Nearly all the features of a modern property have made the transition to the 21st century. The garage door isn’t being left behind, as 2018 has got lots of pleasant surprises for landlords and residents to give greater peace of mind and ultimately empower their home security.
Although most people don’t realise it, the garage door is one of the most valuable features of the home. “It makes an instant statement about the beauty and security standards of the homeowner,” says home security expert, Jamie from Neighbourhood Garage Door Services. “But it can also be a vulnerable entry point for burglars if it is outdated and the right security measures are not applied by the household.”
After all, garage doors house automobiles and some of the property owner’s most prized possessions. “With new and advanced technologies continuously being integrated into the latest models of garage doors, homeowners have less to worry about,” Jamie explains.
Take the Wi-Fi enabled, Nova universal garage door controller on exhibition at CES 2018, for example. It’s compatible with Amazon Alexa and can sync across all connected home accessories.
What is probably most striking about Nova is that it can be retrofitted directly onto an existing garage door controller, therefore skipping the need to rewire the entire home just to integrate it into the smart home system.
What the property owner simply needs to do is to pair the Smartphone app with the controller, which allows them to remotely open or close the garage door, including using a voice command with the Alexa Voice Services.
The technology also comes with an LED light fixture, and in the event of an emergency, can open the garage door for escape and ventilation. This is because Nova claims to be able to detect alarms for smoke and carbon monoxide anywhere in the property.
A similar exciting technology debuting in 2018 is the Ooma Home security system, which is fitted with a smart video camera with Artificial Intelligence (AI), for facial and audio recognition.
With its geofencing feature, Ooma Home can automatically enable and disable the security system, and homeowners can fix the radius to fit their unique needs. Like Nova, the technology also has a siren and smoke detector and is showcasing at CES 2018. Also, it is fitted with a VTech garage door sensor that alerts homeowners if they’ve mistakenly forgotten to close their garage door.
Another new addition to the suite of hi-tech home protection technology in the garage door industry is the Roost Smart Garage Door Sensor, which keeps residents abreast of the state of their garage doors, providing greater knowledge and home security awareness.
The Roost sensor device automatically notifies homeowners if they’ve properly secured their garage door at bedtime or after they drive away in the morning. Residents can also customise the timing to their specific needs.
“The garage door is important for both security and aesthetic reasons. But ensuring it is top quality isn’t enough, because the homeowner also needs to be sure their garage door opener can deliver effectively, securely, and conveniently,” says Mike, also from Neighbourhood Garage Services.
He says modern homeowners should be particularly smart with their choice of garage door opener.
“There are various garage door openers from various brands currently available on the market. Having so many options can make it difficult to determine which is best for the home. But this doesn’t necessarily have to be the case as long as the property owner knows what they’re looking for … ” Mike says.
He explains that once the desired features and capabilities of the ideal garage door opener are determined, it becomes a lot easier to pick the right one for the property. He recommends homeowners look out for these key features that can deliver optimal results when shopping for a new garage door opener.
- Rolling-code technology: Prior to this technology, a random remote control could open almost any garage door. With the rolling code security feature, a garage door opener will select a new and non-repeating access code from billions of options, each time the property owner accesses their opener with a remote control. The advantage of this is that it will keep people trying to break in (through the garage) guessing at the opener’s code and failing. It will also ensure that no nearby remotes aside from the homeowner’s can open the garage door.
- Reduced noise: The less noise a garage door makes, the better. To avoid the embarrassment of coming home late and having the rattle of the garage doors wake up the neighbours, property owners can opt for a direct driven garage door opener or a belt-driven one. They generate little to no noise when operational.
- Remote-control reliability: If the home is located in an area where everyone has a remote controlled garage door opener or other frequency emitting devices, the performance of the remote control opener might be negatively affected. To avoid getting stuck outside the property pushing a non-functional remote or having to open the garage door manually, it’s best to look out for a dual-frequency garage door opener. This sort of opener will automatically switch between frequencies and reduce the effects of interference of outside frequencies.
- Touchpad or keypad: This is important in order to continue to enjoy remote access to the garage door. And even if this feature doesn’t come pre-installed with an opener, the property owner can always have it installed.
- Backup battery: With this feature, if the power of the property home suddenly goes off for whatever reason, the opener will still be operational, because it will be powered by the battery backup. However, this feature isn’t very commonplace. It can typically be found on some high-end garage door opener models.
In the event one can’t find a door with a battery backup that’s within the preferred price range, the smart thing to do is to make sure the one that’s finally bought at least has a manual release mechanism in place.
