It’s a Christmas miracle! 
Announcing two new Garage Door Opener products for 2024!
Merry Christmas and happy holidays to my beloved Konnected family! On this special day we’re unveiling a two exciting updates to our GDO product line. Last month I wrote a post entitled Opening the Garage Door prompted by the mind-numbing press release by Chamberlain Group where they communicated their intention to block myQ access from “unauthorized” third party apps.
For those who don’t know, myQ is the big brand name in the smart garage door opener space, but I think it’s a pretty dumb product now. Chamberlain unabashedly has decided that their users don’t have the right to use their garage opener outside of the branded myQ app or their “approved” (read: 
) integrations.
To that I say Bah Humbug! Konnected is here to save your garage from the curmudgeonly corporate Grinch with two new GDO products coming soon to a garage near you:
New & Improved GDO White
Building on the success of our first Garage Door Opener product launched in May of this year, we’ve upgraded the internals of our WHITE smart garage door opener product to make it better and more future-proof. The new GDO White is for older garage door openers with a dry-contact push-button trigger. It works with Chamberlain/LiftMaster brands with green, gray, white, yellow (square) learn button and all other brands (including Genie, Linear, Overhead Door).
Our new GDO White (model: GDOv2-S) features an upgraded processor (the ESP32-S3-MINI) which adds Bluetooth support and more processing power to ensure future compatibility with evolving IoT standards like Matter and ESPHome. We’ve also upgraded the audible pre-closing alarm to a multi-tonal buzzer to make the required safety feature a bit more pleasant and fun.
Read more & order the GDO White now — ships after January 22, 2024 >>
Introducing the All New GDO blaQ
Announcing today and expected to ship in March 2024, the all new GDO blaQ (model: GDOv2-Q) is designed specifically for Chamberlain/LiftMaster garage door openers with yellow, red, orange, blue, purple, or brown learn button, including those with myQ built-in. In other words, openers branded Chamberlain, LiftMaster and Craftsman that include Security+ 1.0 & Security+ 2.0 technology.
rendering of the new GDO blaQ
The GDO blaQ is built on ratgdo technology, the brilliant DIY open-source project that interfaces directly with Security+ garage door openers. Konnected’s GDO blaQ incorporates ratgdo into a sleek and elegant finished product that connects to your opener with only three wires and draws power using an included power adapter. This product unlocks direct control and monitoring of rich information from the garage door unit, including the open/closed status, obstruction beam sensor status, granular control to open/close the garage door fully or partially, control of the light, and control of the wireless remotes.
Of course, our GDO blaQ also incorporates a pre-closing audible and visual warning with a built-in bright flashing LED and multi-tonal buzzer, making it safe and compliant with U.S. federal safety regulations and suitable for any residential garage with a sectional motorized garage door.
Read more & pre-order the GDO blaQ now — expected to ship in March 2024 >>
Features of both new GDO products
We’ve been hard at work designing the new GDO product line with the principles of choice, privacy, and local control. Both new 2024 models feature the following:
Made for ESPHome
The GDO White and GDO blaQ both will ship with ESPHome-based firmware pre-installed! ESPHome is an open-source firmware platform built by the team behind Home Assistant that represents a big upgrade from Konnected’s original homegrown firmware (originally written in 2018).
We’ve built a cloud-connector for our ESPHome-backed devices to optionally connect them to Konnected Cloud, enabling our SmartThings and Alexa users to continue to enjoy hub-less smart home integration that’s as plug-and-play as possible.
Home Assistant and Hubitat users will enjoy the ultra-fast, 100% local, native API integration between ESPHome and your local HA server or Hubitat hub.
Upgradable to Matter (future)
Matter is the emerging smart home standard that provides secure and local integration with all big-name smart home platforms, including Apple HomeKit, Google Home, Amazon Alexa, Samsung SmartThings, Home Assistant, Hubitat, and Homey Pro. Currently, the Matter specification does not support garage door opener device types, but when it does, Konnected is committed to supporting this game-changing standard on all of our GDOv2 models.
Note: Updating to Matter will require re-flashing the device firmware with a computer and USB cable.
*Konnected’s GDO is not (yet) Matter certified. Join our early-access program to stay up-to-date with development.
Open Source
Konnected’s new GDO line is built on entirely open source software, made with high-quality genuine components, and assembled with love in the USA. We designed it with an emphasis on choice, privacy, and local control – because we believe that the technology that you bring in your home is yours to own. The GDOv2’s firmware configuration is published here on GitHub and is built upon these primary open-source libraries:
- esphome-ratgdo (GPL v2) [blaQ model only]
- esphome (ESPHome License)
- esp-idf (Apache v2)
Designed & Assembled in the USA 
Keep your customers close and your manufacturer even closer! Konnected is a U.S. (Florida) based company, and our GDO products are designed by U.S. based engineers and manufactured at MacroFab in Houston, TX. We source genuine, high-quality parts and components from around the world and assemble and QA our GDOs domestically.
I’m so excited for the year to come and the capabilities we’re bringing to your home this year. Please share your thoughts and feedback about our upgraded GDO family. I can’t wait to hear what you think.
And again, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Nate
myQ and Security+ are trademarks of the Chamberlain Group