iPhone controlled garage door opener using Arduino

A pieced together hack that allows for a PHP page with a button to trigger a relay on an Arduino board that acts as a button press for the garage door opener. All the code was pretty much hacked together, and has a lot of polishing to do on all parts, but as a proof of concept, it's a start.
Uses: XAMPPlite, Arduino Duemilanove
Refrences: http://amazingknife.com/tag/arduino (RuthJ180 video:http://is.gd/4dR13)

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• arduino
• garage
• php
• iphone

[DiederikYBaan]

Nice stuff, I'd done a similar thing with a door lock. Though it was running quite different. My biggest issue was safety, because it was safe on a iphone, but we could pretty easilly bypass the entrance with a laptop. What did you do for security?

[geoffmerck]

@DiederikYBaan In the most recent iteration, which I'll do a new updated video on soon, I have employed a simple php password authentication page. that, combined with obscurity, is what keeps me feeling better. The wife lost her phone (actually lost 2) with the link. Both times we were worried about the app, but just changing the path/page rendered the old link useless.

[6476Mike]

why would you want to open your garage door from anywhere in the world if the only time you really need to open it is when you are outside and you want to put your car inside the garage, just get a remote control and stop wasting your life in stupid stuff like that

[geoffmerck]

@6476Mike Actually, I don't even keep a car in the garage typically, it's really the main point of entry for the house that we use. Funny, I just don't watch videos that I don't like, and I sure don't waste my time writing comments for them. Who's wasting what here?

[Benzfever]

Why go thru all that trouble to open an garage door thru a phone? Most cars have door remote controls built in the sun visors or mirror.

[geoffmerck]

@Benzfever actual scenarios (of many more): My sister needed to borrow a carpet cleaner. That morning, before leaving for work, I left it in the garage. Later she went to the house and called me, I flipped over to the app and opened the door. (take that, Verizon).

2) our truck has the opener in the overhead console, but we had a rental while it was in the shop. Need I say more.

3) Went on vacation, but had a friend check mail/papers. Gave him guest access on his phone. No need for keys.

[SpiledMilk]

At 3:36 THAT SPIDER SCARED THE SHIT OUT OF ME!!!

[ikkentim]

It is easy to find one's house IP, only thing left to do is adding the right port, that is ease. A piece of securety is needed here :P But verry nice. It is easy, though nice, I would like my whole house to be like this :P

[tanakahiroakijp]

excellent!

[Darrengb]

Keep up the great job, with your inhouse automation

It has huge potential

[mrgeraldbrent]

Two words: packet capturing

[crazyangelo123]

why waste your time when you can just get your remote and open your garage door

[madpuri]

If you're planning to use the laptop all the time you can probably use a USB to Parralel port cable and get 10-12 GPIO outputs of it. in that case you can completely take out arduino from the circuit. it just complicates the system. but if you're planning to take out the laptop then what youre doing is great.

[thenetimp]

You've either already figured it out (2 years later) or someone has already mentioned it but why not cat 5/6 from the basement to the garrage, keeping the audrino board near the server so you don't have to run USB.

[hashcr]

@Benzfever @6476Mike the only answer for this, please let me paraphrase TBBT ....

BECAUSE HE CAN !!!!

[TheFatherOfFatty]

I think it's on a private switch, so it's not possiable to open anywhere in the world, just in the range of the router