A few days ago, my parents asked me for a smart garage door opener. I’ve had a lot of luck with my Garadget and thought this could be an opportunity to try something new. I moved my Garadget over to their house and ended up picking up a GoControl GD00Z-4 Z-Wave Smart Garage Door Opener for myself.

Since this opener is Z-Wave only, you will need a hub such as Samsung’s SmartThings to interact with it.

Read More: Understanding Home Automation Protocols

The opener comes in a well packaged box.

In the middle is the smart garage door opener. First impression is that it is a lot larger than my Garadget. Almost 5 times larger to be exact. The opener can be attached directly to your ceiling, or you can attach it to the included mount. You can also see the included tilt sensor that tells you if your garage door is opened or closed. Lastly, along with the wall plug, it also comes with a plastic holder that you can screw into your outlet faceplate to hold the plug.

Overall, the device has some nice accessories to compliment it and keep things organized. GoControl even included 4 zip ties to organize the wires and a large warning label to put on your garage door.

SmartThings Setup

Let’s start by getting the device hooked into our hub. You’ll do that by going into your SmartThings App and clicking on Add A Device at the bottom of your device list. Once that’s started, plug your GoControl Smart Garage Door Opener in and press the button on the side. The device will beep and after a few seconds, your hub will pick it up.

I did all of this before I actually installed the device in my garage. It makes it easier in the long run.

Garage Install

After that was done, I began the install in my garage. You’ll want to find the two wires that go from your wall button to your current garage door opener. Those are the wires that you will want to attach the two wires coming out of the GoControl Smart Garage Door Opener to.

Door Sensor

Once you have that set up, you’ll want to go ahead and add your door sensor. The base is attached to your garage door using sticky tape. After that’s attached, take the plastic covering between the sensor and the battery out and snap the sensor onto the base

Make sure the arrow is pointing up.

Calibration

Now you can go ahead and plug your GoControl Smart Garage Door opener into the outlet. Once it’s plugged in, open and close your garage door manually using your wall button. This will calibrate your door sensor.

Here’s how SmartThings looks like before you calibrate.

Here’s what it looks like afterwards.

Summary

Once I got the wires tucked away, I opened and closed the door a few times from the SmartThings app. Response time to the device was pretty quick. The opener also has an alarm and flashing light when it is opening or closing the door. After 5 seconds of beeping, the door is moved. I thought this would be annoying at first, but I got over it quickly and then realized that it’s actually nice to have when my 2 year old likes to run in and out of the garage. It’s loud enough to startle her back into the house.

I’m still not sure if I like this more than the Garadget. I’m not thrilled about the door sensor. It’s nice that it’s wireless, but that also means that I now have a battery I have to change. I also will miss the ability to set alerts. My Garadget would pop up an alert on my phone if my garage door was open after 10pm. I don’t believe SmartThings has the capability, unfortunately.

It’s also a lot larger than my Garadget, but with it being mounted next to my garage door opener on the ceiling, I suppose that doesn’t matter much. The included mount made attaching it to my ceiling extremely easy.

Overall, I’m very happy with the GoControl Z-Wave Garage Door Opener. I really like that it’s Z-Wave instead of WiFi. That’ll allow me to control it even if my internet is down. It also acts as a Z-Wave repeater, giving me even better range for my Z-Wave network.

The instructions it came with were very clear and it has a nice set of accessories to keep the wires and sensor organized.

I have not tested Google Home or Amazon Echo support. I actually think I’m going to keep this and any smart locks away from those devices. That way I know that the only way to open my smart openers is through my phone.

GoControl clearly put a lot of thought into their smart garage door opener. It integrates very well with SmartThings and I look forward to having it as part of my smart home.

Read Next: Garadget: An Awesome and Open Approach to a Smart Garage Door Opener