Using Siri to control your garage door.

With the recent advancements in home automation we’ve had a few people who have asked about using Siri via Apple Homekit to control their garage door. We’ll take a look at how you can make that work with the Chamberlain MyQ Home Bridge and also have a look to see if there are any solutions for those running Android!

Siri and your Garage Door

There are actually four openers with Apple ‘HomeKit’ connectivity (click here to learn more about it) support on the market:

If your garage door doesn’t have MyQ or Wi-Fi connection, you’ll need a hub such as the Chamberlain MyQ Smart Garage Hub which allows your garage door to be controlled by a smartphone, as long as it was manufactured after 1993 and has Photo Eyes sensors (the vast majority do). If you have a Chamberlain door you will be covered.

The MyQ Smart Garage Hub is a small black box you can mount in a convenient spot in your garage – and it also has a sensor you attach to your door.

The MyQ Home Bridge is similar but you don’t need to put it in your garage – anywhere with good WiFi connectivity will do.

Setup depends on your garage door opener model so have a read of the instructions and let us know if you have any questions.

Siri Garage Door Automation

Using Siri to control a garage door
Using Siri to control a garage door (source: 9to5mac.com)

One everything’s set up correctly and your garage door opener is connected to HomeKit, you can use Apple’s Home app, Siri, or automation to control your garage door. Using the Home app you’ll be able to see if the door is open or closed (great for when you’re already halfway to work and not sure if you remembered), and obviously you can control the door from there as well. It’ll also let you know if there are any obstructions hampering the door’s ability to close.

You can choose the door to open/close automatically at set times depending on if someone’s home or not (it knows if someone’s home based on their connectivity to the home WiFi). You could, for example, set the door to automatically close when nobody is home, so you’ll never have to worry about if you left the door up again!

According to 9to5Mac, Siri control will work with the following questions/commands:

  • Close the garage
  • Open the garage
  • Is the garage closed?
  • Did I leave the garage door open?

If you’re on Android, it doesn’t have a full-featured home automation option like HomeKit yet, but if you have a Merlin MyQ you can click here to download the app which will allow you to control the garage door and your houselights from anywhere in the world.

Click here to learn more about the Merlin MyQ from the Door Doctors blog.

If we can help you install a smart garage door or you have any questions about this please contact us or leave a comment below!