> Why don’t you want myQ anywhere near your network?

Precisely because they're rent-seeking. I have a wifi-enabled garage door opener that I paid a lot of money for. Why should I have to pay MyQ every month to effectively just let something other than their app or their proprietary switch open the door?

“Near my network” suggested it was a security issue. Are there other companies running a cloud-based api for garage doors that don’t charge? It does cost money to keep the servers going.

I personally just took a cheap remote, attached its button to an esp32 with a relay, put on mqtt, and interfaced it with homebridge. Now it shows up in the home app. Works well! iCloud via Apple TV connects it to the internet securely.

Nope, my concern wasn’t security, it was corporate greed

I’m curious, do you expect them to run and maintain servers for free?

I didn't realize they were selling garage door openers for free.

It’s a one time fixed cost. Running a cloud service is not. You very rarely buy a new garage door opener.

That's true.

And when the time does come that I need to buy garage door opener, it won't say Chamberlain on it.

What competitor allows a local LAN connection?

Certainly not Chamberlain.

Chamberlain's system is cloud-based. Strictly speaking, it doesn't work on LANs -- that's not one of its functions.

Exactly. So what alternative are you getting instead?

Ah, sorry. I may have misinterpreted your question.

I've only had a garage worth having motorization for a short time. It isn't something I've thought a ton about: While I do have this garage, and it would be nice to be able to park a car in there on a daily basis, and having it be motorized (and automated!) would be great, it's still full of the detritus from moving. Having the door go up and down by itself is pretty low on the list right now and will probably remain that way until the weather gets warmer and drier. :)

When I have thought about it, I've thought that building something myself would be adequate; that I'd just pick any dumb opener that has open/closed IO exposed, and graft on the connectivity functions I need with an ESP32 and some relays, using ESPHome.

Or maybe Shelly modules: One variation or another might have enough IO built in to do it, and they're packaged neatly, priced right, and the default software integrates well with Home Assistant. (They've also got ESP32s inside and can run ESPHome if one is so-inclined.)

Seems easy enough to me, and I've certainly done much more daunting and elaborate integration stuff at $dayjob.

But I don't know of a competitive "just-works" LAN-controllable garage door opener.

If it weren't for the SNAFU a year or so ago[0], I'd probably pick Chamberlain and a Ratdgo[1] board for local network control. But as it stands, I do not want to reward Chamberlain with any of my dollars, and I'm willing to go to any expense in order to avoid doing so.

[0]: https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2023/11/06/removal-of-myq...

[1]: https://paulwieland.github.io/ratgdo/

A local REST API doesn't require servers.

That I agree with, although real thought needs to be put into security for this. This is literally a key to your home.