OpenGarage Forums OpenGarage Firmware Status flapping between open and closed when weather gets cold

Viewing 18 posts - 1 through 18 (of 18 total)
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  • #1328

    mjacobs63
    Participant

    I have the garage sensor installed and it worked perfectly for about a month until the weather turned cold. Now the status flaps between open and closed about once per minute or more. The only thing that has changed is the weather. With the car in the garage and the door closed I should read about 125cm. I can watch it jump between about 55 and 125 back and forth with nothing changing below it.

    • This topic was modified 5 years, 5 months ago by mjacobs63.
    #1336

    Ray
    Keymaster

    Not sure what’s causing it, but I suspect it may be due to multiple reflections of the ultrasonic wave in the room which resulted in the error in distance sensing. It could be affected by temperature. You can submit a support ticket and arrange for a replacement, to see if it makes any difference.

    #1337

    blinkwise
    Participant

    This same thing is happening to me during the cold weather. Its very odd

    #1384

    callifo
    Participant

    I had this happen mainly for cold weather. It was the PSU that was doing it, its voltage would go up and down and cause the unit to have constantly changing readings.

    The website says any old phone charger will do, but my advice is use nothing less than a good quality 1A unit. Both of mine are rock solid now.

    #1386

    mrerikpeterson
    Participant

    callifo, great input.

    I purchased an opengarage in October, it started failing with false readings at the end of the month as the weather cooled.
    After some discussion, I sent the opengarage in for testing, they could not replicate the issues, and sent a new unit back.
    The new unit has started to have the same symptoms and I am experiencing colder weather again.

    I just swapped out the usb power brick (oops, it was a knockoff iphone charger) for a 1 Amp one that came with an amazon fire tablet.
    Hopefully that stops the false readings.

    If I don’t follow up in this thread… assume that worked 😉

    #1402

    mrerikpeterson
    Participant

    Following up…
    After replacing the USB power brick, I still had false readings for one or two nights. Downgraded to 1.0.8 firmware, things seemed stable. Upgraded back to 1.0.9 firmware, still stable. At this point everything is working fine, not 100% sure what part of my rain-dance resolved the false readings.
    Love the product, hopefully it just works from here on out.

    #1514

    mrerikpeterson
    Participant

    I have not had any false readings since my last post. OpenGarage has been rock-solid stable. Use a name-brand 1A or more USB power brick ended up being the resolution.

    #1519

    Ray
    Keymaster

    Thanks for the update.

    #2044

    idxman01
    Participant

    I know this is a bit old, but mine just started doing this a day or two ago. It’s flapping between 50 and ~280cm which is the no vehicle distance. I’ve only been running it since August on v1.1.1 without issues. I thought I purchased the USB adapter, but I guess I didn’t. I’m pretty sure it was from an Amazon Fire as well, rated 1A or more.

    We have had some recent cooler weather (30-40’s overnight), but are now back up to 78. I’ve fully powered it off/on, updated config and cleared log, but it’s still waffling.

    I couldn’t reach the brick itself this morning and will power cycle it later and see if that helps. Any other tips?

    Thanks,

    #2045

    mjacobs63
    Participant

    I have never gotten mine working correctly. Replacing the power supply seemed to help for a while but it has been terrible since the weather has gotten cold again. I suspect a cold solder joint on one of the boards somewhere.

    #2074

    blaser
    Participant

    I purchased mine few months ago, everything was stable, recently I started to get false readings.

    #2101

    rtadlock
    Participant

    I’ve had my opener running for a few months now with a 1.5A power adapter. Everything was fine, but today it started repeatedly firing the garage closed event. The distance reading never changes (+- 1cm), it just shows an entry of garage closed in the log. There is no matching garage open entry like when the garage is really opened. The Home Assistant log is showing indeed that the state is changing to open though. Anyway, you can see my log it’s just message after message of “Closed”. I rebooted, cleared the log, unplugged it and let it sit for 45s. Not sure what changed to cause the issues all of the sudden. Anyway, you can see in the attached image, the problem in the log. I’ve opened a ticket and if I find anything out useful, I’ll post here.

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    #2103

    rtadlock
    Participant

    Edit: just wanted to add that my opener has been working in really cold weather for weeks. It has been well below 0F at night and hasn’t gotten over 25F for weeks.

    #2111

    rtadlock
    Participant

    Just another update. The problem seemed to just clear up. Nothing changed, in fact it’s been colder for 3 days than the day it started going crazy. Seems to just have been an isolated event. If/when it starts happening again, I’ll note any conditions that seem to cause it and post the info back here.

    #2287

    Ziptbm
    Participant

    I just relocated and installed my third unit into a garage that has several different variables (on a lake with more humidity and windows). Issue is now I’m constantly getting fluctuations in readings, so false positives for open/closed status. Previous two units also had sensor read issues at one point…

    Running firmware 1.1.1 and have adjusted the measurements correctly, but if still keeps pushing alerts when nothing has happened. I’ve now raised the dist read, but that’s not helping either as I’m still getting false alerts.

    So my issue isn’t cold (I’m in Midwest US, so it gets plenty cold), but not really sure what else to do. At this point it’s just a blind remote control.

    Do the sensors degrade over time? Anything else I can do to improve read accuracy and avoid false alerts?

    #2329

    timnunes
    Participant

    I gave up on my OpenGarage a long time ago… over a year ago. My readings jumped all over the place. I tried flashing different versions of the software, using different USB bricks, etc.

    I think I just solved it, but will have to watch it for a bit longer before I get too excited.

    All I did was remove the case cover, and now the readings are +/- 1cm!

    #2375

    mjacobs63
    Participant

    I think I may have finally figured this one out. I mounted the unit off center of the garage door because I didn’t want it to “see” the drive rail but I think I needed it mounted ever further off center. I have moved it and it seems rock solid now.

    #2379

    mjacobs63
    Participant

    Almost 2 months later and everything is still rock solid.

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OpenGarage Forums OpenGarage Firmware Status flapping between open and closed when weather gets cold