Someone built a $10 ESP32 smart garage door opener that works with Home Assistant
Summary
- Build a smart garage opener for Home Assistant for about $10—DIY, secure, no third‑party subscription.
- Uses an ESP32‑C3, 5V relay and endstop sensors with ESPHome for easy Home Assistant integration.
- Super cheap and flexible—repurpose the ESP32, relay, and sensor combo 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 being handled, 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. Such is the case of this ESP32 smart garage door opener that works with Home Assistant and won’t burn a hole in your pocket.
This super-cheap ESP32 garage door opener lets you take things into your own hands
It looks easy to make, too
Over on the ESP32 subreddit, YouTuber Break a Layer shared what they’ve been working on. They’ve found a way to make a garage door opener that integrates within your existing smart home layout, and is dirt cheap to boot:
This is a fun $10 ESP32 relay project that turns a normal garage door opener into a DIY smart garage door controller for Home Assistant. It is a simple electronics project using an ESP32-C3, a 5V relay module, two endstop switches, and ESPHome to make an existing garage door opener controllable and trackable from Home Assistant.
You can see how it’s made in the video above. Break a Layer uses the ESP32-C3 Super Mini to handle the Wi-Fi and logic, the 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 then uses ESPHome to get everything set up, meaning he can drop it into his Home Assistant setup with ease.
Honestly, at that low a price point, this sounds like an excellent way to enhance your smart home. You don’t even need it to control your garage door; with an ESP32-C3, a relay module, and a sensor, there are plenty of ways you can enhance your home to check things.
