This post is sponsored by Home Depot. All thoughts and ideas are my own
For those new to my blog, I’m a bit of a smart home fanatic. I like smart home tech so much, because I’m constantly searching for ways to make my life easier and more efficient, and that’s what it’s all about.
I’m excited to announce that I’ll be sharing 5 new smart home items in a multi-post blog series with Home Depot over the next few weeks. Everything I’ll be sharing is available at Home Depot as is most of the smart home tech I have in my house.
So lets jump right in with my most recent smart home addition, the Chamberlain Smart Garage Door Opener.
Quieter
Right off the bat, even without the smart tech, this is a big improvement over my prior garage door opener. It’s much quieter than my previous opener because it uses a steel reinforced rubber belt instead of a chain. Both of my kids bedrooms sit above the garage, so I no longer have to worry about opening or closing the garage when they’re sleeping. It’s so quiet I can’t even tell when it’s opening or closing unless I’m standing in the garage looking at it.
Better Lighting
Next up is the light. Again, a big improvement. It uses LED’s instead of traditional bulbs, and it has what they refer to as a “corner to corner engineered LED light system” and it shows. It’s MUCH brighter than my previous opener, and has a much better light spread due to the location of the LED lights.
The motion detector on the garage door switch is a nice touch as well. It turns the light on when it senses motion, and you can change the duration the light stays on after detecting motion depending on what you like.
Backup Battery and Better Range
It also has an integrated backup battery, so it will continue to work even during power outages. This comes in especially useful if the power goes out while you’re outside the garage and unable to grab the quick release. I know I’d be able to lift the garage door if necessary, but I’m not sure if I could say the same thing about my wife.
Even though you can use a phone or voice assistant to open and close the door (more on that later) they’ve added extended range remotes that can reach from up to 1500ft too!
So now that I’ve covered the general improvements, let’s jump into the smart features.
Control it Via App
Unlike a garage door opener, I have my phone on me at all times, so it’s much more useful to be able to control everything. With the app you can of course open and close the garage door, get app notifications when it’s opened or closed, and even view the history of when it was opened and closed.
If you want to make sure it’s closed at a certain time each day, you can also set schedules to regularly close it whenever you’d like.
Control it Via Google Hub
If you want to control the garage door with your voice, it works well with the Google Hub. You can open and close your garage door with your voice, and ask whether it is open or closed. 
Installation
The installation was surprisingly easy. I only had to replace an existing garage door, so all of the pre-installed connectors on the ceiling and the garage door were the same, so it was a quick job. Maybe 2 hours? I took my time, and it was all pretty intuitive. If I had to rate the difficulty, I’d say a 4/10. I didn’t have anyone around to help, but if you do, it will make it even easier.
That’s it for now. If you have any questions I didn’t cover, let me know in the comments below, shoot me an email, or you can check out some more details here on Home Depot.
I’ll be back next week with the Ring Video Doorbell and the Schlage lock!
More info about the Chamberlain 1-1/4 HP Ultra-Quiet Belt Drive Smart Garage Door Opener here!
