, using zigbee door sensors, a zigbee usb receiver, and a raspi running homeassistant. it hasn't failed me yet!

[@soviut303]

I've seen those breakout boards before when I got my Pi Pico but I didn't realize they had LEDs on them. I decided to order one since that can dramatically simplify a bunch of testing scenarios.

cool project and use of overkill feature. Wondering if something like a laser to measure length on bottom of the door would be a cool feature to know if the door is an inch open or is fully opened... just trying to overkill the verification method with overkill data haha. My only question would be if the raspberry pi hold good with all these weird climate changes

[@shimonkeselman5489]

No flipping way! Thats awesome!

[@ChristopherKovacsw0anm]

Do you have the final code for this project?

[@cacti4]

Great Video, new sub

[@DuongTran-xh4pb]

How to fix my parents broken relationship?

[@Ryclic]

[@adamk.7177]

You need at least a Raspberry Pi 4 for that