This instructable explains how I setup a Raspberry Pi to open my garage door using a smarthphone. While this has been done before, I thought I'd post my solution. This was my first hardware project and instructable ever and I'm sure I made some mistakes. So, when you find one let me know! Project Overview: What we will be doing is turning the Raspberry Pi into a small web server. When you access the webserver from your browser of choice, you will have a big button that triggers the garage door via a relay. We will wire a very basic circuit to the Pi's GPIO pins and upload a website that triggers the circuit. When the relay is triggered, it closes the circuit hooked up to the garage motor and opens the garage.Why would anyone want to do this? Well, my garage door opener was broke and this was cheaper than replacing the other system. As an added plus though, you could wire up additional sensors and be able to make sure your garage is closed remotely if your were so inclined.Shopping List: I consider myself pretty cheap, and I tried to keep the costs minimal.
All of the items are available on prime. 1.) Raspberry Pi - Model A - $32 2.) Wifi Adapter - $10 3.) PSU - $5 4.) 5v Relay - $6Total: $53.00 You will also need an sdcard >= 2GB and some wires, but I had extra of each.Step 1: Install and Optimize Rasbian (for our purposes)Show All Items This first step is to install an operating system to your rpi. I'm a bit of a debian fanboy, and had an extra 2GB sdcard, so I went with a shrunk version of Wheezy. On Ubuntu, I used gparted to format to fat32, and dd to write the img. After you install the OS, plug in a usb keyboard and hook up the raspberry pi to a monitor. Assuming you are using Wheezy, on the first boot rasp-config will automatically run. You should use this tool to stretch the parition and enable ssh (under the advanced menu on newer versions I believe). After I installed my img, I also removed the GUI to free up some space. (If you have a large SD, you can skip this.) To do this type these commands:$ sudo apt-get remove --purge x11-common$ sudo apt-get autoremove This removes all packages that depend on X11 which is pretty much all of the GUI.
will match suppliers for you! Subscribe to product alert and stay updated to what's new and popular on the market. By using a GSM gate opener module you can control with a free call the driveway, garage door, etc. free of charge. Previously stored phone numbers can call the SIM card in the module. Module will identify the caller. It is convenient and safe as only previously saved telephone numbers can open the gate. Instead of having the distance limit of a remote controller GSM technology lets you control your gate or garage from any location in the world. You only have to call the phone number of the module and your gate instantly opens. The GSM module output can be easily connected to the input of the gate controller and the relayed output will handle the emerging controlling tasks. Output can be controlled in mono- and also in bistable mode. User phone numbers can be easily managed remotely or when you are connected to the GSM module. Possibility to store 1000 telephone numbers will allow to handle access control of townhouses or even whole subdivisions.
It can be set which user can control which output. One GSM module can control more gates, garages so operation is not only cost efficient but also safe. You can track in the event log who and when opened the gate even if this demand arises months after the controlling. GSM module stores in its memory every important information related to the event which can be even easily exported. The module can store 16.000 events in its memory. Small size facilitates easy installation and integration to existing systems of the GSM module. It can be easily positioned into the gate controlling closure so it makes installation and device integration easier. We can send notification of power-cut and restore. Own power source of the module serves as an uninterruptible power source so we are informed of every event instantly. Notification can be sent to multiple previously stored phone number. For whom/where we recommend?This weekend I got upset with my garage door remote control.
I do not know the main reason, but the coverage range is getting worse day by day. I replace the battery which is another reason of becoming angry, but this did not solve my problem. I did not calm myself and decided to make something better as residential access control. I started to think about a gate access control and my requirements as well as the constraints. The device that I am using to open the garage door must be with me every time. Of course, it is my cellular. There are some solutions that you can install as phone apps and use Wi-Fi to control your garage door, but I want something better. The reason is the Wi-Fi signal is not very strong at my garage, and another requirement that I settled is the security gate system must work with any kind of phone, not only with the smartphones. This requirement forced me to use a GSM module that I have one somewhere around my workshop. I found it and saw that it had simcom SIM900R module on it. I googled it and found lots of informative solutions, but none of them exactly fit for me because of the third requirement.
This system must take action from only the authorized users. This part as usual is a must have but the challenging part is defining a user that will have access must be done via web interface. Wow, will it hurt me to implement? After a few minutes of research, I saw that the sim900R module has the ability to make TCP connection with its GPRS feature. So let me summarize you the requirements of the gsm gate opener system. If it also fits your needs, you may want to DIY or to have one of the boards that I have built. If you like my solution for residential access control specially for gate and garage doors, continue reading. I will tell you how to make it with every single detail including source code. You are approaching home, and you take your phone and call your garage security system by pressing a button (speed dial can be a solution). You hear the call ring once, then disconnected to acknowledge the call and to allow the system to get the number calling (Caller ID). This may make you feel bad, but with this feature, there will be no cost that will be billed.
Supposing you do not want to talk to the caller and you press the RED button on your phone, these systems work exactly the same. But this time, you are the rejected one. Now the system got the caller’s phone number, and it is time to take a look at the authorization. It will make a TCP connection to a server to discover if this phone number has the authority to open the garage door. If the server's answer is yes, the on board relay will be triggered, and this will open the door. If the system understands that this call is not coming from an authorized person, it will not take any action. Here is the process picture: GSM Module: The main part is of course the simcom Sim900R. This module will handle all the GSM related activities as well as TCP connection over GPRS. Microcontroller: I love Atmega328P very much because of the Arduino's popularity. There are lots of ready to use libraries and I am developing the firmware with Arduino IDE. This will be our micro controller which will communicate over a serial bus with the GSM module.
Relay: I only need one relay on board which will be triggered when an authorized call occurs. It is a simple relay with one transistor that drives it. Expansion pins: I put some pins on the board for future expansion. These pins are related to I2C bus. I have future plans about storing authorized phone numbers inside an I2C Eeprom. Link to Github board source files There are two software running on this system. One is the firmware that will run on our Atmega328P microcontroller. The other is the web interface app that will run on a server. As you can see from the schematics, Atmega328P have a serial connection with the Sim900 Module. In the main loop, the code waits for the "RING" indication. If it gets it, the code parses the caller id and hangs up. The system then tries to make a TCP connection to the server to check if the caller’s phone number is in our database. If so, the code sends a signal to the on-board relay. You can download the source code of GSM Gate Opener from our github repo
In order not to make things complicated, I decided to keep this part as simple as possible. What we have is a MySQL table which holds the phone numbers. And a simple PHP file response to our SIM900 TCP request. You can easily test your system with Digital Oceans. Just set up a one-click LAMP stack. Set your MySQL Table with running an SQL statement like this The request coming from the board will be in this format The index.php shown below will get the phone number (in this example it is 7072325888) and will try to fetch it from the database. If it finds the phone number, it will return True otherwise False Please find the simple web app source code in our github repo I do not want to go too deep into the code and technical details here. Please comment below about the problems you are facing or the details you like to talk about. I can update the required part, or I can write a Part 2 for GSM gate opener series. You will also get the support. MakerStorage product page will have the connection diagrams.