When SmartThings started many years ago, their suggested way of automating a garage door was with a SmartThings Multipurpose Sensor and an Evolve LFM-20 Relay switch. These would become one single device in the Mobile App and with a press of a button, the garage door would open or close and could be automated through SmartThings.

Since the V2 Launch though, they have discontinued support for this setup and have changed their support for garages to the Linear GD00Z-4. This has left many a user in the dust to either go without the integration and only manually open/close or to purchase a new device.

If you’re one of those users, like me, you want a way to make this integration work again. Well, today is your lucky day.

We’re going to use the “SmartSense Garage Door Sensor Button” Device Handler that’s already built into the SmartThings IDE or you can use my slightly updated one for the Multi. Mine just looks nicer; no extra features. (If you need instructions on how to install a custom Device Handler, follow instructions in this link.)

We need to:

  1. Log into the IDE
  2. Select My Devices
  3. Select the Multi
  4. Select Edit
  5. Under “Type” select “ SmartSense Garage Door Sensor Button” (if you’re using mine, it will be farther down)
  6. Select Update

You’ll now see something similar to this.

We need to change the Evolve LFM-20 Relay to “Z-Wave Virtual Momentary Contact Switch” Device Handler. This way the Evolve LFM-20 will turn OFF after 3 seconds. Follow the steps above but use “Z-Wave Virtual Momentary Contact Switch” instead.

Finally, we need CoRE. If you don’t know what CoRE is, check out the Wiki. The Wiki will have all the steps on how to install it and get it running. CoRE is going to be what lets us control the LFM-20 from the Multi. We’re going to need to enable “Expert Mode” in CoRE Settings to get the actions and changes we need.

Automations → SmartApps → CoRE → Setting → Toggle “Expert Mode” → Done

We need create a new CoRE “Piston”. Tap “Add a CoRE piston” in the CoRE SmartApp settings. We can leave the “Piston Mode” as “Basic” unless you want to get crazy.

Under the “IF” portion, we’ll want to select “Automatic Garage Door” as the type of device and then select our garage door. The Attribute is “buttonPress” and the comparison is “changes”. You don’t need to change any of the other details. The end result should look like this.

Under the “THEN” portion, we’ll want to select “Relay” as the type of device and then select our LFM-20. Our “Task” is going to be “Push”. You can change the name if you’d like. The end result should look like this.

When all’s said and done, you can rename the CoRE Piston to whatever you’d like or leave it as “CoRE Piston ##”. As you may have noticed from my screenshots, I’ve named mine “Garage Door Relay”. Here’s what your basic overview should look like is this.

Now we can use our LFM-20 and Multi Sensor as one device to fully control and automate our garage door once again. You’ll now be able to not only view and control your garage door from a single device again but you’ll be able to automate it to your heart’s desire! I’ve done a lot of testing and I have yet to have it OPEN when it should CLOSE or stay CLOSED.

If you run into any issues or have any ideas on how to make this even easier, hit me up!