Summary
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Build a smart garage opener for Home Assistant for about $10 – DIY, secure, without third-party subscriptions.
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Uses ESP32‑C3, 5V relay and stop sensors with ESPHome for easy Home Assistant integration.
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Super cheap and flexible – swap ESP32, relay and sensor combination for other smart home projects.
Usually, building your own devices is better than buying one off the shelf. When you make your own smart home gadgets, you know exactly how your data is processed, you don’t need to subscribe to a third-party system, and if something breaks, you know exactly how to replace it.
But sometimes the DIY version also comes with the benefit of being really, really cheap. So is this ESP32 smart garage door opener that works with your home assistant and won’t burn a hole in your pocket.
This super cheap ESP32 garage door opener lets you take matters into your own hands
It also looks easy to make
On it ESP32 subredditYouTuber Break a Layer shared what he’s working on. They’ve found a way to open a garage door that integrates into your existing smart home plan and is cheap to boot:
This is a fun $10 ESP32 relay project that turns a regular garage door opener into a DIY smart garage door controller for Home Assistant. This is a simple electronics project to make an existing garage door opener controllable and monitorable from Home Assistant using ESP32-C3, 5V relay module, two stop switches and ESPHome.
You can see how it’s done in the video above. Hacking the Layer uses an ESP32-C3 Super Mini to control Wi-Fi and logic, a relay module to simulate garage door button presses, and sensors to check if the door is open or closed. Once the hardware is sorted, he uses ESPHome to set everything up, meaning he can easily put it into Home Assistant setup.
Honestly, at the low price point, it sounds like a great way to improve your smart home. You don’t even need it to operate your garage door; With the ESP32-C3, relay module and sensor to control things, there are many ways to upgrade your home.
