Welcome, Fake Garage Doors, and ESP-8266 fans

Welcome to my blog. I honestly don't know why you are here.

But you are here, so Welcome! This is my little corner of the internet where I post updates on the various random projects I am working on. The purpose of this blog is less to engage people and more to be a long term notepad for my projects.

I have also had a few people ask "Hey, that sounds cool can I follow a blog for that anywhere" and this will be my answer to that question as well.

This weekend I am starting two projects. One that I have been kicking around for a bit, and another that is fairly new. 

Project 1: The Fake Garage Door

This is kind of a weird project, but hopefully a useful one. I recently got a new car, and it has a HomeLink rear view mirror. These mirrors are basically universal garage door openers, and can open a garage door. I however do not have a garage, or a garage door so these buttons are fairly useless as is. What I want to do is create a receiver that can receive these codes and unlock my front door. The catch is there is no bridge that I know that exists that does this. 

I took a break from writing this post and was able to do a little more research, and I found exactly what I want on Amazon. The "LiftMaster 850LM Universal Gate and Garage Door Opener Receiver", it is a garage door receiver that can control up to three gates. I should be able to connect this up to a ESP-8266 and read the state of the circuits to be able to send commands off to Home Assistant. This just made the project A LOT easier. 

Project 2: ESP-8266 Bridges

This is a much simpler project. I have a few non-smart devices around the house that I want to control via Home Assistant. A usb hub for my desk, and a few fans. My plan is to connect one of these boards up to the buttons controlling the devices and use it to simulate button presses.