Turn on garage cam when garage door opens (myQ)

I created an IFTTT applet to turn on my Wyze Cam2 in my garage when the garage door triggers the myQ Garage Hub. You can search for it at IFTTT.com. You will have to subscribe to IFTTT to make it work.

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While what you have done is a great, thought-out automation, I am just curious why you want it to record at this time?

I would think this is about the only time you don’t need it recording, because it is the exact one time when you know something happening is just you, and you already witnessed the event first hand because you were there and it was all you.

Wouldn’t you instead want the camera to be on and recording all the rest of the time when you aren’t there, and it could be someone breaking in to your garage to steal stuff? But then your camera would be off just because they didn’t use MyQ to open it?

Could you elaborate a little on the benefits this can have in different situations?

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I usually don’t have the camera on and I am using the Amazon Key delivery feature so I want to know only those motions when I get one of those deliveries. Besides, my camera sees just about every time a car drives by my garage and adjusting the sensitivity way down basically disables the motion detection. I can’t seem to find a setting that will only detect the garage door opening and exclude other outside movement. I also want to see who is opening my door in case they decide to help themselves to the stuff in my garage. It bothers me a little that Amazon has access to my garage but it’s better than porch pirates.

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And BTW, all cameras are on when I’m away any length of time.

You could have used motion sensors or maybe even a regular door sensor for this though, and thats just my opinion.

Yeah but I already had the Wyze cams and Smart Hub for the garage door. I don’t need additional components to have problems with. But…that might be a fallback solution if it doesn’t work that great. Thanks.

Thanks for the clarification, that all makes a lot of sense now! I forgot about the Amazon key aspect of the MyQ! I too have a MyQ (and love it!) but I don’t use the “Key by Amazon” feature because my garage is basically back behind the house where I don’t want delivery people going, so I sometimes forget about this feature.

Now I totally understand how you have rigged up a great, useful automation! When do you have the cam turn back off?

In the near future Wyze should be releasing their new detection zone grid (it’s in beta right now), and that could be something that would solve some of your issues…just set a few small squares near the entrance of your garage to be watched for motion. Depending on how your camera is situated, this new upcoming grid could solve some of those issues for you. Regardless, it sounds like you found a great solution for now.

You said you also have the cams turn on when you’re away. Do you have that automated somehow too? Are you using a shortcut manually (you personally click to activate the cams), or do you somehow have it automatically turn on when you leave (like through IFTTT GPS location/geofencing monitoring?

I have the zones feature set up for the Ring on my front porch and it works pretty good. When Wyze gets there it will be very welcome.

I use Rules to just manually turn on my cams usually but I can add timers as well.

I just discovered IFTTT so this was my first attempt at creating an applet that wasn’t already accomplished. Thanks for the feedback.

BTW, I pre-ordered the Wyze Watch. It’ll be a big improvement over my cheap Apple knockoff.

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I additionally created an applet to turn the camera back off once the garage door closes to prevent unwanted triggers of the cam recordings so that I only capture motion events associated with the garage door opening and closing. Seems to be working as I had hoped it would.

Did you tell it to turn off immediately when it closes, or X seconds after it closes? Could be good to finish recording the guy walking away.

I have the Cam Plus option so it records until all motion has ceased. So far so good with my comings and goings. The recording catches the door going open and keeps recording for a while. And then it captures the door closing as well. I like it. Placed my first order with Amazon Key garage delivery to take place Tuesday so I’ll see how that goes.

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I’ve been scrolling for hours with search terms of myQ and wyze but haven’t found the applet you’re referring to. Can you provide a link or a good search term? I’d love to check it out.

Thanks!

I created my own applet with IFTTT app on the Play Store and used the Garage Hub to trigger the Wyze camera in my garage.

Thanks for the quick response! I’m an IFTTT user/subscriber. Is your applet published for others to use? I’ve been looking for it in the IFTTT app with no luck.

I’m not sure how to publish it. Any suggestions?

ibhomer, thanks for your solution. I’m new with Wyze products that I really like and learned something new today from your post.
But in my case, I installed another Wyze cam INSIDE the garage (high up in the back) and it’s on motion detection. So everytime the Amazon guy opens my garage door to drop my parcels inside, the camera captures his every moves. Similarly, if I temporarily hold the garage door opened and then forget to close it, my iside camera will record any potential intruders trying snooping around and stealing stuff in my garage.
Note: Wyze cam is quite affordable so I decided to add that cam in the (detached) garage in addtition to the one installed outside for my driveway and back door.

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