Power Door Lock w/ Security

[Jim Doolittle]

Automatic closing of my garage door was one of my first home automation projects. It has kept us from leaving the garage door open at night from once or twice per year to zero.

I am now looking for power locks that I can control with my home automation system to make sure that doors are locked. I already have door sensors to make sure that door is not open. I just want to make sure that the doors are locked.

Any recommendations? Any older threads I can review? I was unable to locate anything with my first attempt at a search.

 

[Sandpiper]

This has been discussed here before. There is a previous thread. Several Cocooners are monitoring locks with a 3/8" bushbutton type of switch. I have done this at my house. I have an M1, and I use a button light to indicate when a door is unlocked, or a garage door is open. By pushing the button, the M1 announces which door is unlocked.

 

[Steve]

There are a few. Searching by Google is best. Here are some threads to check out...

http://www.cocoontech.com/index.php?showtopic=5248
http://www.cocoontech.com/index.php?showtopic=4290

 

[jimspobox]

Jim Doolittle,

What set up (switches or relays, etc.( did you use to close the garage doors if they were open when you armed the system. This is something I want to add to my automation too.

Thanks

 

[Jim Doolittle]

I am simply using an X10 PowerFlash to close the door. Since it is X10, I repeat trying to shut the door up to 5 times if a magentic reed switch does not confirm that door is closed. I rely on the door's own photoeye to ensure that the door can be closed. If beam is broken by car partially in garage, door will not close.

Again, since it is X10, I only allow closing of the door. So, a magetic reed switch is placed such that it will disable the X10 PowerFlash when door is closed so that door cannot be opened.

I have thought about changing to a method other than X10 and was considering using the Secu-16I itself but never got around to it. From what I understand, I would have needed additional relay control to protect the Secu16-I's own fragile relay.

If you are interested in more details of this application, read on...

My garage door works with an Ocelot/Secu16I and a bit of CMAX code. I spent some time over at ADI's forum. Guy Lavoie, who I see frequents this board, was a big help and I am not sure if it was him or another poster at the ADI forum that got me to use a resistor circuit for my garage door application.

I have a magnetic reed switch at door open position and one at door closed position. The closure of the switches changes the total resistance of the circuit such that I am able to determine open/closed/ajar using one Secu16I analog input. CMAX code translates the results (which could be a range of values due to fluctuation in actual resistance) to single state values that are reported to HomeSeer via a Ocelot plug-in.

BTW, there was extensive discussion regarding this and it may be possible to extend this up to 5 or more states but open/closed/ajar is fine for me.