A little known fact: we started out in a humble garage in the middle of Manhattan and have affectionately called our subsequent homes “the garage,” regardless of their location.

Some news: today, GoControl joins our ever growing ecosystem of Wink-compatible garage door openers, including Chamberlain.

With both of these in mind, we thought some helpful pointers were long overdue on how your garage door opener can be an integral part of your smart home:

Connect them with outdoor lights: This can particularly useful if you have a detached garage. Set up a Robot in Wink that triggers the porch or patio lights to turn on as soon as the garage is opened and you’ll never trip down a dark walkway again.

Let a friend or family member in when you're not home: Here again the ability to control your devices remotely can come in very handy. Need to give a neighbor access so they can pick up or drop off a tool midday? No problem. Kid forget their house key but you know the door between the garage and the house is unlocked? Voilà.

Set up a Shortcut to make bedtime easier: If you have a garage, it’s a fair guess that your dwelling is on the larger side. Which means more lights to turn off, thermostats to adjust and doors to lock before you fall asleep (or questioning whether or not you completed everything while in bed). A great way to make the process easy is by setting up a Goodnight Shortcut in Wink so that you can shut down multiple products - including closing your garage door - in a pinch.