Garage Door Opener Interference... from 5GHz device?

[NFS4]

So our garage door opener has been acting weird for the past few days. We press the Homelink button in our cars and the door will rarely -- if ever -- open unless we were parked right in front of the door.

My wife came home from work today, and it wouldn't work at all. After some troubleshooting, I even trying to break out our regular Craftsman remotes (what we used before we got cars that had Homelink installed) and they wouldn't work either.

So what the heck could be interfering? It had been working for 3 years straight up until early this weekend.

The culprit: My new Roku 3 which I got on Friday, which happens to be positioned in our bedroom almost directly over the garage door opener. I turned off the Roku 3 and the garage door opener started working again every time. Turned the Roku 3 back on, and it goes on the fritz again.

But here's the weird thing, my Roku 3 is connected via the 5GHz band to my router. And I thought that most garage door openers were 2.4GHz? Our garage door opener is a Craftsman 139.53914D.

I tried changing the 5GHz channel from Auto to 149 and Channel Width from Auto to 40MHz on the router. Still interferes. I tried a few more channel settings and still interfering.

Any other ideas?

**Edit, I even tried moving the Roku 3 from 5GHz to 2.4GHz and it still interferes. I had an Apple TV (3rd gen) before on 5GHz, and it never had a problem**

 

[Railgun]

Move the roku.

Call the FCC.

 

[NFS4]

Move the roku.

Call the FCC.

Well, TV is mounted on the wall, so it's not like I can move the Roku anywhere else.

This sucks

 

[ScottMac]

Try a other power cube/brick on the Roku.
You can also try a power filter on the garage door opener.

 

[NFS4]

Try a other power cube/brick on the Roku.
You can also try a power filter on the garage door opener.

Don't know where I'm going to find another power brick for the Roku 3... it was just released last week and I'm not risking frying my brand new media streamer

Power filter seems like an expensive solution and an awkward one since the power plug for the garage door opener is mounted in the ceiling.

 

[imagoon]

Homelink is 315mhz or 390Mhz... Does unplugging the Roku fix the opener?

 

[NFS4]

Homelink is 315mhz or 390Mhz... Does unplugging the Roku fix the opener?

As stated in the OP, turning off the Roku solves the problem.

 

[Cabletek]

Most 5Ghz devices broadcast in both 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz unless yo go in and turn the lower half off in the config.

I recommend hitting the router [not literally] and trying a different channel set up.

 

[NFS4]

Got it working thanks to the great folks over at the Roku forums. They suggested placing a 3' x 3' area of aluminum foil above the garage door opener. I hastily put up some pieces and placed another piece directly on top of the garage door opener and everything now works again!

WOOT!

 

[seepy83]

I guess that's an alright solution, but why is the Roku interfering if Homelink is 315mhz or 390mhz like imagoon said?

Does the roku remote use those frequencies or something?

 

[NFS4]

I guess that's an alright solution, but why is the Roku interfering if Homelink is 315mhz or 390mhz like imagoon said?

Does the roku remote use those frequencies or something?

The remote use WiFi direct, so I dunno.

 

[Brekyrself]

I've been having the same issues without a roku, thought it was just the cold weather. Care to elaborate on the aluminum foil fix?

 

[Cabletek]

http://forums.roku.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=55047&sid=3bb1e8824775eb8584303a26535e740e&start=0

Basically you are creating a metal "deflector" shield between the roku areas and the garage door opener [the part inside the garage with a motor that moves things] to reduce the amount of signal from teh roku in the garage door opener area. Depending on where your roku(s) is/are in relation to this part, will depend on where you need to put the "deflector" shield. Apparently it is the remote, doing this from what I read there, but I have no idea as I do not have a roku or a garage door opener. Is the remote an RF remote and not an IR?

 

[NFS4]

http://forums.roku.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=55047&sid=3bb1e8824775eb8584303a26535e740e&start=0

Basically you are creating a metal "deflector" shield between the roku areas and the garage door opener [the part inside the garage with a motor that moves things] to reduce the amount of signal from teh roku in the garage door opener area. Depending on where your roku(s) is/are in relation to this part, will depend on where you need to put the "deflector" shield. Apparently it is the remote, doing this from what I read there, but I have no idea as I do not have a roku or a garage door opener. Is the remote an RF remote and not an IR?

Yup, that's my thread over at Roku. The remote uses WiFi Direct.

 

[spidey07]

Yup, that's my thread over at Roku. The remote uses WiFi Direct.

Well that's just plain stupid.

 

[seepy83]

Well that's just plain stupid.

It's probably because the remote on the Roku 3 has a headphone jack on it so that you can watch/listen without disturbing someone else (bedroom tv at night, for example). The remote needs to receive the audio signal.

But I'm still confused why that would interfere with a garage door opener/homelink if they use 315 or 390 MHz...

 

[imagoon]

I was bored... found the FCC certs here:
https://apps.fcc.gov/eas/GetApplicationAttachment.html?id=1894470

It does seem to put out some noise in the ~310mhz area but it still meets FCC regs.

https://apps.fcc.gov/oetcf/eas/repo...rame=N&application_id=767240&fcc_id=TC2-R1004

Maybe it is just enough and the garage door unit is getting confused by the background junk.

 

[Brekyrself]

http://forums.roku.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=55047&sid=3bb1e8824775eb8584303a26535e740e&start=0

Basically you are creating a metal "deflector" shield between the roku areas and the garage door opener [the part inside the garage with a motor that moves things] to reduce the amount of signal from teh roku in the garage door opener area. Depending on where your roku(s) is/are in relation to this part, will depend on where you need to put the "deflector" shield. Apparently it is the remote, doing this from what I read there, but I have no idea as I do not have a roku or a garage door opener. Is the remote an RF remote and not an IR?

Thanks, I'll give it a try. I don't have a roku however one of my very near by neighbors might.

 

[spidey07]

I have trouble with this. They should not be causing this interference with each other.

If so report to FCC.

 

[jersiq]

It's probably because the remote on the Roku 3 has a headphone jack on it so that you can watch/listen without disturbing someone else (bedroom tv at night, for example). The remote needs to receive the audio signal.

But I'm still confused why that would interfere with a garage door opener/homelink if they use 315 or 390 MHz...

Electronics go rouge all the time. I've found the following interfering devices in the cellular and PCS RF ranges before:
RFID reader
Plasma television
Power supply to an ATM machine
Streetlamps
laptops w/o a wi-fi module
wireless link to a gas pump

The end result of all this uplink nose is the loss of the ability for the receiver to detect RF energy above the noise floor.

 

[Doughty12]

I just want to add, to help with others trying to sort out issues like this.

ANYTHING wireless can interact with anything, no matter how far away in a house or how close. I've seen cordless phones, wireless security cameras, microwaves, cell phones, etc cut out wifi signal completely before, and vice versa with wii/cordless phones/wireless security cameras/microwaves etc


It can be a pain tracking down something sometimes, but think simple and think of all the wireless stuff you have and go unplugging and see if the problems changes.

edit, it seems the roku was emitting a stronger shied signal all around, than what your car remote/garage door was putting out, so the roku was more powerful in overtaking that whole band of signal from your garage door.

 

[azazel1024]

Hmmm, I looked through the FCC docs and I see a few places where it mentions limits, but I don't see anything other than 2.4 and 5GHz range tests. I don't see any of the sub 1GHz tests that they mention in the documents.

That said, even if below FCC limits, that doesn't mean it isn't still interfering.

If it is, say, 5ft away from the garage door opener compared to 30ft for a car sitting trying to open the garage door, that is about a 12dB difference right there, ignoring materials. Then if you look at materials, ~300MHz is going to penetrate most building materials VERY easily, so nothing between the roku and the garage door opener is going to be much of an impediment.

HOWEVER, a metal garage door IS going to be an impediment, attenuating the garage door opener quite a bit.

So even if the Roku has low levels of interference in 300-400MHz range, it might easily still be enough to swamp the garage door opener. I'd say a good test would be, try using the garage door opener sitting in the garage. If it works in the garage, but doesn't outside of the garage, with the door closed especially, there's the reason why.

Also for interference, it could be the power brick causing interference too. It is possible that the AC to DC conversion step is causing ~300MHz interference and that may not have been tested in the FCC testing.

 

[wjfawb0]

I have Linear garage door openers that have become less and less reliable as I add more 2.4GHz equipment to my home network. I installed a new Foscam security camera this week and now the two doors nearest the camera only function via wireless remote within about 10 feet. I'm going to hardwire the cameras network connection first and maybe try some toroids on the power wire to the camera. The camera draws power from the same circuit as the garage door openers, so I don't doubt it's a conducted emissions problem coupling into the garage door openers.

Let's see if I can put those 4 or 5 years of electromagnetic compatibility work to good use. Joy.

 

[Mushkins]

Got it working thanks to the great folks over at the Roku forums. They suggested placing a 3' x 3' area of aluminum foil above the garage door opener. I hastily put up some pieces and placed another piece directly on top of the garage door opener and everything now works again!

WOOT!

That was actually precisely what I was going to suggest, lol.

Just block out the interfering waves.

 

[razel]

Had similar issue when I had to replace my garage door opener. It's range most of the time less than 1 home away when before I could be 3-4 homes. The new garage door open had a wire antenna. I ended up splicing the end of the wire antenna connected to a coffee can cut in half pointed at the direction of where I always enter to drive in and it improved to 2 homes.

I debated for the longest whether to try and improve it more, but resisted since it begins to compromise my garage door security. Longer ranges not only benefit you but cyber thieves as well.