the.com/garage door opener
The first smart home device, decades before smart homes were cool enough to have a name.
means A radio-controlled motor that raises and lowers your garage door so you don't have to leave the car to do it by hand.
from Emerges from two converging threads: the garage itself, a word borrowed from French 'garer' (to shelter or dock), and the early-20th-century rise of radio remote control. Automatic door openers using radio signals appeared in the US by the 1930s, with wider adoption following in the postwar decades as suburban car culture boomed — the garage became a standard home feature, and not wanting to get out of a warm car to haul open a heavy door was motivation enough to wire up a motor and a clicker.
- rolling codes
- Changes signal every use so thieves cannot replay it
- invented
- 1926, originally hand cranked before radio control existed
- universal clicker
- Chamberlain and Genie dominate most of the market
- safety sensor
- 1993 law mandates auto reverse to avoid crushing things