Consumer Reports On Garage Door Openers

One thing that every technology brings is convenience. New technologies help us do things better, faster, and with fewer efforts.

The garage door opener is not an exception. It comes with its convenience. You will agree that there is nothing as convenient as having your garage doors open by themselves when you arrive.

That way, you won’t need to get out of your car to open them yourself.

What is a garage door opener?

First of all, let’s explain what a garage door opener is. This is a motorized system that lifts up and rolls down your garage doors. It is usually controlled by a switch and remote control.

The biggest benefit of a garage door opener is that when you arrive, you can just press the remote control from your car and the doors will be lifted up. Once you enter, you can control it to roll down the doors.

Some door openers are actually timed. They will wait for a minute or two, depending on their setting and they will automatically roll down the garage doors. Some of these openers now come with mobile apps that you can install on your smartphone.

Collective consumer reports on garage door openers

According to a reliable report, the garage doors are opened about 1,500 times in a year. It means without any garage door opener, you will be lifting up your garage doors and bringing them down about 1,500 times in a year. In ten years, you will do it about 15,000 times on average.

Considering how heavy the doors are, consumers see the garage door opener as a lifesaver. They also love the fact that there are several types of it and they come at different prices so everyone will have one that suits their budget.

Remember, the garage door opener is a system. This means it is made up of several components. This article also lists some essential parts of a garage door opener and the function of each of them.

These features make the openers convenient. This will help you understand how the system works.

 

Features of a garage door opener

1. Remote Control

The remote control is used to activate the opening and closing of the garage doors. However, most garage door openers are also controlled by wall-mounted switches.

The wall-mounted switch is only convenient for opening the garage doors when you are about to drive out. If there is no one left inside, you will have to get down from the car, go inside the garage to press the switch for the doors to come down.

Since most switches are fixed inside the garage, you will have to come out through your living room and that makes your journey even longer.

When you get back home and there is no one at home, you will get down from your car, go through your living room to the garage to press the switch and the doors will go up. You will run into your car to drive it inside. What if it is raining? You will also get wet.

A remote control brings more convenience. After driving out, you will just press the control in your car and the door will go down.

You will also do the same thing when you get back home. Even if anyone is at home, it is easier to open the garage doors with the remote right beside you in your car than calling someone to come and open it for you.

The remote control is one of the most essential parts of the system. Due to its usefulness, many consumers believe that any garage door opener without a remote control is incomplete.

2. Manual Release

This feature allows you to control your garage doors manually. The question is, why would you want to operate it manually when there are a switch and remote control?

The simple answer is that both switch and remote control are engineered to open the garage doors completely.

If you are working on your car in the garage and you only want to open the garage doors halfway for ventilation, you may have to deactivate the electric mechanism so that you can control it manually and this allows you to open it partially.

According to consumer reports, most users don’t use this feature as they have no reason to open their garage doors halfway.

3. Security Light

If you come in late in the night, you will need a light overhead. It will prevent you from running into an obstacle. Modern garage doors have their automatic light that comes on when the door is open.

The light also shuts off itself a few minutes after the door goes down. You may wonder why the light cannot be left on permanently. It will be a waste of power and it will also shorten the lifespan of the light.

There is no point in turning on a light that is not being used.

4. Keychain remote

This is the remote that will be attached to your car key. That way, you only need to tap the remote when you are in front of your garage and the door will go up.

What consumers love about it is that they don’t have to wait till they get close to the garage to tap the remote. They do it while they are a distance away so the garage will already be open when they get to it.

This gives them a zero waiting time for the garage doors to go up.

5. Home automation system

Most modern garage door openers can be integrated into the home automation system. So, you can use a voice request to open the garage door when you are inside.

You can just say “Alexa, open the garage door” and the garage door opener will be activated. This adds to the convenience that garage door openers bring to your home.

6. Auto-close

This feature allows you to time your garage doors when they are open. When the time is up the garage door opener will shut them.

You may want to leave your garage doors open for a while for fresh air on hotter days. You can just program the opener to shut it after a certain number of minutes or hours.

Final Verdict

You need to understand that there are many more features apart from the ones listed above. These are just the ones consumers enjoy the most.

Of course, new garage door openers will come with more features and better technology. Finally, based on consumer reports on garage doors, the device is indispensable to homes with a garage.

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