In my spare time from writing iPhone apps or working at Nordicom, I am doing some home automation stuff. My garage door is opened and closed by a motor, which is controlled by a radio-relay and a remote control. This setup is very old and the remote is big and cumbersome. I took a look inside the door opener and figured out the different parts fairly easily. My plan is to add an additional relay which is connected to an Arduino-board. This Arduino also has an RF-receiver which listens to an RF-transmitter inside the house. The RF-transmitter receives signal from my home server, and the signal may be triggered by basically anything. At first I’ll write an iPhone app that lets me get rid of the big cumbersome remote control, and later I might write some software for automatic closing of the door. For instance auto-close if nothing is moving inside or nearby, or is blocking the door.  

The garage-arduino will also have a signal from my postbox. Just a basic switch that triggers a signal when somebody opens it. It’s nice to know when mail arrives etc. I might also add a temperature sensor, and other movement sensors. This requires an additional transmitter/receiver, and might require some more planning. I should probably go for Xbee on both ends.

With this setup I’ll be able to open and close the garage door from anywhere in the world as long both me and my house are connected to the Internet.