Continuing my Smart Home Product Review Week it’s time to talk about the smartest garage door opener I’ve ever seen and it’s by Chamberlain. When I moved into my new home one of the things that wasn’t included was the two garage door openers I’d need. I thought this was a weird item not to include, but when I saw the price that the builder wanted to install theirs, I decided to just go get my own. This was another one of those things that I hadn’t had to shop for in over 25 years. I hadn’t realized how far they’ve come. The first option I noticed was a battery backup and I definitely wanted that. There had been times where storms had taken out the power in my studio (10′ door) and that while I could get up on a ladder and use the manual release to raise the door, it just wasn’t worth it. My car remained trapped until the power came back on. Having a battery backup means that the garage door opener will still work even if the house loses power.
, the company I was using for all my wifi cameras. However, somewhere along the way Nest was acquired by Google. That acquisition put them at odds with Apple. I have nothing against Google or the Android platform, but all of my mobile devices are iOS based. Therefore I wanted to go with devices that work with Apple’s HomeKit platform.