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I'm planning to retrofit homelink to my 2020 a4. Ive purchased the homelink module and the wire that has the antenna already wired up. I read somewhere that pin 24 of the BCM1 is where we need to connect to the homelink module, but I had a look today and this is already taken. I only checked the t73a connector so maybe its the t73b?
Just hope someone that has already installed this can help.
You already said, T73A pin 24. Splice however you like. It's 22 awg wire; I'd just cut it somewhere and twist the ends together with a crimp nut, like https://www.digikey.com/en/products/...1600012/279194 But there's plenty examples out there of soldering, or twisting, etc.
Not an answer to your question, but just thought I put out an alternative to retrofitting Homelink. If you have a Wi-Fi connected garage door opener, which can also be retrofitted to existing openers and integrate it with Apple Homekit, then you can open and close your garage door from your phone or CarPlay. Homelink is kinda going obsolete. During the pandemic I expanded my smart home project and can now control all my locks and garage door via Homekit. This also comes in handy whenever my car is in for service and I have a loaner. Now I no longer have to get out to open/close the garage door or carry a remote that I might forget in the loaner. Also, as opposed to Homelink I can see the status of the garage door at any time and have confidence that it is actually closed.
Last edited by superswiss; 02-26-2023 at 01:18 PM.
You already said, T73A pin 24. Splice however you like. It's 22 awg wire; I'd just cut it somewhere and twist the ends together with a crimp nut, like https://www.digikey.com/en/products/...1600012/279194 But there's plenty examples out there of soldering, or twisting, etc.
Oh okay thats great just wanted to make sure thanks. I'll give that a go then once the module arrives.
Not an answer to your question, but just thought I put out an alternative to retrofitting Homelink. If you have a Wi-Fi connected garage door opener, which can also be retrofitted to existing openers and integrate it with Apple Homekit, then you can open and close your garage door from your phone or CarPlay. Homelink is kinda going obsolete. During the pandemic I expanded my smart home project and can now control all my locks and garage door via Homekit. This also comes in handy whenever my car is in for service and I have a loaner. Now I no longer have to get out to open/close the garage door or carry a remote that I might forget in the loaner. Also, as opposed to Homelink I can see the status of the garage door at any time and have confidence that it is actually closed.
Wow this is really cool, do you know if this works with android auto? Also any more details on the equipment needed to connect to thr garage door?
Wow this is really cool, do you know if this works with android auto? Also any more details on the equipment needed to connect to thr garage door?
Android has the Google Home app to control smart home devices, but I don't know how well or if it's integrated with Android Auto. You can control it via Google Assistant, though. I have a Nest Wi-Fi mesh network and a Nest learning thermostat and I can control both from the Google Home app, but I don't know what types of garage door openers it can control. Obviously, Google's own devices work out of the box, but third-party devices often need a level of integration. This applies to Homekit as well. The industry is finally standardizing on a common protocol called Matter, and all the smart home vendors have committed to supporting it, but it was only recently finally ratified after multiple delays, so it's gonna take a while before existing devices receive a firmware upgrade, if at all, to support it. Apple rolled out Matter support in iOS 16.1, so as soon as devices come on the market with Matter support they will be natively supported by Homekit.
As for equipment, I have a Chamberlain Smart Garage Control hub paired to my 13 year old Liftmaster (https://www.myq.com/products/smart-garage-control). It pairs through Homelink and then essentially acts like a Wi-Fi connected Homelink remote, but with more smarts. Chamberlain also used to have a Homekit bridge, but they discontinued it and I could never get mine to work. It was a pretty terrible product. In lieu, I use Homebridge (https://homebridge.io/) for now until they hopefully add Matter support. It's an open source project that offers Homekit support via a plugin architecture and there are plugins for myQ, Ring, Nest and other ecosystems that don't have native Homekit support. I use it to integrate myQ, my Ring alarm system and my Nest thermostat with Homekit, and I run it on a dedicated Raspberry Pi.
Last edited by superswiss; 02-26-2023 at 02:34 PM.
Android has the Google Home app to control smart home devices, but I don't know how well or if it's integrated with Android Auto. You can control it via Google Assistant, though. I have a Nest Wi-Fi mesh network and a Nest learning thermostat and I can control both from the Google Home app, but I don't know what types of garage door openers it can control. Obviously, Google's own devices work out of the box, but third-party devices often need a level of integration. This applies to Homekit as well. The industry is finally standardizing on a common protocol called Matter, and all the smart home vendors have committed to supporting it, but it was only recently finally ratified after multiple delays, so it's gonna take a while before existing devices receive a firmware upgrade, if at all, to support it. Apple rolled out Matter support in iOS 16.1, so as soon as devices come on the market with Matter support they will be natively supported by Homekit.
As for equipment, I have a Chamberlain Smart Garage Control hub paired to my 13 year old Liftmaster (https://www.myq.com/products/smart-garage-control). It pairs through Homelink and then essentially acts like a Wi-Fi connected Homelink remote, but with more smarts. Chamberlain also used to have a Homekit bridge, but they discontinued it and I could never get mine to work. It was a pretty terrible product. In lieu, I use Homebridge (https://homebridge.io/) for now until they hopefully add Matter support. It's an open source project that offers Homekit support via a plugin architecture and there are plugins for myQ, Ring, Nest and other ecosystems that don't have native Homekit support. I use it to integrate myQ, my Ring alarm system and my Nest thermostat with Homekit, and I run it on a dedicated Raspberry Pi.
wow I can believe apple has signed up to matter, it will definitely make things easier in the smart home world.
I'm thinking of putting an extra ubiquiti ap in the garage then for the WiFi connection. As im in the UK the garage is too far from the house to get a connection, compared to the states where its commonly at the front of the house. I have terrible lte in the garage so this will be a bonus to the WiFi for the garage opener. I might still install the homelink as I would like full system integration in addition to the WiFi system, as the homelink will only be in my car and not the other cars in the household. Thank you for your help and inspiration.
I went with a low tech / high tech. I just dedicated one of my garage door openers remote controllers. It's kept inside the house and I built an ESP controlled relay box that just presses the remote controller's buttons based on the App buttons, I press. My remote also provides visual confirmation of the door being opened or fully closed. So I use that to send back to my App too. Yes I could have probably bought a 3rd party solution but where's the fun in that. The point is that there are many ways to skin a cat, Homelink isn't the only solution.
02-26-2023, 10:20 AM
UK: Homelink retrofit?
