MyQ Possibly Introducing Subscription Service Model for Garage Door Opening via CarPlay?

[Jimrpa]

I’ll just drop this here. ???

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[Maquis]

I don’t really understand what they’re doing here. Does it mean that they disable the app in CarPlay unless you pay the ransom? I didn’t know that was possible.

Or is the subscription only for the geofence part?

 

[mpshizzle]

I suspect they're trying to copy tesla's approach here. They don't have a homelink garage door opener so you're forced to use the MyQ service instead. The car will use geofencing and automatically open/close the door for you as you are coming and going. (It does give you a notification at the very least so you know it's happening).

But in order for all that to work you need to pay that stupid MyQ subscription.

Alternatively I'm just going to drop this here. Smart control of your garage from any platform, without the need for MyQ BS

And to be clear, because I know somebody will bring this up. The MyQ app has been free for years, and they've not announced any plans to change that. The subscription comes into play when you connect your MyQ account to another supported service (in this case tesla or honda)

 

[kdonnel]

myQ by default does not work with Homekit. For a short period of time they sold a hub that enabled Homekit but no longer sell the hub and have said at some point they may just turn off support for the hub.

Plus it was not very reliable and if something broke and you had the hub, you had to set everything up from scratch again. Things broke often for me.

There is a free software product, Homebridge, https://github.com/homebridge/homebridge, which has lots of plugins including one for myQ, https://github.com/hjdhjd/homebridge-myq.

Up until very recently you could use those two products for free to enable Homekit access and get your garage door to appear in CarPlay. I used it for years.

But myQ has shutdown any 3rd party API access, sound familiar?

They are instead working with auto makers to have a subscription service to allow myQ access via the infotainment screen, not specifically CarPlay, but the generic infotainment.

They have so far partnered with Tesla, Honda, Acura, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, and STEER.

myQ is a product from Chamberlain which owns a huge percentage of the home garage door opener market.

I would be tempted to pay for a subscription that allowed Homekit access but until they offer that I will spend my time in the 1990's and press the Homelink button that is in all my cars like I am a time traveler in the past.

 

[HuntingPudel]

Good thing I have a HomeKit-compatible receiver for my opener. I ripped the receiver junk out of my ancient opener and now it only operates either via the push button on the wall or through the HomeKit receiver. ??

 

[Vulnox]

I am not subscription adverse, I will support companies that make things easier and show clear benefit. I subscribe to the Apple One subscription because for one price, we get services the entire family uses and the entire family benefits from one subscription.

That said, we have a Chamberlain MyQ garage door opener and it works great with the app on our phones to remotely open or close or just check the state of the garage door remotely. Great to have.

But $179? For what? I think the thing that makes me actually angry about this is unlike adding a data plan to your car or buying cloud storage for phone backups or whatever else has a subscription where there is data usage and something that costs money for the provider, I bought the MyQ garage door opener and maintain it, and it connects to my Access Point, which I own and maintain, goes through my gateway, which I own and maintain, and then my internet service, which I pay for already.

The only thing Chamberlain does is take the request from the app and pass it along to my network to be handled by my garage door opener. It's kilobytes of data with the request, authentication info, and the server(s) on the Chamberlain side to handle and authenticate the request. There is definite upkeep on their end, but it's more in the area of $50/5 years MAYBE. But even then, what's their argument on that front since I can use the remote garage management from my phone right now with no fee? They seemed fine making this small service a cost of doing business, so what gives?

I know it's just greed and jumping on the subscription bandwagon, but man is it getting exhausting.

 

[jstaebell]

I've had a Tailwind garage door for several years and have been very happy with it. Geofencing and no subscription. I also really like that it will automatically choose the door if I've forgotten to close it once again...

 

[RKinWA]

I suspect they're trying to copy tesla's approach here. They don't have a homelink garage door opener so you're forced to use the MyQ service instead. The car will use geofencing and automatically open/close the door for you as you are coming and going. (It does give you a notification at the very least so you know it's happening).

But in order for all that to work you need to pay that stupid MyQ subscription.

Alternatively I'm just going to drop this here. Smart control of your garage from any platform, without the need for MyQ BS

And to be clear, because I know somebody will bring this up. The MyQ app has been free for years, and they've not announced any plans to change that. The subscription comes into play when you connect your MyQ account to another supported service (in this case tesla or honda)

They don't have Homelink? (I know they don't have 360 camera views either) those are two things I couldn't live without.

 

[Mach-Lee]

Garage door button already shows up on my CarPlay screen, not sure why this is new?

I don’t pay for a subscription, nor would I.

 

[mpshizzle]

They don't have Homelink? (I know they don't have 360 camera views either) those are two things I couldn't live without.

I'm guessing they didn't want to pay the license fees associated with home link. If I had a dollar for every person's car I've been in that has home link but they still just clip the garage remote to their visor....

 

[RickMachE]

I installed Homelink into the visors of several vehicles. $20 module on eBay.

Bought MyQ for $20 during Black Friday 2 years ago. Geofencing is worth zero to me.

 

[PalsyWalsy]

I read it as the cost is only if you have an older garage door opener and want this feature. from the article:

"However, if you have an older style, Honda says you can use a “myQ Smart Garage Control device” to upgrade it into one. Honda is offering everybody one for free if you sign up for its 30-day demo subscription of the service, so don’t worry about having to buy one.

However, if you do wish to continue beyond that 30-day free trial, a three-year subscription costs $129, while a five-year subscription will run you $179."

 

[Neil4Real]

Garage door button already shows up on my CarPlay screen, not sure why this is new?

I don’t pay for a subscription, nor would I.

Is yours through HomeKit? That is different than the MyQ app directly. If they add support for the MyQ app through CarPlay, it'll require a subscription as MyQ is lame.

 

[Jimrpa]

I bought the MyQ HomeKit bridge years ago, when it first came out. After much futzing around, I got it to work sporadically, but it hasn’t worked in over a year now, no matter how much resetting, etc., I do.
I’ve been searching for a HomeKit compatible garage door opener (or accessory) for some time, and all the ones I’ve found have various stupid functional limitations.

 

[ShaggySS]

Like others have mentioned. The price seems steep and secondly the reliability is not the best. My wife has been using this in her car for about 2 weeks and randomly it doesn't close. If its not reliable its not worth it. So then she needs a backup old fashion controller in her center console...dumb. Another perk of the service is it bypasses the obnoxious loud beeping which sometimes it does but many times it still beeps. I am perfectly fine pushing the button to open my garage door. Been doing it for years without injury.

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