I have a wireless doorbell and a garage door opener with wireless remotes and a wireless keypad on the outside of the house. I’ve had both for at least a few years, and had no problem with either.
About a month ago, my husband and I were woken up in the middle of the night when the doorbell starting ringing. It rang several times with a few seconds between each ring, then stopped. After a bit, it started up again. There was no one at the door. After going through this for several minutes, it all stopped and we went back to sleep. This happened 3-4 more times in the next few days, at different times of day. Once, we realized that I started the doorbell ringing by pressing the remote opener for the garage door. The garage door didn’t open, but my husband reported that at the same time, the doorbell started ringing. We pulled the batteries from the doorbell unit in the house and everything went back to normal.
I talked to someone at HD who said there could be interference between the garage door opener and the doorbell. He suggested that I try changing the code on the doorbell. I did this and everything worked fine for about 3 weeks.
The problem came back yesterday. Our remotes wouldn’t open the garage door, but the doorbell started ringing on its own. We took out the batteries again from the doorbell. I went out and tried my garage door remote, and it works again.
Any ideas on what could be going on or what to do about it?
Replies
Most garage door openers have a rotating code that changes after every use to prevent someone from capturing the code and gaining access. Check the manual for the opener and see if you can disable the feature.
Dick
Do you know why something like this would happen all of a sudden, after years without a problem?
Look around. There are so many waves bouncing around it is a wonder anything remote works when it is suppose to. It would be cool to see a photograph of all of the wave pollution. It would probably be dark - saturated.
Everybody has to be connected, all the time.Don
This is a dumb question but have you put fresh batteries in the remote? If so and it is still a problem have you done any other electrical work on your house, maybe you have some common wiring you don't realize. Or some other cordless appliance maybe a new cordless phone. Anyway that's the extent of my vast knowledge:)
Good luck and let us know if you figure it out.
Troy
I did try fresh batteries, and I haven't done any recent electrical work or bought any new cordless appliances.But I think Don01 has it right. I just realized that recently we ran into problems with our wireless computer network (it had also been working just fine for a long time). We figured out that there is a new wireless network in our area that was interfering with ours, and we had to change the frequency on our network to work. I'm wondering whether this is also the source of the problem with the garage door and doorbell.Thanks, you've all given me some good ideas to look into.
Any ideas on what could be going on or what to do about it?
I would get rid of them and get some old fashion locks!
Maybe someone knows you have expensive tools or whatever and trying to get access codes. I would report it to the local Police! If for nothing but Insurance. I would even call the Insurance folks and let them know. They have investigators!
I know it sounds strange, but there is all kinds of nasty folks out there, that do this for 'their' living...
But then again I have no idea. Better safe than sorry!
Edited 3/7/2009 8:59 am by WillGeorge
Here is an update. We weren't comfortable with the idea of disabling the feature on the garage door opener that rotates frequencies. Then we found a doorbell by Honeywell that is apparently made to deal with this issue. It notices when there is interference on the frequency it is using and changes its own frequency to work around the interference. We've had it installed for almost a month now with no problems.
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