Dog Activated Garage Door Challenge

[rsspencer]

How can I go about making my garage door into a dog door? I can't seem to find anyone who makes a good, secure dog door for very large dogs. So, I thought I'd put out the challenge for one of you creative brainiacs. Can you tell me how to do it? I want to automate our standard rollup garage door so that it will open 30" for the dog but only for the dog.
My two thoughts are either speech recognition (well, bark recognition) or a PIR sensor that is somehow programmed so recognize the shape of the dog and only the dog's general size at the door. Or possibly both for uber security so that it won't open for a coyote or wolf or other similar sized/shaped animal. Unless someone has a better idea?
After figuring out a way of recognizing the dog, the second challenge is how to trigger the liftmaster 3800 jack shaft opener to open and close and just enough to admit the dog. How do I go about that? Seems like it would be fairly simple but I've never done automation before so it's all a challenge for my first go around.
Anyone tried this before?
I want the system to be able to keep out other animals and of course the two legged variety.
Whose up for the challenge?

 

[roussell]

Mount a button at dog-height and train your dog to press it when he wants to go in/out. Mount a second 'open' sensor at whatever height you wish the door to open and make it and the existing 'full open' sensor selectable via relay closure. Use your automation system of choice to switch to the 'dog open height' sensor and activate the door when the 'dog height button' is pressed. Have the door auto close and reset to the default open sensor xx seconds afterward. You could even incorporate a camera to snap and email a picture when the button is pressed.

Terry

 

[Neurorad]

Maybe something with RFID?

How do you close it after?

 

[tmbrown97]

This could be fun. Depending on your comfort level with electronics and maybe a little coding, here's what I'm thinking:

First, build The Ultimate Garage Door Monitor to detect the 3' level. If you didn't want to get all fancy, you could use a second garage door contact. I use a GE Track mount sensor - you could use one magnet on the door and two sensors - one for closed and one for 3' open.

Then I'd fire up an Arduino with an RFID sensor attached. Not sure of the specifics - would take a little research to find the right reader - but these tags claim to be RFID and are intended to hang on a dog's collar.

Then, get to writing some simple code. Whenever the dog approaches, sense the level of the garage door - if closed, open in. When it reaches the 3' spot, stop it and start a 3 minute timer. Once the 3 minutes is up, if the dog isn't right there in range, close the door again.

As far as interfacing with the garage door, most of the time you can just do a contact closure across the terminals that go to the button on the wall. If it's a smarter panel and that doesn't work or there's a clock/temperature on the smart panel that gets screwed up, you'll have to actually solder wires to the control pad across the button terminals so that your relay closure is the exact same as pressing that button.

Depending on the range of the RFID, you might be fine with a single reader to catch both sides of the door; if not, you can use any method you want to detect on the inside - another reader, a laser beam, motion sensor, etc.

Edit - if I read roussell's post post correctly, it looked like he might be talking about tricking the garage door into thinking it's open fully with two separate "stop" sensors at different positions selectable by relay - that's an interesting approach too and would probably work well... though I think I'd be tempted to go with the ultimate garage door monitor for this application so you always know what's going on with the door - if it's going up, down, or where it's at in between.

 

[JimS]

The RFID tag and some way for the dog to trip the door seem like good ideas. But I would be concerned with the dog deciding to play with the door or someone slipping in at the same time as the dog. You could have the system send your phone a picture of the area when the dog is near the door or when the dog pushes a button and then control the door from your net enabled phone. You get the added bonus of being able to remotely open the door for people if you aren't there and want to let them in.

 

[tmbrown97]

You could do a lockout if the trigger is hit repeatedly.

As far as the concern of strangers following the dog in, I think the point was that this is a big dog - he is the security system. I do like the idea of getting a picture though stored when it's activated.

 

[JonW]

I'd be concerned with the longevity of both your garage door and the opener if it is frequently being opened. Additionally, there's not enough safety comfort for reversing the door when an animal is going through for me.

I'd suggest looking at one of the fully motorized purpose built dog doors (for larger dogs). A friend installed one of these and has been very happy with it.
http://www.petco.com/product/117255/High-Tech-Pet-Power-Pet-PX-2-Pet-Door.aspx?cm_mmc=CSEMGoogleAdExtProd-_-Dog-_-High%20Tech%20Pet-_-1507001&mr:trackingCode=F60E9570-C512-E111-B18D-001B21A69EB0&mr:referralID=NA&mr:adType=pla&gclid=CIXH557k4rICFWWCQgodtHEASg

 

[apostolakisl]

I definitely agree with the RFID. This is really the only realistic way to confirm that the dog is at the door and not someone else.

It is certainly possible to train a dog to push a button. My grandparents had a dog "Romper" who learned to ring the doorbell when he wanted in. You could always tell it was Romper by the way the buzzer buzzed. He learned that all on his own even with the delayed positive reinforcement of having to wait for a person to come to the door. With instant positive reinforcement, the dog would probably learn very fast.

But do realize that this definitely is not the worlds most secure thing to do. The RFID could be nabbed off of the dog or if the dog is friendly someone could just follow him right in. Also, other animals might tag along. . . though most dogs would probably not allow that.

Getting the door to stop at 30 inches is a bit trickier but probably not that hard. A contact that has a NO set of contacts on it would do the trick. If the NO contact were wired up to a button as soon as it hit that height, the contacts would close telling the door to stop (the same as pushing the button). Closing the door would be more complex. If the button the dog pushes went to an Elk or a CAI webcontrol, code could be written that would instruct it to close the door after some period of time. You could also have the code check the status of the door and try to close a second time if it didn't close (like if the dog was lingering there and blocking the sensor beam).

 

[JonW]

Have you seen this dog door?

 

[Basildane]

I was looking to do the same thing with Arduino and RFID.
Before I even got started designing, my wife trained our Dobe to open the front door, and CLOSE IT when he came back in.

That was really cool, until he started letting himself out to chase the UPS man. Very uncool.
Now we have to keep all the doors deadbolted at all times.

Project came to a halt after that. After we build a fence, we may look into it again.

I'm just posting this for you to consider what your dog may get into without supervision?

 

[apostolakisl]

I was looking to do the same thing with Arduino and RFID.
Before I even got started designing, my wife trained our Dobe to open the front door, and CLOSE IT when he came back in.

That was really cool, until he started letting himself out to chase the UPS man. Very uncool.
Now we have to keep all the doors deadbolted at all times.

Project came to a halt after that. After we build a fence, we may look into it again.

I'm just posting this for you to consider what your dog may get into without supervision?

That is tremendous. I assume you have lever style door handles? Poor dog, he thought he had it so good and now you go and dead bolt the doors.

Also, is the dog using his nose or his paws? I'm thinking paws would make for some pretty destroyed doors in short order. Nose. . . I guess just a little snot.

 

[Basildane]

He is a huge Russian Doberman and they are lever handles. He opens doors with his nose, then closes them with his front paws.
We had bubble-wrap taped to the doors to help keep them from getting scratched up.

He still opens inside-doors in the house. At night he "patrols" and opens the doors to the children's bedrooms and checks on them.
I really have to get this on YouTube.

 

[apostolakisl]

He is a huge Russian Doberman and they are lever handles. He opens doors with his nose, then closes them with his front paws.
We had bubble-wrap taped to the doors to help keep them from getting scratched up.

He still opens inside-doors in the house. At night he "patrols" and opens the doors to the children's bedrooms and checks on them.
I really have to get this on YouTube.

That would be fun to watch. Might try to teach him to close with his nose also. Bubble wrap on the doors is so gauche. :huh:

 

[biz123]

RFID is the way to go. I did a project for coffee cup automation and this way the way to go.