That Time We Talked About Garage Door Openers

This is episode number 48 of The Homeowner's Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner's Show. We're glad that you could join us today. We have an episode for you today. We're gonna be talking about some garage door openers, but before we get to all that goody, That goodness. That goodness. You like that?

Well, I don't love it.

You don't love it?

It's funny.

Over the next 4 years, you'll come to love it.

Okay.

All right. If you haven't yet, despite Kevin's bad attitude, go ahead and hit the subscribe button there, uh, in whatever thing that you're using. Um, did you know that we can get our, uh, our podcast on Pandora now?

Really?

Yeah.

What do we have to do?

You just got to go over to Pandora and search for The Homeowner Show.

Oh no, I did not know that.

It's yeah, it's like a cool new thing that they're doing over there. So you can subscribe to us on Pandora.

Perfect.

Or really any podcast platform because they're all better than Kevin's.

Wow, there's a lot of options. Yes, we'll just put it that way.

Mm-hmm.

I like mine.

Yep, we know you do.

Yeah, I'm gonna stick with it. I'm stubborn that way, man. I'm just glad to be here.

I'm we're glad to have you back in the U.S. of A. Yeah, hey, in all its goodness.

Yeah, no, it was a good week off.

They didn't hold you up at the border or anything, right?

Not this time.

I thought they might think that you're like an illegal Scottish immigrant.

No, no, not this time.

Well, that's what I told them when I called them. Disappointing that they're not following up on those leads.

They just don't listen to you. That's what that really is.

You know, after you call them so many times.

We had a good time. Did a lot of good work, but it's good to be home. It's good to be in a place that is normal to you.

Did you bring me some coffee?

I brought some coffee.

You didn't bring me any coffee.

You didn't ask for coffee.

You don't even drink coffee. You didn't bring me coffee?

No.

Gosh.

I brought my wife coffee, so she might share her coffee.

Terrible co-host.

That's true. We all know that.

What else is going horrible in your world this week? I need to hear that something's going bad so that I can feel better about not having foreign coffee.

It's free. Fresh, organic.

I don't want to hear how good it is. I want to hear how bad your week was.

It's fantastic. Roasted over a fire. It's fantastic.

It's not the ones that the monkeys pick out of the— or that you pick out of the monkey poo, is it?

No.

No?

No.

You know about that?

No.

You've got to look that up.

I don't want to.

It's like the most expensive coffee in the world.

Really?

Yes.

And people drink it?

I forget where in the world it is. Somebody needs to go look this up. What happens is, there's these particular monkeys that are really good at picking out the best coffee cherries.

Okay.

They eat them.

Okay.

And then the farmers go behind the monkeys and get the cherries out of the poo.

That's disgusting. And then why don't they just—

And then roast it.

Follow the monkeys before they poo.

Well, because the monkeys eat it.

Yeah, why don't they get there before the monkeys do?

You're gonna take food out of a monkey's hand?

If it's that good, yes.

Well, I mean, that could be dangerous.

Okay.

Monkeys are violent.

I've never really interacted with them. So a booze, a booze about monkeys. Yeah, that's not true.

I know where you went to college.

All right, well, you just, uh, you made a big statement there. There's a lot of people that go there, so. Yeah, well, it just is what it is. Yeah, Marcel. There's Marcel. You remember Marcel?

Marcel the monkey?

Yeah.

Is that like from, from something?

Yeah, it's Ross's monkey.

Ross is my dude.

From Friends.

From— okay. That's so 1990s.

So 1990s. Dated us.

All right, come back to the show, Kevin. All right, I'm back. Stop making out-of-date cultural references.

I'll tell you this, um, I got a garbage disposal.

Hey!

Yeah.

Who paid for it?

I paid for it. Yep, went to the, went to the box store.

So if you don't know, what episode was that, like 46?

I don't know, probably before then. It's probably 44 even. Oh really? I don't know, it's been a while.

You have to go back and find it where Kevin— the, the trials of the home warranty began. It was awful. So go back and it's, it's somewhere in the 40s. Yeah, you really only have to listen to like 5 episodes.

Yeah, mid-40s.

Well worth your time.

Yeah, so really, really long story short, I have a home warranty. They didn't pay for me to get a new garbage disposal, and so I wound up having to pay for it. And, um, they're not that expensive, nor are they difficult to install. So I actually had someone just the other day, um, on Facebook say something like, hey, who should I call to get a new garbage disposal? And, and my, my comment was, don't call anybody.

Go, go buy one and put it in.

It's—

be a man, get your screwdriver set out and just do it.

It's so easy, y'all. I mean, It's literally unscrew things and screw things back in.

Right.

That's literally all that it is. In fact, most of you probably have a garbage disposal, um, already. And if you're, if you're putting a new one in, that may be a little bit different. But if you're just replacing one, you don't— I mean, the hardware that's in your sink, you don't even have to replace it. You just screw the thing back into the one that's already in there.

Yeah.

And You know, hook up the piping again, you're good to go. Yeah, it's very simple.

Once again showing that we here on The Homeowner Show are learning right alongside with you. That's right.

Yeah.

And, and bumbling fools learning stuff about our houses. Yeah.

And if you have any questions about putting a garbage disposal in, send us a message because they are not that difficult.

Yeah.

And we'll walk you through it gladly.

I think this may need like a mansplaining video.

Okay, I'll do it. I should have, I should have done one of those and put on, on YouTube or something.

We can do like a series of Kevin's Plains.

Yeah, well, if there weren't already like 95,000 out there, I probably would have, but it's so easy to do. Yeah. So anyway, put your own garbage disposal in. Don't call the plumber. Don't call your home warranty for sure. That's a poor choice.

Let's not say not to call the plumber. There's things you need to call the plumber for.

Not for installing a garbage disposal. They're super easy to do. It is not just a manly job. Any woman could do it. Probably your 9-year-old could do it.

Yeah.

So anyway, yep. So that's going on. Other than that, I mean, I really don't have that many bad things going on right now. I've been gone too much for bad things to happen. I will say this, and this is going to be a saga that we can probably talk about over the next, I don't know, however many months, but I have a new dead tree.

Oh.

And I say new dead tree because—

It's like an oxymoron.

I know, it wasn't dead at the beginning of the season.

I guess it's better than an old dead tree.

Well, I don't know. This is a big dead tree. I don't know what happened. I mean, it lost all its leaves and, uh, it grew new leaves and now they're all dead and I have no idea why. So, um, I do know a tree guy, so I'm probably gonna call him up and see what's up, but I'm not looking forward to having to chop that booger down. No, I will— I won't do it. I mean, and, and it's in the backyard, so that won't be much fun to pay someone to take down.

Well, the good news is, is out of frustration, you can literally burn it in frustration.

Well, I could. Yeah, it's a bad idea.

Piece by piece.

Well, that's true.

I'm not saying like all at once.

I do have a fireplace, but then I gotta store all the wood.

So, all right, at least you did something good for me, tree.

Yeah, I guess.

No.

All right, man, let's talk about garage door openers.

Let's do it.

So, um, we, uh, we're, we're excited because, uh—

Do you have a garage door opener?

I do. Yeah, it's because I have a garage door.

Yeah, I don't.

Oh, you don't?

No.

Well, you, you too have garage doors.

I have garage doors. I don't have any garage door openers, which, which was why this was, you know, a little intriguing to me. I might be interested, might be in the market.

Yeah, so, you know, really the only thing you have to have to get a garage door opener is some power. Right, you get power run to where you want it. And they're not that difficult to have put in. And you can put them in yourself, or you can have someone professionally install them. I mean, honestly, I probably wouldn't go the DIY route, I'd probably have someone else do it for me. Mainly because I've never done it before.

Right.

And I know there's, there's all this stuff about being square and being in line and all that kind of stuff. I would probably just let someone else do it.

Um, but is that true with, with all the different drives and, and things like that? Because I would imagine there's a big difference between like the— and we're gonna probably get into this later, but like the chains and the belts and the—

You know, I don't know. I, I would think that they're all going to be pretty similar as far as installation goes, and all of the drives are probably going to have more to do with the way it functions more than the way it's installed.

Okay.

Um, I mean, either, either way, it's got to be— there's got to be a track that you have to lift and lower the, uh, the garage door on. And so, um, I mean, there's just kind of a lot that goes to that. Um, I will say though, I mean, if you've already got a garage door, um, that, that's half the battle. I mean, yeah, if you don't have a garage door and you're having to put one in, that's completely different. But, um, I, I guess the thing we should probably start with is just talking about like different, um, types of garage door openers and what you actually need to be thinking about whenever it comes to having a garage

door opener.

Right.

Uh, because as you can imagine, there's different sizes based on different garage doors. So for example, um, growing up, my, my parents had 2 garage doors, and then, you know, so they— it operated independently from one another. And so they don't need to be as hefty of a garage door opener as the one that we have at my house currently, which is a double garage door.

So your parents had 2 single bays?

Exactly.

Okay.

And, and I've got a double bay. Um, and I would assume, um, on top of that, that, you know, some people have RV garage doors, right, or, or something Larger than standard, right?

Well, and it's probably good to note that like the kind of door that you have will dictate the kind of opener. Sure. And so like even if like what you're talking about, like if you have like an RV garage, sometimes those are gonna have like a roll-up door instead of like a roll-back. Sure. And those are gonna have like spring-loaded or chain-driven, uh, side-operated doors, uh, that I don't know if they make an— I'm sure they put They have a motor you can put on the side of those, but those are mostly manual.

Yeah.

Um, but, but, you know, then you have like the slide up and the fold up and all kinds of different stuff.

Yes.

Um, and I've even seen some at houses, uh, that don't go up.

Yeah, they just kind of fold up.

No, they actually, they open from the middle like a regular door. And then, but they're, they have, um, what do you call it, like pistons.

Yeah.

Or— okay, I don't know which— is that the right word? That open and close those doors. Interesting.

Sort of like they're on a hinge almost.

Yeah, they are on a hinge and they, they open almost like an entry gate. Okay. Like, like a— yeah, like going on to a big piece of property, there's an automatic entry gate.

Okay.

So they do have those. Yeah, they're available. Um, very expensive.

Right. And, and, you know, different, different garage doors are made out of different materials.

Yes.

So if you've got an aluminum garage door, those are going to be relatively light, right? Um, and some people have wooden garage doors. Those are going to be quite a bit more expensive. Um, sorry, more heavy. Um, and more expensive.

And more expensive. Yeah.

And so you need to think about, uh, a couple of things.

They have glass ones as well.

Yeah.

That I would imagine are probably not as heavy as the wooden ones, but Still pretty heavy. Still pretty heavy.

And so you got to think about the material you're lifting and, um, what size that material is. Is it single bay, double bay, RV? What, what size are you lifting? So there are basically 3 different types of, um, garage door openers as far as how much power they produce. The most common ones are either 1/3 horsepower half horsepower or 3/4 horsepower. And all of a sudden I'm having a flashback to garbage disposals. I've got a half horsepower garbage disposal. Um, and, and really, um, most single bay, uh, you know, one-car garage door openers, they're gonna only need a 1/3, uh, horsepower most of the time.

Because most of them are aluminum.

Most of them are aluminum. the cheap, inexpensive materials, and they, they're just not that heavy. Right.

Um, so the, the, the easy equation here is heavy door means more horsepower.

Exactly. And, and so, you know, if, if you're doing a, if you're doing a double bay, um, you know, 2-car garage door, you're probably going to need at least a half horsepower and very likely a 3/4 horsepower. So just kind of knowing, um, how, how heavy your door is is going to make a difference whenever you're going to look for a garage door opener.

So, and I would say this, I mean, one the things that I think happens is you, you kind of get in the mindset of like, well, what's the, what's the minimum that I need? You know, and, and that's, that's fine. But, you know, over time, that bigger horsepower motor is going to last longer, even if you don't need as much, you know, it's just because it's going to be easier for it to operate every time it goes up and down. It's just going to last longer.

Yeah. There's less stress on it. So there is no, there, there's no downside to going with a half horsepower If you only need a 1/3 horsepower.

It's not like it's gonna go faster.

No. And, and honestly, the amount of money you're gonna spend on one versus the other, it could be a difference of $10. But, you know, if it lasts twice as long, might be worth it.

You know, $10 could, you know, in theory buy you 2 or 3 years.

Sure, absolutely. Um, so definitely, you know, when you're, when you're just on Google one night going, I need a new garage door opener, mine's either broke or it's too loud or something.

Yeah.

Um, you need to know a little bit of information before you just type in garage door opener and see everything that Amazon spits back at you.

Yeah, and let me say this before we move forward. If you already have a garage door opener, hang in there with us because we've got something for you as well. And because you might be listening, I've already got a garage door opener, I don't need to listen to these guys. Well, no, we've got something that you might actually be interested too that's going to come up later on.

Yeah, an add-on.

So, so hang in there.

Yeah, so the next thing you need to think about is a drive system. So all of these are going to have one of really 3 different drive systems. Probably the most common one is just a chain drive.

Right.

And so it's like a bike chain. Exactly. And so as you can imagine, it's strong, it lasts, it's good periodic maintenance, you know, they can last a long time. But the problem with them is they're loud. You imagine a chain just, you know, going through a motor. That's the sound you're gonna hear on top of the sound of the motor. So you got 2 competing sounds there.

2 mechanical things going on there.

Just— yeah. Absolutely. And, you know, sometimes, like for us, our master bedroom is right next to our garage door. Our son's room is also next to the garage door. So if you open that garage door and it's loud— ours is loud.

Yeah.

Um, there's a good possibility you might wake someone up, you know. So that may be something you want to think about. If that's something you want to think about, you might want to consider going to a belt drive.

Yeah.

So a belt drive is going to be, um, more of a rubber belt system, and it's going to be kind of a, um, it's probably going to have a steel enforcement around it, so it's still going to be very strong, very durable, but it's going to be a lot quieter Um, than the chain going through that motor. Um, the downside is that they're more expensive. Mm-hmm. And so you're, you're paying for a different type of material that costs more to, uh, to produce. Yeah, basically.

I mean, a good way to think about it, like most industrial fans are driven by belts and it's because they're a lot quieter than a mechanical fan that just gets, you know, cuz fans are, I mean, industrial fans are gonna be loud anyway.

Yep.

Like one of the, like the, uh, Uh, like those big, um, what are they called? The, the big A fans.

Yes.

That they have now. I think those are actually belt driven.

Yeah. And a lot of them, you can actually see the belt.

Yes.

They're exposed.

Um, and it's just, it's, it's an efficient use of energy. Sure. It's a quiet use of energy. Um, and it works. Yeah. And like, you know, if a chain breaks, good luck.

Yeah.

If a belt breaks, you just go buy a new belt.

Right. Yeah, it's, it's different.

I mean, you can go buy a new chain, but there's just a pain to put on.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, the, the last option, um, they are, they are less common, is called a screw drive. Uh, it's, imagine kind of a, a threaded rod that, um, it kind of moves up and down. Um, they're typically less noisy than chain drives, but they're not as quiet as belt drives. Uh, the, the upside is they've got less parts.

Okay.

So, um, you know, there's less things to break. They still require maintenance. They gotta be lubricated like other things do. Um, the other thing is they're not very ideal for heavier, um, older garage doors. Um, there's just too much strain there. It can really wear down the screw heads pretty quickly. So those are kind of the, the The 3 different options.

What's, what's the benefit of the screw head one?

Um, you know, I think, I think part of it is that they're— they can be less expensive because there are less parts.

Okay. Um, but they seem like that might be able to produce more torque or something like that.

Yeah, you know, the research that I've done on this doesn't, doesn't really come up with, with a lot of information. They're, they're definitely the less common of the 3. And so, um, just an option that's out there. Just an option that's out there. Okay. Um, so most of 'em are gonna, um, move about the same rate of speed. Doesn't necessarily matter if you go, you know, belt, chain, screw, doesn't really matter. Um, and, and that rate of speed actually is about 7 inches per second. So it's not that fast. Um, you can get 'em that go faster than that, but you're gonna pay more. So, uh, if you want, I mean, if, if speed is of the essence whenever it comes to,

yeah. you're closing your garage door, there are options out there.

I wonder if they have like a variable speed option, because like I think most people are more interested in going fast up and slow down.

Oh.

Because you know, you want to, you want to get in your garage because you're in a hurry, but you also don't want it to squish your kid when it's coming back down.

That's true. Yeah, well, and now you know, most garage door openers come with a sensor that goes down, you know, around where your ankles are, right? And so if anything breaks that sensor, the garage door isn't gonna, isn't gonna open or close. Um, but yeah, I understand what you mean. So really, I mean, when it comes to garage door openers, they're fairly simple. I mean, there's not a lot of ins and outs about them. Um, but backwards and forwards. Yeah, that's it. But over the years, especially the last 5 years or so, um, a lot of things have changed. So, so talk about that for a minute.

Yeah, so what we've, what we've got basically is, you know, with everything else getting smart. Now, we're starting to get these garage door openers that are Wi-Fi-enabled and smart device-enabled. I think some big innovations that people had is, they had a keypad on the outside of the garage. If you didn't have your clicker, you could punch in your code and get the garage door to open that way. You've got clickers that have multiple options to them, where they can open more than one door. And then, you've got the controllers on the inside. A lot of those have moved to a digital platform, where it's a touchscreen that you can use to open the door and select which door you want to open? Do you also want to turn the lights on? They're basically trying to

make this the hub for the garage.

Right.

But obviously, the big thing that's going on is the Wi-Fi and the internet capabilities that these things are having. It's not to say that these garage doors are doing anything to transmit data over the internet. It's really so that you don't have to have a clicker in your car.

Right.

You can have an app on your phone. One of the things that a lot of these guys are advertising is that you can open your garage door from anywhere in the world, which doesn't sound like a great idea until you need somebody to have access to your home when you're in Budapest. I don't know. You need to open that door so that they can get in and borrow your rake or something. They want you to have that ability.

Yeah.

Something we'll get into, I think, in a little bit is a new program that Amazon's doing called Key by Amazon, which is an option that they're putting on these, which requires some additional equipment, but we'll, we'll get into all that. Um, so yeah, that, that's, that's a real basic rundown of, of some things. So if, if it's going to be a smart one, most of them are going to require them to have their own app, and that's the thing that's going to bridge the gap between the internet and the, uh, and the garage door opener.

Yeah, and, and so there, there's a couple of different ways to go about that. One of the things, if you go and, and do a search for you know, best garage door openers, some of them are going to be just typical run-of-the-mill garage door openers, right? Some of them are going to be Wi-Fi enabled, right? And those are the ones that are going to have, you know, the, the app that you need, those sorts of things. However, most of those are still going to come with your regular clickers.

Yes.

And those sorts of things. Well, one thing that is interesting, I, I've got 2 vehicles. One of them's older than the other one. My newer vehicle is enabled with an option to be able to open the garage door without a clicker. It's got a clicker inside the vehicle.

Mm-hmm.

But, um, my brother just bought a new vehicle and his doesn't have that. So in order for him to open his garage door without having a clicker in his vehicle all the time He's gone with a Wi-Fi option that's different.

Okay. So I know Cadillac now has the option, and this may be across the board with, you know, you know, better models in GM that they're doing. But like, I know specifically with Cadillac, they have an app that you can put in the car that allows you to integrate with Wi-Fi-enabled garage door openers. And so they are, they are doing that. And it's not because I know what you're talking about. Like, one of our cars has it. It has like, you know, multiple buttons up on the ceiling.

Right.

And you can, you know, connect to a garage door opener. And this is a little bit different. This is actually an app.

Yes.

That's in the touchscreen of the vehicle.

Yes.

So pretty, pretty cool. But yeah, one of the things that I think is pretty neat is how you can connect this with other things. So I think we've talked about a lot before the If This Then That app. So again, you can, you can sort of create that geofence, right, uh, you know, to be very small so that when you pull in the driveway, you know, you have that connected to your mobile device. So the mobile device talks to, you know, IFTTT, and then that communicates back to the app that opens the garage door that says, hey, he's, you know, he's within 300 feet, go ahead and open that garage door.

Right.

And it's just ready for you to come on home.

Yeah.

Um, you know, but one of the other things is like, let's be honest, like here in Texas, very few people actually use the garage to put their car in the garage. Yeah, I mean, so like, you know, for some people that may not be as useful. Um, but it's a good idea to store your car in the garage.

It's a great idea. There's a lot of reasons that putting it in the garage is a good idea. But, you know, so, so again, you— one of the options is to buy a garage door opener that has Wi-Fi capabilities. To be honest, what's interesting is we talk about smart devices quite a bit on this show, right? And a lot of times you're going to pay a significant premium for that.

Yes.

So for example, you know, if you, if you want a just a regular outlet for your home, those are like 50 cents. Yeah, they're cheap. They're cheap. But if you want to get one that works with Philips Hue or something like that, I mean, that might cost you $25. Yeah. And so there's a— there's— that's a significant difference in price. Um, what's interesting about these, the, the garage door openers, is one of the more expensive ones that we found, uh, which is the, the brand is Chamberlain.

Yeah.

To go from one of their top-rated non-Wi-Fi models to their top-rated Wi-Fi model It's only about $50 to $75. Yeah. Um, and so in, in the grand scheme of things—

I'm looking at it right now, it's actually $40. Okay.

Yeah, yeah. So it's not bad at all. Um, and then on top of that, if you have a garage door opener currently, uh, it doesn't matter what kind of drive system it's got, it doesn't matter how many horsepower it has, There is an option for you to be able to add a Wi-Fi component to that. Right.

It's just a little module that you install on the existing one.

Right.

And it, from everything I've read about it, it doesn't have to be a Chamberlain model in order for this module to work with your existing garage door opener.

Right.

So, but real quick, I want to go, I want to go back to what you were talking about because you were saying like, you know, just it's, it's very minimal to go from like, you know, the mid-range to the top of the line. Which is true, it's just $40. One of the big upgrades that you get with that is actually a battery backup for that system. I think that's actually a huge upgrade.

It's massive! Talk about why that is.

Just speaking from our perspective, here down in the Houston area, we're in Hurricane Alley. If the power goes out and you need to get into your property, And you're in a storm or rain or something like that. That's actually something that's not uncommon. People don't realize how big the thunder and lightning storms are here in Texas. It's not just something that we brag about, that everything's bigger in Texas. The thunder and lightning storms are actually bigger. We wish they weren't! But it does actually knock the power out pretty regularly. It's not unexpected for someone to have their power go out 5 or 6 times in a year. And so to have that ability to like, even though the power is out,

I've got a battery backup on my garage door opener so that I can get in out of the storm without having to like, you know, bungle with this goofy umbrella and all, or get out and open the garage door manually, or have to get out and go in the house wet and then come back through the garage to open the garage and all that kind of stuff. This, this is going to allow you to have access to that regardless of whether or not the house has power, which is huge. It's just a safety thing.

It really is. And most every garage door opener that you buy is going to have a quick release to be able to manually open and close your garage door. A quick release, however, does not mean an easy release. Okay, I mean, this is not something you do regularly.

Yeah.

And so walking in and being able to just quickly pull that lever and all of a sudden know exactly what it's done, and then you got to go over there and lift the garage door. Like, you, you may think that's a really simple process, and, and it should be, right? They make it to where it should be, you know, just a couple of seconds here or there. But man, you could monkey with that thing for a while.

And let me tell you something, it's twice as easy to get that thing undone as it is to put it back.

Oh, there's no doubt. Putting it back is like— it's a quick release.

It's like opening Pandora's box, man.

Not a quick connect. Yeah, it's tough.

I see people do it. I'm like, no, don't do it, don't do it. You'll never get It'll never be the same. That's right.

So, so really having this battery backup for me is— it's not just ease, it's significant time saver, right?

For sure.

Yeah.

So really cool option. One of the other options, uh, and I just want to spend a minute on this one because I thought it was neat, is they sell a package where you can actually get a laser park locator So it's, it's actually a laser beam.

A laser.

Laser that you install so that the late— when you come in, it turns the laser on and it's all connected via the Wi-Fi. So it turns the laser on and points down on the ground. And so like when your car is lined up with a spot that you've marked inside your vehicle, you know that your car's in just the right spot.

It is super cool.

Plus you get to have lasers in your garage.

Yeah, laser beam.

Yeah. Your kids will just think you're cool.

Just put it on their forehead. As soon as the laser beam hits their forehead, you know you're in the right spot.

Yeah. So, but anyway, these modules are— I mean, there's— the price really varies on them. The one that we found that, I mean, is from one of the best garage door openers, which is Chamberlain, is called the myQ Smart Garage Door Opener. And it's simply a module that you install on your existing garage door opener. And it costs $42.99.

That's cheap.

Yeah.

In order to have connectivity.

Yeah.

To be able to open it and close it anywhere. And honestly, I mean, think about this. How many people lose their clickers? I mean, yeah, people lose them because, you know, whether they're, you know, they accidentally take them inside or something, leave them somewhere, and then their dog chews them up or whatever. Rather than having to go like buy a new clicker, man, how easy would it be to just spend $42 and never lose it again?

And let me also say this. Because there has never been a garage with a garage door opener on it that had a keypad on the outside that I walked away from it going, you know what? I had a really great experience with that keypad. It's always, it's always like I'm freaking fighting Apollo Creed to get that door to open. 'Cause it's like, you gotta mash the button.

Yeah. And do I push pound or do I not push pound? It's different every time.

It's the worst. I hate those keypads. I don't know why they don't come up with a better keypad.

Yeah. Why are the buttons so hard to push?

I don't know. And like the other thing is like softest rubber ever. Again, I've never seen one that was like, man, that's a really pretty keypad. Or like, this is such an aesthetic. This really adds value to them. Like, I hate them.

I don't like them at all.

I get, I get the purpose of them. But if you have this, unnecessary.

Eliminates a need. And I guarantee that this is as inexpensive as a keypad and a whole lot easier to install.

Yeah. So somebody's gonna be writing me, my keypad's great.

Yeah, I'm sure it is. That being said, I mean, whenever you add in IFTTT to this, like, um, you know, for instance, I've mentioned this before, if for some reason it's 11 o'clock and I forget to lock my front door, yeah, the lock closes automatically, right? Because I've set it up to where if it is 11 o'clock and it's not been closed, then it needs to be closed, right? Um, you can do the same thing with with, with this, you know, if, if it becomes a certain time of day and, you know, my garage door hasn't closed, then close it. Um, you know, you may be in a situation where you want your vehicle to,

uh, to start in the morning. In fact, now you can schedule— um, certain vehicles have the option to schedule your vehicle to start at a certain time of day. You know, you have to leave your house at, you know, 7:03.

Yeah.

In order to beat traffic. Um, you can have your, your car start at, you know, 6:53, but you may not want the fumes in there.

Yeah.

So if you've got your car scheduled to, you know, to come on, you can schedule your garage door to, to open so you don't have the fumes in there whenever you walk in there.

So you don't kill yourself.

That's exactly right. Um, you know, if you have somewhere to be, it's better to be alive.

Yeah.

So, uh, you know, I— there's options that you open yourself up to if you are living a smart lifestyle Um, then you probably look at this and go, man, $42, that's, that's inexpensive. Yeah, so check it out. There are others. Um, we found another brand, uh, called Nexx. It's N-E-X-X. Um, a little bit more expensive, uh, but, but check into some of those if you're interested.

It was, it was, it was there. I think it was one of the first ones that popped up as far as like ones that people were buying. Yeah, um, number one rated Yeah, number one rated, uh, but I'd never heard of it. And Chamberlain I have heard of, but that's not to say that it's a bad one. Sure. Um, I think it's also worth mentioning that all of these— so like, you can, you can buy the module for the Chamberlain, or you— there's other— there's 2 other models that you can buy that are both Wi-Fi enabled.

Yeah.

All of them integrate with, uh, HomeKit, Google Home, and Alexa.

And SmartThings.

And SmartThings.

Yeah.

I don't even know what that is.

It's just a Another application.

Who's doing that?

I don't even know.

So was it worth mentioning?

Yeah, yeah, someone has it.

Do we want to know them?

Well, someone knows them.

I don't want to know. Y'all can be friends.

Yeah, other platforms. We'll just list them as other.

That's right. So, and, and so in that, in that same vein, one of the other things that this particular module— and I don't know about the next one, I don't remember if this one offers it— but this is now part of the Amazon or the, the Key by Amazon program.

Yeah.

And if you're unfamiliar with that, what it is is initially, and I think we talked about this on our home door lock episode.

Yeah.

I forget what number that was.

Yeah, we did.

You can find it.

What is it?

I don't know. Schlage. Schlage.

Schlage.

However you want to say it. Yeah. So what it was is where people were having issues with people stealing their packages. And so in order to try and help solve this problem for people, Amazon created the Key by Amazon program where you, you know, with your Schlage lock, you could also buy an Amazon Cloud Cam. Which would allow the delivery driver to have access to your house to put the package in the front door. You'd have the camera there so that you know that they didn't do anything else.

Right.

Dropped the package off and then the door got locked. Now, they're offering this with the garage door opener.

Nice.

Which I actually think is a much better option.

Yeah, because then you're not getting into people's home.

Right, especially if you have a detached garage.

Right.

Which, even though most people's detached garages, they probably have more stuff in there than they do in the house. if you just don't want people in your home, you can give them access to the garage, and that will, you know, Amazon will open and close the garage for the delivery driver. But you do have to purchase the Cloud Cam and, and have it set up in order for them to do this. And that, that does make it sick. So for instance, and I'm, I'm doing this by memory unless you have the numbers over there, Kev, uh, the, the Chamberlain module is only $42.99, right?

Right.

If you add the Cloud Cam, I think it it gets it up to like $162 or something like that.

Yeah, something like that.

It's a pretty expensive camera.

Yeah.

Um, to have in your home.

The camera, if you just buy the camera, you're, you're looking at $120.

Okay, so yeah, there you go.

Yeah.

So it's an expensive camera, um, for all of the invasion that Amazon's providing you there. But you know, that's if it's a genuine concern. And like, if you've had packages stolen time and time again, You know, Amazon's real good about replacing that stuff for you.

But at what timeline? Right.

And so like, it's just frustrating. And so in order to curtail that kind of behavior, this could be an option for you.

Yeah. Um, yeah, I mean, I, you know, more and more, Craig, people are buying things online. Yes, more and more. Like, we, we had like 5 things delivered today.

It's not slowing down, that's for sure.

No, it's not. And, and now with with more things, you know, like Toys R Us out of business, you know what I mean? It's like more and more things are leaving the box store options, and so we're literally having to buy things online. So yeah, not only that, you're getting other things delivered to your house, and some, you know, when it, when it comes to those, having more cameras around is not a bad thing.

Sure.

So definitely not a bad option if you're, if you're the type of person that gets a lot of things delivered to your house and you do not work at your house or you're not at your house a lot, um, and you know, it's not a bad option to have a little drop-off spot right there inside your garage door and let them open it and close it themselves.

Yeah, I mean, the only, the only downside here is if you've spent a bunch of money on like an Arlo like we reviewed a while back, you know, that doesn't count, right? They won't let you use those cameras because they don't want access to those cameras. They want access to only their camera.

Yeah, but it's easy to add on to that.

Oh yeah, absolutely, it's easy to add on. But like, you, you know, you've already invested. Yeah, you've spent like $500 on this Arlo or whatever it costs now, and you know, you're like, man, I just put up this big camera system, I can't, you know, I got to spend another $120, right? So, but yeah, you do.

Yep.

If that's the option you want, if that's what you want to go with.

But it's an option, but we're just gonna give you the options.

Yeah, I mean, like, but $42.99 It's not bad. Yeah, I mean, I don't even have a garage door opener. I kind of want it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're, they're very handy, especially if you, if you park inside your garage, they're very handy.

Yeah.

I mean, they're way more important than if you don't actually park inside your garage.

Well, I mean, or if you're somebody like me, I don't park my, my cars in my garage. However, I have utility vehicles that I do park in my garage.

Sure.

And, and that makes sense more for me because I typically have my phone with me wherever I go.

Yeah, so absolutely.

I could open the garage that way.

Be easy. Well, dude, what else? What have we, what have we forgotten here?

I don't think we forgot. I think we've absolutely covered it completely.

Perfect.

Yeah, another perfect episode, man.

I'm glad that we hit it so far.

48 for 48.

That's exactly right. Never missed a beat. Never missed a beat.

So, but we do want to, we do want to, uh, reach out to you guys and, and offer you guys some goodies.

Yeah.

Uh, so what we're gonna do over the next, uh, couple of weeks is we're gonna, we're gonna do a little, little contest.

All right.

Um, is what we— what would be the biggest help to Kevin and I with the show right now is, is reviews on, uh, on whatever platform that you're listening to. Just reviews for the show. Let us know, you know, what you think about the show. Let us know Um, you know, what you, what you've enjoyed. Um, and we're gonna, we're gonna pick, you know, a couple of our favorite reviews. And, uh, we've got some, some Homeowner Show t-shirts we want to send you guys as a, as a thank you.

They're awesome shirts.

Oh man, they're super comfy.

Yes, they are.

Like, my, my wife stole mine.

That's funny.

So it's, I mean, it's not being used as a t-shirt. I think it's like a nightgown now.

But of course, um, mine's still used by me.

By you. Yeah, because You're the man of your castle. I'm just the jester.

You heard it here.

But yeah, no, we would love to hear from you guys. We want to hear your feedback. We want to— we want to hear what you think about the show. And even if it's not a good review, if we like it, we're gonna— we'll send you a t-shirt.

Sure.

But just, just let us know what's going on. Also, because we're coming up on 1 year, man, 1 year, big milestone for The Homeowner Show.

Yes, it is.

So over the, over the next 4 weeks, as we close in on that 52nd episode, uh, we're going to be sharing with you guys, uh, some of our favorite, uh, things that we've learned from the guests that we've had on The Homeowner Show. And what we'd like to hear from you guys is, uh, and you can, you can send this to us on Facebook, you can send it to us on email and Instagram, you know, however you can get ahold of us, get ahold of us. But we want to hear from you. What is, what is one big thing that you've learned this year? Or what's, what's a, what's an episode that you learned the most from? Uh, we'd

really just like to hear from you. You know, maybe you had a favorite guest. Just send us that information, you know, and maybe we'll have that person back on. I think just about everybody we've had is like, man, can I come back?

Yeah.

Um, and we're excited to bring them back. And, uh, so, so send us a message, info@homownershow.com. You can reach us on Facebook, just search for The Homeowners Show. Same thing on Instagram, You can try us on Twitter. If you send us a message, we will read it.

Uh, yeah.

We just don't know how Twitter works. We're not—

What are we supposed to do with it?

We're not sophisticated enough. We're not CNN over here.

I've got more characters in my life than the amount that they allow me.

But if you send us a message over there, we will be able to see it.

Yes.

Um, so send us a message, whatever easy— whatever the easiest way is, so you can tell us about your favorite, uh, favorite episode, favorite thing that you learned. But also send us some reviews so we can send you some free t-shirts.

We will send you free t-shirts.

Free t-shirts.

They're fantastic.

There may even be like some consolation stickers for like runners-up.

Those are sweet vinyl stickers. I know.

I love them. Uh, so other big announcement that we have is, man, we just got this really cool new backdrop for the show.

It is really cool.

It took Kevin and I both to carry it to the studio. So be on the lookout for some pictures of this bad boy.

And we're pretty strong.

Yeah. So, but I think this thing's at least like 7 feet.

Oh yeah, it's way taller than me.

So, it's like the sign that you would see outside of like a storefront, but it's got our logo on it. So, be on the lookout. The next time we have guests, we're going to do a big photo shoot in front of the new sign. Yeah, that's awesome. We had an artist friend of ours named Anna Kate put that together for us and she did an incredible job.

It's fantastic.

And if you have a business and you see this thing, you're going to be calling me going, how do I get her to paint one for me? Yep. So, and all it takes is money.

That's all it takes. It's easy. Give me— give her money.

Yeah, that's right.

And she will do this for you. That's right.

Yeah, we'll just collect a small finder's fee.

That's right. $5,000. And we—

that's right.

That's all that we charge.

That's all it costs us.

That's right. All right, well, uh, listen, thank you, uh, for downloading this episode. We hope you enjoyed it. Uh, we'll be back here next week week with a whole new episode. Thank you for listening. Until then, we'll see you next time. See ya.