[wpearse]

I wasn't looking forward to running cable for sensors (I need two reed switches per door, as the doors can stop half-open). The D1s are at the back of the garage, so maybe 8m of cable per switch and two doors = 30-ish metres of cable? (90 feet?)

Range finder seems like the best idea. I was thinking of mounting it on the door motor and pointing horizontally down the track at a reflector attached to the chain/handle.

I love the idea of putting a D1 in the car. Thanks for the link!

[luma]

You can get commercial Z-Wave tilt sensors for approx ~20USD a piece that will last a year or two on a single battery. With those you can mount them directly to the door (because wireless) but obviously you need a Z-Wave radio on your automation platform for that to work.

In either event, are you sure you need two sensors per door? The garage door can stop at any point, but (to my thinking) it's still only open or closed. If it's open by only a bit, open half way, mostly open, etc... it's all open in my system, meaning someone can get in or out if they want. So limit switches (or whatever) at the closed position can tell you if it's all the way closed or "not closed", which is suitable for automation purposes.

[thefifthsetpin]

My opener runs a tiny little garage door in parallel with the big door in front of my garage, and monitors the position of the little garage door with simple switches. This is all in the plastic housing that holds the motor. If yours is the same, you might be able to steal the same signal.

Sadly, the little garage door doesn't look like a dollhouse garage door; that'd be too cool. It looks like a wire on a track.

[Willamin]

Why not simply have your webserver remember what state the door _should_ be in? Maybe don't rely on that from a security standpoint (eg. GET /garage/status => "closed, everything is secure"), but I suspect it would work for most situations.