Installing Sense contact sensor to garage door

I tried to mount the Sense contact sensor to the garage door mechanism. Due to the lubrication grease in the mechanical moving part, affixing the sensor using its own double-sided tape is not gonna cut it. And I didn’t want to drill hole anywhere to mount the sensor.

After playing around with the Sense parts, I realized that if the magnetic sensor is polarized with other metal mounting object, it would defuse the Sense senor part, so open/close sensing wouldn’t work effectively. So for now, I use these material listed below to mount it. It’s been holding up and working well. I need some advise from other users who have successfully mounted the Sense contact to the garage door nicely and still is easily removable.

1/ masking tape.
2/ wooden paint stir from Home Depot.
3/ angled plastic piece (mine from square beverage bottle).
4/ couple of binder clips.

Before

After

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I would have made it more simple and gone to the frame around the garage door. Then to the door just like a normal door or window. Except it would move up and down as opposed to away and towards. Should still function the same. Nice set up either way.

Also, I found it more helpful if there is a Reminder option in the Wyze app if the contact sensor is Open for the preset minutes. I do get a notification of Open when I opened my garage, but it’s because I also get tons of other notifications from moving tree and bugs, I could easily missed the garage door Open notification. So, if there is an Reminder option to repeat the notification for every, say 5 minutes, I would turn around to drive home to close the garage door. Just a thought.

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I snooped around my galvanized garage door for quite some time. I honestly don’t love my garage door because it’s old and noisy and rattles a lot when it goes to work. I also have been thinking to give her a pinkslip one of these days, so for now I don’t want to adorn the garage door with my beloved Wyze Sense. That’s how I came up with this make shift mounting. I can still remove it and pretend nothing happened. It’s not a genius way I would say, but I am always open to other advice of mounting it creatively yet preventing from slipping/falling apart/interference or so forth. :slightly_smiling_face:

By the way, I dig the idea from other similar post that someone used a small door hinge to trigger the Open/Close sensing when the garage door is up/down. That concept is great. But again, don’t want to mount the hinge onto the galvanized steel garage door and metal part might interfere with the magnetic sensing effect.

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I added this to other posts, but my Smartthings contact sensors magnet was pretty strong and was sticking to the metal, so I mounted my hinge to the highest plastic panel away from all the metal.

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That’s a pretty slick set up as well.

@Omgitstony Yes, I saw your post in the other post. I was wondering what that is. But the hinge concept is genius. Thanks!

Now that I have a Wyze Sense contact sensor expansion pack I may switch the ST sensor to Wyze, but I like having a temperature sensor in the garage as well (which the ST sensor has also). But I like the “been open 5 minutes” notification built in to Wyze, to be continued…

You don’t have to use the magnet (non sensor) side of the reed switch that is provided. Any magnet oriented the right way will work and a stronger magnet will work from farther away.

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@Wrecks0 Yes, I noticed that. I was playing with a smaller magnet (those magnetic bead toy thing), I put five of those in a string as opposed to using the Wyze magnet. I was testing the setup by using a piece of metal angle so the bead magnet will stick to it. But as the bead magnet on the metal angle touched the Wyze Sense sensor, it didn’t trigger the signal. I didn’t receive the notification. By playing with just the bead magnet, it triggered. So, I got frustrated and just swallowed the bead magnets.

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Ok, so the magetic field is the key. Now, I need to find a way to get the beads out of my gut and test it again. :thinking:

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I have a Clopay steel rollup door with a Genie opener. I was surprised to see the top panels first movement was to pull away from the header. This allows a simple standard mounting solution of the WYZE contact. I used a scrap piece of plastic, (an old light switch plate) and screwed it to the header to avoid having to rely on foam tape sticking to wood over time. It will also make it easier to change the battery. I added a bead of silicon around the sensor magnet after pressing it into place ensuring it will never fall off.

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I love the ingenuity of both of those. Wasn’t bashing great ideas. That’s what I love about this forum. Everyone keeps thinking further and further outside the box. Wasn’t bashing by any means. Also I have had a few of min fall off. Just swapped out for better double sided foam tape.

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I know, mine Sensor contact didn’t stick to the yard glass door frame and it fell off the 1st night. I just replaced it with regular double-sided tape (not foam), it has been holding 3 days now.

Hey @bill.admin and @mikechrn

a lot of people on here, myself included have had amazing success with 3M command strips. have you tried those? I’ve had them hold up in cold and moist weather and they are easy to take off and replace. they stick to everything I’ve tried thus far too.

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Way to funny😂

Bill, are you still looking for a solution? My garage door opener seems to be the same design. I removed the grease from the track between the open mechanism and the door. I used3M Permanent Double Sided tape to attach the large contact to the device and the smaller magnet to the rail. This setup has been working extremely well.

GarageDoor

Thanks @dneizer! Yours looks good. Mine is holding strong so far, except for a few occasions that it lost signal with the mothership which is attached to a Pan in the living right from the firedoor. But opening and closing the garage door or restarting the Pan fixes the problem.

just another option

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Omg, this is genius!
Now I need to get a hinge!