Why has no one ever told me how wonderful it is to have magical lights that appear when I simply walk into my garage? Some folks might call those motion sensor lights, but I prefer magical! My garage pulls double duty as a laundry room and as a typical garage filled with all the things. I often enter the garage with my arms wrapped around a laundry basket, and I had no idea that getting new garage door openers was going to solve the light problem. I also love that there is an audible sound when my garage doors close, I can be 100% sure that the garage is locked and safe.
Here’s the deal, I teamed up with LiftMaster to give my crusty, old garage door openers a new life and I realized what a difference new garage door openers can make.
Here’s everything you ever wanted to know about garage door openers and why you probably want a new one…
Here are the facts:
- We have 2 single garage bays.
- I did not get new garage doors, only garage door openers. We got 2 LiftMaster 8550W Wi-Fi Garage Door Openers and Automatic Garage Door Locks.
- Cedar Park Overhead Doors installed both of my new garage door openers, we did not DIY the install.
Why I Love my New LiftMaster Garage Door Openers:
1. MOTION SENSOR LIGHTS are kind of amazing. Our old garage opener lights only came on when the garage doors opened or closed. Now, when I walk into the garage the lights magically appear. Fair to note, that we go in and out of our garage a lot since the garage is also our laundry room. It’s the little things, y’all!
2. SAFETY. Our new LiftMaster garage door openers have an automatic deadbolt lock that you can actually hear. The audible sound gives us peace of mind that the garage doors are 100% closed and locked.
3. SMART CONTROL PANEL. My old garage door key pad looked like a door bell from 1967. It was a big white, rectangular button. My new garage door opener has a smart control panel! This sucker tells me the time, temperature, and allows me to do all kinds of things like lock my garage doors. (This would be useful if say your car was stolen with your garage door remote inside of your car.) I did not think to take before pictures of my garage door control panel because, who cares, right? Wrong. I love my new garage door control panel. (The photo below is from a blog post about garage organization.)
4. SHAKING. The new garage door openers cured the earthquake that happened upon opening or closing our old garage doors. The LiftMaster motors are ultra quiet and slow the garage door down before it reaches the ground to ensure the quietest closing possible.
5. OUTSIDE KEYPAD. Why has no one ever told me how useful it is to have a wireless entry keypad to get into your garage? I’m telling you now, if you don’t have one, you need one!
6. MyQ® APP. You can connect your garage door openers to your smart phone with theMyQ® app. A few of my favorite features with the MyQ® app are getting real time alerts of when the garage door opens and closes, remotely opening and closing garage doors, and turning lights on and off in the garage.
7. BACK UP BATTERY. My new garage door openers have battery back ups that allow access in and out of the garage even when the power is out.
8. SAFETY CABELS on garage door springs. Have you ever heard of them? Me either. The LiftMaster installation guy alerted me to the fact that we did not have safety cables on our garage door springs, and these springs could potentially fail. With safety cable in place, if the spring fails it will stay put. For the record, safety chains do not come with the garage door openers, but we paid a little extra to have these installed. See how the cable goes through the spring? That is the safety cable.
Find a LiftMaster dealer near you, and get magical lights that appear when you walk in your garage, access to your garage via the MyQ® app, and peace of mind with an automatic deadbolt lock. Have you ever considered what features your garage door opener has or does not have? I’d love to hear…
