ciaranob
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- Houston, TX
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- CT4S 2022 Mini Cooper S 2024 Electric in 2025/6
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First up - My Homelink connection has worked fairly consistently (although at times intermittently) since first setup up in the car end Dec 2021 when the car was delivered. I have it so that it opens both my driveway gate and my overhead garage door simultaneously with one click. If I only needed to open one unit there would be ZERO issues here - but I need it to simultaneously open both units.
However, I'd say the OEM in-car Homelink transmitter manages on entry and exit to successfully ping gate+door maybe 75% of the time, meaning that the unit furthest from my initiation (the garage door) does not always receive a good signal. Now this may purely be a function of my particular setup as my driveway gate, albeit only 30 feet or so from my garage door, is a metal frame 7' tall with a solid wood covering, no gaps, and hence the signal needs to get around/penetrate the gate to reach the garage door unit usually doing so only 3 out of 4 times.
This 75% success rate is frustrating enough for me that I looked for an alternate, more reliable option that would be discreet and mounted close to the windshield transmission zone around the mirror assembly as yes, I have the noise/thermal insulated glass. It would further free up that Star button on my dash for something else!
My first thought was why not use my trusty DoorMate. For the cyclists out there this might be quite familiar as it is a universal remote that handles a bunch of major brand gate/garage door openers and is a slim unit that is designed to be a 'bar-end' plug so that when you pull up home from a ride a simple single click of the bar end button and you're in
More pertinently, the thing is rock solid, super strong signal, incredibly simple to setup to open both units simultaneously, and discreet/small enough it could work perfectly.
First thought was to mount it beside the Mode button on the wheel but again my glass def an issue so to the transmission area on the windscreen. The way the roof liner curves into the glass at the top of the windshield perfectly hides 95% of the unit - I simply used transparent Scotch double-sided mounting tape which provides more than sufficient of a bond to the glass - no way this will fall off in regular car use.
Most of all the DoorMate's signal strength is clearly miles better than the OEM Homelink unit and every test to date nails opening of both gate and door - I think I am now going to turn off the Homelink connection (no more annoying reminder pop-ups) and stick with this - so now to decide on what to assign to that button (already have the cameras on the wheel button) !
DoorMate: A cool piece of kit if you cycle and are too lazy to be reaching around for that gate opener That said, an equally nifty piece of kit if used on a Motorcycle too.
Designed to be fitted in the bar end of your bycycle's road handle bars - the only piece I'm using here is the unit itself i.e. the additional cover pieces in the box are used to embed in handle bar cover tape and irrelevant here.
This thing is finger thick with slightly wider plate on the head - MUCH smaller than conventional openers with no loss in signal strength and easily hidden:
Will take better pics later - funky rain day. But this is a view angled up from wheel i.e. when driving your sightline will see less than half what's even visible here, so essentially invisible. The white nipple on the end is the button in easy reach.
However, I'd say the OEM in-car Homelink transmitter manages on entry and exit to successfully ping gate+door maybe 75% of the time, meaning that the unit furthest from my initiation (the garage door) does not always receive a good signal. Now this may purely be a function of my particular setup as my driveway gate, albeit only 30 feet or so from my garage door, is a metal frame 7' tall with a solid wood covering, no gaps, and hence the signal needs to get around/penetrate the gate to reach the garage door unit usually doing so only 3 out of 4 times.
This 75% success rate is frustrating enough for me that I looked for an alternate, more reliable option that would be discreet and mounted close to the windshield transmission zone around the mirror assembly as yes, I have the noise/thermal insulated glass. It would further free up that Star button on my dash for something else!
My first thought was why not use my trusty DoorMate. For the cyclists out there this might be quite familiar as it is a universal remote that handles a bunch of major brand gate/garage door openers and is a slim unit that is designed to be a 'bar-end' plug so that when you pull up home from a ride a simple single click of the bar end button and you're in
More pertinently, the thing is rock solid, super strong signal, incredibly simple to setup to open both units simultaneously, and discreet/small enough it could work perfectly.First thought was to mount it beside the Mode button on the wheel but again my glass def an issue so to the transmission area on the windscreen. The way the roof liner curves into the glass at the top of the windshield perfectly hides 95% of the unit - I simply used transparent Scotch double-sided mounting tape which provides more than sufficient of a bond to the glass - no way this will fall off in regular car use.
Most of all the DoorMate's signal strength is clearly miles better than the OEM Homelink unit and every test to date nails opening of both gate and door - I think I am now going to turn off the Homelink connection (no more annoying reminder pop-ups
) and stick with this - so now to decide on what to assign to that button (already have the cameras on the wheel button) !DoorMate: A cool piece of kit if you cycle and are too lazy to be reaching around for that gate opener
That said, an equally nifty piece of kit if used on a Motorcycle too.
Designed to be fitted in the bar end of your bycycle's road handle bars - the only piece I'm using here is the unit itself i.e. the additional cover pieces in the box are used to embed in handle bar cover tape and irrelevant here.
This thing is finger thick with slightly wider plate on the head - MUCH smaller than conventional openers with no loss in signal strength and easily hidden:
Will take better pics later - funky rain day. But this is a view angled up from wheel i.e. when driving your sightline will see less than half what's even visible here, so essentially invisible. The white nipple on the end is the button in easy reach.
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