Almost 100 years ago, the first electric motorized garage door opener was invented in 1926. The handy and simple device has not changed much in all that time, except for some great safety additions to prevent injury. But if our cars have been getting smarter for years, why not our garage door openers? The Chamberlain myQ is one of the leading garage door opener companies and has add-on devices to make an old garage door opener into a smart one.

Rosilynd Laskin sits at the wheel of her car as she uses a handheld remote control to raise the door ... [+] of her garage, location unspecified, 1973. (Photo by Hilaria McCarthy/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The myQ app requires the Smart Garage Control device from Chamberlain for between $20 and $30. Other manufacturers also make devices and apps, if you do not have a garage door opener that is compatible with Chamberlain or Liftmaster (or a few others that the company has relationships with). Head to this page to determine if your garage door opener is compatible with myQ. You can read more and download the app from here. 

The device is fast and easy to connect to your home WiFi network and a secondary sensor component attaches to your garage door to communicate if the door is open or closed. Total setup is about 15 minutes. Once you have the hardware connected, configuring the mobile app is rather straightforward and then you can use the myQ smart access app to easily open, close or check the status of your garage door. If you find that you drive away from your home and then ask yourself or a spouse, “did I close the garage door?” Now you can know instantly from the app. You can also:

I have not done it yet, but I have wondered about connecting it to the Amazon Echo so that Alexa can make it even one step easier to open and close my garage door. This tutorial explains how to do so using the If This, Then That “IFTTT” service that is a terrific web-based automation service for a whole range of tasks. Read Smart Home Focus: Does Chamberlain MyQ work with Alexa? This idea is, of course, how I started considering a smart garage door option at all. Voice control is such a terrific way to manage a home.

The app is well rated on both Android and iOS and works well. There are concerns I have read about due to the app and device runs on your WiFi network and thus presents some security risks, as in a hacker could get into your wifi and control the device. However, McAfee Labs did some research and testing that you can read in full here. Overall, they found that Chamberlain had done a solid job on the security side of things and here is their conclusion:

“We would like to finish by commenting that the likelihood of a real-world attack on this target is low, based on the complexity of the attack and installation footprint. We have discussed this with Chamberlain, who has validated the findings and agrees with this assessment. Chamberlain has made clear efforts to build a secure product and appears to have eliminated much of the low-hanging fruit common to IoT devices.” — McAfee Labs