Raspberry Pi Gate Opener Offers a Simple Way to Connect a Motorized Gate to the IoT
Designed to connect to a dismantled remote, this relay board needs only power, ground, and a single GPIO pin to operate.
Maker Jeremy Gillula has launched an open source gadget designed to connect a Raspberry Pi or compatible single-board computer to a radio-controlled motorized gate system — "so that you can open a gate with just a few lines of code."
"It connects directly to an off-the-shelf gate opener remote (sold separately)," Gillula explains of his board, "and uses a 5V relay for triggering the gate opener and a voltage conversion circuit for powering the gate opener (replacing the gate opener's battery). It requires only 5V power, ground, and a single GPIO [General-Purpose Input/Output) pin from your Raspberry Pi."
The kit, which is also compatible with microcontrollers if you write your own code, avoids the usual complexity of reverse engineering and reimplementing wireless control signals by simply triggering an existing remote. Sample code is provided for opening and closing a gate using MQTT messaging in Home Assistant, "or use your own code," Gillula says, "to trigger the gate opener however you like!"
Gillula has released the design files for the board under the reciprocal GNU Affero General Public License 3, with Gerbers and a Fritzing schematic file available on the project's GitHub repository.
For those who would prefer something ready-to-run, once you've supplied your own Raspberry Pi and gate remote, Gillula sells the board fully-assembled on the FlyingSaucrDude Productions Tindie store for $20 — or $10 as a kit of parts or $5 as a bare PCB.