Garage Door Openers

Discussion in 'Gadgets & Tech Talk' started by Ken Anderson, Dec 5, 2016.

  1. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
    Staff Member Senior Staff Greeter Task Force Registered

    Joined:
    Jan 21, 2015
    Messages:
    24,327
    Likes Received:
    42,631
    It has been a while since I have had a garage but in the 1980s, I found that garage door openers were set to operate on just a few frequencies, so one garage door opener would open several doors other than the one that it was intended to open.

    I am thinking they've probably corrected that problem since then but the garage door opener for our ambulance garage would also open my neighbor's garage. Learning that, I tried it on some others and it seemed that it would open about one out of ten garages. This was particularly troubling, given that I don't think people tended to lock the door leading from their garage to their house if their garage door was closed.
     
    #1
    Last edited: Dec 5, 2016
    Frank Sanoica likes this.
  2. Frank Sanoica

    Frank Sanoica Supreme Member
    Registered

    Joined:
    Feb 21, 2016
    Messages:
    9,297
    Likes Received:
    10,619
    @Ken Anderson
    A very good point! Back then, all openers had a bank of tiny "dip" switches under the enclosure, which the user or installer could change. There were a number of switches in the bank, perhaps 6 or so. You pointed each one up or down, then had to match the pattern you had with a similar bank within the remote. There probably were not too many different frequencies in use. The new opener and remote came with the switches in both the opener and remotes all set the same, up or down. If the switches in several openers in the neighborhood were installed, maybe at the same time the homes were built, and the door installer neglected to set them, all such doors would be operable by all the remotes. The odds of two randomly set switches being the same, and close by to each other, were quite high, possibly about 6 X 5 X 4 X 3 X 2 possible combinations (I would have to do the Permutation to tell exactly, don't want to bother).

    Somewhere in the not too distant past, a new method of programming the openers was instituted in which you simply don't. As I understand the instructions which came with the opener I installed 2 years ago, the coding between the opener and remotes is constantly changing, with the opener and remote communicating that code between each other. Thus the remote will operate only that one opener. I don't completely believe it, but that's how I read the vague description, not technical enough to deduce what they're really doing.
    Frank
     
    #2
  3. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
    Staff Member Senior Staff Greeter Task Force Registered

    Joined:
    Jan 21, 2015
    Messages:
    24,327
    Likes Received:
    42,631
    Yeah, ours had only three options.
     
    #3

Share This Page