Review: MyQ Smart Garage Opener

I moved into a townhouse a few weeks ago with my little family of three, and the entire house is in love with the garage door.

My nearly 2-year-old, being a toddler, thinks the garage door button is the greatest invention of all time. My husband is delighted that he can open an app and check a camera feed to confirm he actually did close the garage when he left. I love being able to open and close the garage without needing to remember my keys or physical opener—especially since my toddler tries to steal said opener if I dare carry it.

This magic is all possible because our home came with a MyQ Smart Garage Door Opener ($289). Mine is one of the more expensive models due to the included camera, and it was installed by a pro. MyQ also makes cheaper, DIY-friendly options and accessories that can give any garage the convenience of a smart home, with the help of a little Wi-Fi.

Easy Up, Noisy Down

MyQ’s garage openers need a strong signal in the garage itself to work. Our router is nowhere near the garage—it's two full flights of stairs away and on the wrong side of the house—but we have an Eero mesh extension in the hallway leading to the garage. Once we had the Eero up and running, it took only a few minutes to connect the MyQ to the app and start using it remotely. Only one person can be the owner of the garage and then has to invite the rest of the household to control the garage as well.

It worked right away, and easily. Since my garage opener has a built-in camera, I see both a video feed that I can tap into whenever I want and a large, round icon below it to open or close the garage door. You can set the icon to respond to either a quick touch or a long press. A long press is handy if you think you'll be opening the app often to check video feeds, but otherwise the default quick press is fine. You'll also see a status of whether it's already open or closed, and how long it's been in that position. (As I write this, my garage has been closed for five hours. Neat!)

The garage responds as quickly to the app as it does to a regular button clicker, with one caveat: Choosing to close the garage with the app causes it to flash its lights and beep several times before the garage will begin to close, and will still beep and flash until closing is complete. It's for safety reasons, since the garage doesn't know whether anyone else is in the garage while you're closing it or whether you're nearby to make sure the garage path is clear of anyone walking in or out.

The only way around this, sadly, is to not use the app. You can install the MyQ Smart Garage Video Keypad ($99) outside of your garage to close it without getting any beeping and to get a similar experience to a video doorbell and smart lock but for your garage. I tested one and it works fine—the key codes are easy to set up and you can close your garage beep-free, plus you'll get alerts like a security camera for outside of your garage, but I had a mixed experience using the call button. You also have to drill it into your garage or home exterior (MyQ says it's too heavy to use adhesive strips), which my home's HOA sadly forbids me from doing. Still, it's a good price for a combination lock and exterior video feed for your garage, if you're allowed to install it.

Notify Me

The default owner of the MyQ (that is, whoever set it up first in your home) also gets an onslaught of notifications every time the garage is opened and closed, whether via app or with your standard garage door buttons. In comparison, when you're an added user, you won't get any notifications by default. Both parties can go into the app, select the gear icon on the garage door (or other MyQ product in question), and edit the notifications they're getting for the specific product.

I set up both my and my husband's phones to get notifications about our garage being open for more than 10 minutes, and another for myself if it was open for an hour. You can add a lot more notifications, and you can also set it up to work with Amazon Key to get deliveries right into your garage (and get notified about that too). I haven't been able to talk my husband into using it, but the included camera in my model makes me feel comfortable giving it a try.

Speaking of video, MyQ does have storage subscription plans for its video products (the brand also has video garage door openers, a video keypad, and a stand-alone camera). The first tier starts at $20 a year and goes up to $100 a year, and depending on which tier you pick you get additional features like face, person, and motion detection, detection zones, and either seven or 30 days of storage.

You'll get 30 days free when you first set it up, but I didn't find myself using any of the subscription features in my 30 days, since I just wanted the ability to control my garage door rather than have video footage I could look back on.

Variant City

There are a lot of options when it comes to MyQ’s garage offerings. You’ve got the true garage door openers, which I have, and can either be professionally installed through LiftMaster or purchased from Chamberlain and DIY’ed. There's also the smart garage controllers, rather than actual openers, which lets you add smart home control to an existing garage door opener and are much cheaper to purchase.

I can't tell you about the DIY experience with either the openers or controllers since I didn't DIY mine. I've linked to the option that looks just about identical to my professionally installed one, but the model you can buy is DIY-intended. If you want professional installation, you have to go through a local LiftMaster dealer. I've been really happy with my installed model, and the motor is so quiet my mom now wants one. (She has no idea about the smart features; she just likes the quiet.) I can't guarantee what local dealers will charge, but the $289 DIY model is a solid price for a garage door opener.

But if I was adding this onto an existing garage and didn't want to change out my whole opener? If I had the exterior freedom and the Wi-Fi range, I'd probably choose the Smart Garage Control ($25) and the Video Keypad ($99) to get the smarts, the video, and the beep-free closing if I walk out of my garage without my button. That's the fun thing about MyQ's product lineup: There's a perfect garage door combo for us all.