Arming Garage Door Suggestions

What do people do when it comes to hooking up their garage door(s) to their alarm?  I wonder if its more trouble than its worth?  Let me explain. I have three zones for my garage door, one for when its closed, one when its open, and a wall of IR beams across it to tell if something like a car hatch is in the way.  These are for home automation and all those are working.
 
So now I'm thinking about how I will enable the alarm for these. I guess easiest is just to use the door closed zone for that, but I always have the fear that a stray RF signal could open the door when we were away, and I don't want that to trigger the alarm. (This did happen to a neighbor.) So instead, I'd like to use the beam zone, but its not battery backed up so a power outage could trigger it. Because of this I was thinking, I could use Omni logic and only trigger an Omni output IF both the garage is not closed AND the beam is broken.  This output could trigger a relay and the relay would be connected to a zone called "Garage" 
 
Has anyone used a relay to trigger a zone? It has been talked about.  Another idea is to just forget the alarm on the garage door.  Has anyone ever heard of someone being robbed when them breaking in through the garage overhead door?  It doesn't seem very common.  Is it worth it to monitor the garage overhead door with the alarm?

You might like to add a camera with a built-in microphone. Then set the door zone to alert you if the door opens so that you can look and listen in from your smart phone to see what's going on and deal with it from there.
 
I just set the door to alarm if it opens. If a stray RF signal opens the door that's as good a reason for an alarm as any in my mind. If my garage door opens when I'm away I want someone to tend to the situation whether it was a burglar that caused it or a stray radio signal. In either case my door is open and there is a security problem that needs attention.
 
Mike.

Any access into the house should be alarmed.  The door to my closet under the stairs is wired because of the crawlspace access inside.
I think it's fairly typical with garage doors with windows for thieves to stick a pole in at the top and trip the emergency release to open the door.
 
If you have a modern rolling code door, the chances of "stray RF" activating the opener are on the order of nil.
 
Since we generally enter and leave through the garage I have routines for delayed arming of the door to allow us 10 minutes to exit and it is a 4x entry delay upon return.
 
I also have motion sensors inside because of the window and side entry door coupled with occupancy sensors strictly for automation.

I have interior doors with sensors but they are only used for automation.  I have enough motion detector in the house where I'm not worried about that.  The garage can be prone to false alarms because its easy to open it then get distracted when the alarm trips.  If you make your entry and exit times so long, are you really not defeating the purpose of arming it in the first place?  If my door should open by accident, it will not be ignored. The system knows if its open, closed, opening, and closing, and it can control it as well, so that is covered. 

Entry delay is 30 seconds, so a 4x is only 2 minutes.
As soon as the door trips there are voice alerts playing in the garage, which I hope would deter a would be burglar before the alarm sounds.
Just don't get distracted  
 
I also get an e-mail/text on the door opening.

Desert_AIP said:

Entry delay is 30 seconds, so a 4x is only 2 minutes.
As soon as the door trips there are voice alerts playing in the garage, which I hope would deter a would be burglar before the alarm sounds.
Just don't get distracted  
 
I also get an e-mail/text on the door opening.

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2 minutes!! Another minute before the police are notified. 5 minutes before they arrive. Most good crooks should be able to have your house cleaned out by then, and certainly your garage. I've heard that the crooks can take advantage of just a 30 second delay to get all they want and leave. 
 
I just installed one of those GE Quirky outlets in the front of my garage, and ordered a red LED bulb from Amazon for an alarm indicator.  I tried voice but its too hard to hear in the car with the windows closed.  I wish the LED bulb flashed, but I guess I could turn the Zigbee outlet on and off.
 
I think the beam/door combo will work.  I had something similar at my last house. That way if I open the garage door but don't go inside, the alarm won't trip, but I will still light the red bulb warning.

You wire two portions NC parallel into a zone or relay, no external logic is needed. KISS principal. The more logic and programming you put on the system, the more things to go wrong. Beams should be curtain type and not single point to point. Phasing or stacking would come into play if you have a pair of doors side by side.
 
As far as response time and notification, that's really the nature of the beast.....same as any other portion of the system....hell, if you're bringing up an extended delay, there's just as many other programming options that come into play that would affect response and monitoring time. I've pointed that portion out before.

I have my garage wired contacts to a zone on my Elk M1G. I disabled the GD remote controls and use a relay from Elk open/close GD opener. I use a Elk alarm system keyfob to activate the Elk relay and operate the GD. I think the alarm keyfob is more secure than the GD remote. Never had a stray RF activation.

Garage is a separate area in the Elk and Arms/Disarms via rules following the House area. Garage area disarms via rule when opened via keyfob.


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All my good stuff is in the shop, that's all perimeter zones.

They're welcome to the cat litter and muddy boots in the garage.

Plus the emergency ddisconnect for the GDO is zip tied so they can't use the hook trick.

DELInstallations said:

You wire two portions NC parallel into a zone or relay, no external logic is needed. KISS principal. The more logic and programming you put on the system, the more things to go wrong. Beams should be curtain type and not single point to point. Phasing or stacking would come into play if you have a pair of doors side by side.
 
As far as response time and notification, that's really the nature of the beast.....same as any other portion of the system....hell, if you're bringing up an extended delay, there's just as many other programming options that come into play that would affect response and monitoring time. I've pointed that portion out before.

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I like that idea, as I'm all for simple, but the problem is I also need the input from each sensor separately, at least the door open sensor. That way I know if the door is closing or opening.  Let me think a bit. Maybe there is a simpler solution then a relay.

serodgers said:

I have my garage wired contacts to a zone on my Elk M1G. I disabled the GD remote controls and use a relay from Elk open/close GD opener. I use a Elk alarm system keyfob to activate the Elk relay and operate the GD. I think the alarm keyfob is more secure than the GD remote. Never had a stray RF activation. Garage is a separate area in the Elk and Arms/Disarms via rules following the House area. Garage area disarms via rule when opened via keyfob. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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I agree. I use a keyfob as well which I trust, but I'm not sure I can deactivate the receiver in the garage door opener.  I love the keyfob and couldn't live without it.  Shutting off the alarm with the keyfob when my driveway sensors say a car is in the driveway opens the garage door as well. The trick is figuring out all the possibilities, neighbor watches the house when were gone, went for a walk without keyfob, etc. 

Desert_AIP said:

All my good stuff is in the shop, that's all perimeter zones.

They're welcome to the cat litter and muddy boots in the garage.

Plus the emergency ddisconnect for the GDO is zip tied so they can't use the hook trick.

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Yes I've heard about that disconnect garage door trick but I never could see how that would work. I probably need to look at that again.
 
Honestly if someone is going to steal from my garage, its because I left the door open. If they break in, it will be from the back yard.

Desert_AIP said:

https://youtu.be/kSO_HTBHLFI

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I have a newer garage door opener and it seems like they redesigned them to avoid this risk.  I could remove the handle pull to make it harder to catch that? Plus my garage doesn't have a window making it even harder.
 

I have my garage door wired like any other perimeter entry door although it has a longer entry delay on it  vs. the other perimeter entry doors.  So that gives a burglar some extra time to be in the garage before it goes full alarm.   It's not ideal, but it's better than not having the exterior garage door alarmed at all.  But, once they enter the house from the interior garage door, the shorter entry delay kicks in and they're going to immediately trip my motion sensor anyway..  I figure a burger who breaks into the garage is going to immediately go into the house (or his partner word).
 
I increased my exit delay longer than int would normally be so that I could get out of the garage and into my car and get the door closed within that window if I armed from the panel, but I actually never alarm from the panel when leaving the house, I do it exclusively from smartphone app.
 
I've had it this way for 5 years and never once had an issue with it.  I also this zone to send me a "Garage Door Left Open" warning after the zone is open 10 minutes, which has come in handy quite a few times.  Doing this with my Vista 20iP with TotalConnect 2.0
 
When i add cameras to my system, I'll thinking I'll have a trip of the garage door when the system is armed text me a screen grab from a camera inside the garage, so I'll have some instant way to see if it's a valid entry or not.
 
I have the sensor at the top right of the garage door if looking at it from the inside