Wouldn't you know it

[darsmith]

We built a new house last year in a nicer neighborhood, but being the geek that I am, I wired the house for security cams covering the exterior layout. Being very busy, I just got around to ordering the first cam last week from milk for the driveway. Delivery should be this week. Well, wouldn't you know it, my car was broken into Friday night (in the driveway). They took a few tools, but the scary thing is they opened the garage door with the opener and took it with them. I recently installed a Vera Edge that turns on all the outside lights and garage lights after dusk when it detects the garage door opening. I believe this scared them away because nothing was taken out of the garage and most of my tools were left in the car with the doors wide open. Only lost a couple of things that were right inside the back of the rear hatch. Could have been much worse. It's my work car with lots of expensive tools. They only took a few. Funny thing is they left 2 TI 84 calculators, but took all of the sunglasses and reading glasses out of the holders and discarded them in the driveway when they (most likely) found out that they were cheapo Walmart brand. They also took some old used parts in a box in the back (transformers, temp sensors, relays... I work in the HVAC controls field). They also took a set of old keys to our church that are unmarked. I changed the garage door codes and ordered another cam for the front porch in case they come back and try the keys on our front door.

 

[Git]

I am not familiar with the "Vera Edge" but I do have an older Z-wave type home automation system. I installed a controllable outlet in the garage ceiling where the door opener plugs into for this very reason. Outlet turns off at 11 PM and back on at 7 AM. Something to think about...

 

[darsmith]

Excellent idea. That way I can also automatically disable it while on vacation. Thanks.

 

[gwminor48]

I've had 2 videos of some teenager checking the door on my truck in my driveway to see if it was unlocked. I finally got into the habit of bringing my opener in the house with me, that's scary with someone having your opener. My garage door opener also has a button on the panel inside the garage to "lock" so openers won't operate the door from outside.

 

[Q™]

Get a Rottweiler.

 

[tangent]

I changed the garage door codes and ordered another cam

I think you've got this covered, but if they stole a remote you need to make the opener forget all transmitters and reprogram the ones you still have. For clarity if someone else reads this I wouldn't phrase it that way.

I am not familiar with the "Vera Edge" but I do have an older Z-wave type home automation system. I installed a controllable outlet in the garage ceiling where the door opener plugs into for this very reason. Outlet turns off at 11 PM and back on at 7 AM. Something to think about...

You can get fancier than that, add some logic tied to a motion sensor inside the garage or contact on the door to the house.

Other options: scrap the opener remotes all together and switch to a zwave keychain remote (keychain remotes from the opener company may also exist). You could get super fancy if you want to and do ALPR on your car as it pulls in or use geo-fencing on your phone to control if the garage door opener will activate (opener only active for 20 min after you pull up or enter the garage from the house). Depending on the age of your opener and your skills, you might be able to activate the opener's lock mode with keeps the wall button and numeric keypad active from a zwave device or similar.

Don't forget to zip tie the manual release and to lock the door between the garage and house (electronic combination autolock is nice).

Anybody know if the buttons on homelink type systems (opener remote built into car) are active all the time or only when the key is present?

I used to drive one of the most stolen cars in America, you could literally steal it with nothing but a shoelace and paperclip.

It's also possible to hook a wireless sensor to your car alarm to trigger other actions.