That sounds likely, but I’d still appreciate something more than a 30 year-old recollection of something a friend said.
This suggests there is little risk. I suspect they meant “91 or EARLIER”.
Other sites I saw said things like “it is more common than you might think,” and “burglars commonly drive around…”. Of course, those sites were generally from entities desiring to sell new openers…
Also saw reference to “code snatchers” which could pick up on the ode used. Yeah, maybe that really is something to be guarded against. Of course, around here a bigger problem is idiots leaving their unlocked cars parked in their driveways overnight…. 
I’ve had the MyQ since our house was built in 2017. Like others I still have a clicker in the car a predominantly use that.
However the MyQ app had been great for the following:
-Check the open/close status when away from home. Great for the “hmm, did I close it while driving away?”
-Remote access for contractors/deliveries. I’ve had repair people whom I trust do inside work for me and I didn’t need to take the day off. They call my cell when they arrive and I open the garage for them. I tell them to call when complete and I can close it back up. Also used it to for deliveries when I wasn’t home. They call, i open the garage, they set it inside and i close it back up. Also used it to let the inlaws in when they arrived and we weren’t home from work yet.
-Lock down timers. You can set a timer on the app to close the garage at a certain time if it senses it’s still open. Avoids those circumstances where you wake up the next day only realize “Crap, we left the garage open all night.”
I witnessed it myself. I’m not sure why I have to prove something that’s no longer an issue and hasn’t been in decades. I was just explaining where the idea originated.
Again not for decades. That used to be an issue with car remotes back in the day, but they have long since made the remote and sensor use a different code each time (from a unique sequence shared between them)
A great technical innovation of the 19th century made a big improvement on the clock. When a pendulum was no longer necessary, it could be miniaturized to the point where it would fit in your pocket. Further improvements to the technology removed the need to pull something out of your pocket to see what the time was. Modern technology produced a watch that you could strap to your wrist. With even more ‘modern’ technology, we are once again fishing something from our pockets to determine the time.
Smart watches are getting ubiquitous and people still wear regular watches. I always hated having something on my wrist so I’d get a cheapie watch and put it on my belt loop. Clearly I was a trendsetter
Just as a contrarian opinion, we got a Wyze garage door controller last year (before yesterday!) and it’s been helpful and relatively unenshittifiable – it just connects to your existing opener and doesn’t make any permanent changes. The clicker still works as it always has.
We got it because we apparently have a bad habit of forgetting to close the door when we’re excited to leave on a road trip, and our neighbor had to remind us on several occasions.
This smart device cost like $30 and took five minutes to install. It notifies us if the door is accidentally left open for too long, and we can remotely close it. We still use the regular opener (built into the car’s HomeLink mirror), but this is a nice backup for when we’re an hour out of town wondering if we did actually close it.
If the company enshittifies, oh well, that’s $30 we paid for several years of usage. Doesn’t seem like a bad deal. We unplug it and the garage door is back to the way it was before.
I’ve had the MyQ for, I dunno, 6 or 7 years. I like it, primarily (as many have noted) because I can check to see if I left the door open while away (or while I’m on the couch watching telly, yeah, I’m lazy).
I didn’t know about the automatically-close scheduling option, I’ll have to look into that.
FWIW, I have several “smart” appliances that I’ve never bothered to install the apps for, but I wouldn’t want to surrender MyQ.
mmm
I have a “clicker” for the garage door. I would normally say that I can hardly imagine any improvement on that, but my new car has a set of programmable buttons on the ceiling so that I can “teach” one of them the garage door code, and don’t even need the clicker any more. Now that’s an actual convenience, even if it’s minor. Fiddling with a smartphone app to open your garage door, in contrast, seems regressive.
Though is that a “smart” device in the sense of relying on an app that needs to be connected to some company servers in order to work? That’s the objectionable part of these kind of products to me. I don’t want to be unable to open my garage because the company I brought it from 6 months ago got acquired and the new owners don’t think it’s worth their while to maintain the sever.
Yes and no. Many Wyze products are kinda “hybrid” smart devices that can work with or without the internet.
For the garage door controller, for example, it basically functions as an additional remote. If the company dies or the servers get shut down or there’s an internet outage, then no, you can’t use the app to monitor or open the door anymore. HOWEVER, the existing door openers will still work… your clicker remote can still open it, your HomeLink car open it, your outside keypad can open it, etc. Nothing else changes. It just adds one more option without taking away the existing ones. If the services disappears, you’re out the $30 you spent on the controller, but everything else keeps working as before. It doesn’t replace your existing opener or remotes; it just works alongside them.
Their deadbolt smart lock is similar. It doesn’t replace the existing lock, just supplements it. When the app is working, you can use the app to open it. But any time you want, even without the internet, you can still use your regular key to open it. You can also use the wireless keypad to open it (the keypad doesn’t use the internet, just connects to it via a local wireless protocol).
Their cameras have optional SD card slots. Although it’s better to use them with the app (due to various smart features), I believe they will keep recording to the SD card even without internet (though it’s been a while since I’ve tested that). There’s also open-source replacement firmware for them. During covid, the company actually released some free firmware that lets you use them as webcams for meetings.
I should be clear and note that Wyze devices are very far from perfect. They’re janky in various ways. Their app is buggy. Things aren’t always reliable. But they ARE very cheap (most of their cameras are around $20, for example, and the door lock and garage controller were also quite affordable).
In the case of the deadbolt lock and garage door opener, we got them specifically because we’re renters and didn’t want to modify the property’s existing lock or garage opener. Even with the Wyze stuff added, the landlord can still use their key as before, or use the same garage door opener as before.
Every example given so far has regular mechanical clickers with the addition of internet support. Mine also has battery backup so the clickers will work if there isn’t internet.
10/10 rant but as other have covered, sadly wasted on a misunderstanding. I use the same old clickers that you know and love in my cars (I also taped one inside my house since I have a detached garage) but I can ALSO use the MyQ app. Not very often but it’s nice to have. I actually forgot about it for a few years, then I was drinking on my patio one night bemoaning the fact that I’d have to get up to close the garage door I’d left open when I remembered I could be lazy and use the app. Neat.
Wrong. The example I gave was the garage door clicker code integrated into my car. A minor convenience, but still, an actual feature, and not involving the internet.
Maybe I misunderstood but I thought you said you had a clicker that you didn’t use
For those using the MyQ solution, note that the objection of the guy who created an alternative was that the MyQ solution requires a connection to Chamberlain’s servers (Chamberlain is the company that produces the MyQ product and also sells many garage door openers). He wanted something that just connected directly to his own WiFi network. He also objected to the idea that companies change the terms under which services like this are available or eventually start charging subscription fees.
We just got a new garage door opener with MyQ capabilities. I haven’t installed their app, since just using the regular style clicker (and outside remote) works just fine, although it’d be nice sometimes to confirm that the door is closed using an app. So why don’t I use MyQ?
The new opener includes a camera that points to the garage door. I asked the installer about the camera. He sighed and said MyQ is or will be partnering with Amazon and perhaps USPS, so you could not only give the delivery person access to your garage, but you can watch them enter your garage. It doesn’t cover the entire garage, so you can’t see them walk into your house’s service door. That’s super creepy to me.
I believe you have to pay for this feature, so it’s unlikely you’ll enable it accidentally. The MyQ app has advertising on the main screen, is slow to load, and occasionally bugs out. However, as said, it is just another way to open and close the door, which I happen to have in my pocket anyway.
A less shitty system would be preferable, but it works and came with the opener. I use it frequently enough that if MyQ took it away, or required a subscription to use the basic open/close feature, I’d replace it with the Wyze or a similar system.
With their laptops or other valuable in them.