BTW - I should have said that its really the lift springs that do much of the work in lifting - not the opener which seems to me to function as much to overcome the inertia of the door
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Hope that’s true! I’ll update once I’ve confirmed, I hope that’s the case.
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Having trouble getting it installed. Posted a help question on Reddit which can be viewed here:
I just don’t trust that panel to bolt my door bracket onto.
After I resolve that I can move forward but want to be careful about busting a panel…
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Ok have it installed and working (base unit). Modules going up tonight, and wifi setup which I understand to be the biggest issue with this tool.
The belt is very quiet, liking it so far, but would like to reduce the door noise/wobble if I could. Will try to see what the issue is or if it’s just the door.
Hot topics/problem areas:
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Beeping/flashing complaint is legit. If you push the wall button to close the opener, it will beep and flash for 4-5 seconds. The flash and noise level is no worse than a normal person using their cell phone around you. It wouldn’t interrupt a conversation if one were happening near it. To those complaining about how loud it is… Perhaps Ryobi adjusted it since the first batches were shipped, because I dont see how it could bother anyone enough to complain about it.
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The sensors and indoor wall unit have ryobi’s speaker wire cable hooked up to them pretty good. I didn’t want to risk popping open the sealed sensor casings to unhook those and use the behind-the-wall run cat5-looking cable that the builder used. Nor did I want to splice Ryobi’s to those. So I’m running their cable with the included tacks along the wall and ceiling to the unit. Not a big deal and not that noticeable imo. The indoor wall unit you can take apart and use the in-wall wiring but you’ll see they have some coating on their own wires to prevent shocking the circuit board , and I figured if I’m already running the sensors might as well run that too.
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Figured out the door bracket and trolley-to-door bracket arm. Didn’t like where the builder set up the bracket for the genie unit, so installed mine in the proper place and seems to be working but I do have a bit of wobble/noise on the door panels. Dont think this is much different from before though.
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Beeping occurs even when closing with the indoor wall unit. Bummer but not annoying like people claim.
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Ok! So fully installed, been using it for a week with accessories. Here’s what I’ve found:
Cons:
- Sensors and keypad dont hook up to in-wall wiring easily, unless you want to splice things and potentially risk voiding the warranty.
- When closing the door with the keypad, the GDO will beep and flash the LEDs for 4-5 seconds as the door closes. The noise isn’t very loud, just enough to notice it.
- When closing the door with the APP, the GDO will beep and flash for a second or three before the door starts to close and then a couple seconds after. Again, not very loud. This is a silly deal-breaker.
- The sensor for the light to blink on has a limited range and anticipates your entry into the garage from the house is behind the GDO. Mine is in the front side of the garage, so the sensor doesn’t turn on for me. Oh well.
- Cord reel is only 10 amps. Which isn’t really a problem, I wouldnt want to use it for routing or my 12" miter, etc. anyway.
Pros:
- the cord reel is awesome!!
- the fan is OK, its not that powerful but its enough to make a breeze and get the air circulating. Still worth getting IMO.
- the fan can be controlled from the APP or the garage keypad on the wall and has 3 speeds and off.
- The belt drive is quiet, the unit makes a little whir but it’s the door itself that makes the noise.
- APP setup on android was flawless and works very well. It is slow to connect for me sometimes but thats more a limitation of my wifi than of the app itself I think, as the GDO is at the edge of my wifi range. I probably need an extender.
- Can charge ryobi batteries! battery acts as a backup IF the power goes out, otherwise sits there and charges batteries. I wouldn’t use it day in and day out as a charger just because I wouldn’t want to wear out the unit or the cover, but once in a while seems more than fine. I’ll use it for their tire/pool raft inflator that Ryobi makes.
- I smile every time I go into the garage, just can’t help myself.
- Ryobi has a great youtube video with step-by-step install that I used along with the manual.
Install took longer than I thought it would, removing the old GDO, sensors keypad, and brackets. Then installing the new unit. If I had to do it the next time, I could probably do it faster. But I’d rather pay a guy to do it for me.
Of course you can get a fan and cord reel separately… But it’s pretty slick to have it attached as part of the system and accessible through the app, etc. Who knows what future attachments they will think of?
Was it worth it? Sure if you are in the market. I wasn’t really, but was tired of my Genie chain driven tiny unit being as loud as it was. Will other competitors come to market with something similar? They’ll try but I’d be interested to see if Ryobi has patents on this modular design.
My overall experience was that it was fun, it WILL be useful, and it’s just cool to look at.
- When installing the power cord reel I found that the angle you need to ‘hook it on’ to get it to snap into place causes it to hit the mounting bracket above. You’ll be better off putting the cord reel in place before you mount the GDO to the ceiling mount brackets. I had to unmount and remount mine. Maybe it was user error.
** Concerning Home Depot reviews on this unit. I’ll be posting something in there too. There are a lot of noise complaints about the door close feature, and complaints about Wifi setup. I dont know if that’s user error or if Ryobi has listened to feedback and improved their software/firmware on their newest manufactured units, but I’ve not experienced those complaints or I dont think they are deal breakers.
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I’ve never installed a GDO–never needed one, quite frankly–until about three weeks ago. This was the unit that I installed and have been using since then.
Since I know next to nothing about garage door openers, I did a bit of research. The primary requirement was that it be as low-noise during operation, since the garage ceiling is drywall finished, and there is a bedroom addition on top of the garage; in which, as luck would have it, the bed is driectly over the final installation of the GDO.
After said “bit” of research, I ordered the Ryobi GD200 from Home Depot online on a Friday. It showed-up the following Monday. It must have shipped from a local warehouse; so, all-in-all, not bad.
The installation went better and faster than expected, primarily because I have shelving units in the garage that I rolled under the installation location, and placed the assembled opener lengthwise over the shelving unit. The header bracket went in easily enough, and I mounted the motor/gear head to the beam, secured right angle drilled strap directly to the head rails, and stacked cardboard under the head assembly until it was right against the ceiling. Pretty easy, with the shelving unit doing the stabilizing for me.
(I actually got the outer trolley on backwards, and didn’t discover this until the installation was complete. Whereupon I had to un-install the opener and switch the trolley around the right way, and re-install the unit again. That’s life, I guess)
Programming remotes, and setting upper and lower travel limits was fall-down easy, and getting the WiFi connected was a lot simpler than I thought it would be, judging by what I had read from other reviewers.
Start to finish (even with having to install-un-install-re-install), the whole job only took about 3 hours; and the door operation can’t be heard to any appreciable degree, in the bedroom above the garage.
My only problem was the range for the remotes. Since the door is a steel sectional (and is electrically grounded), operating the door via the small remote control units, from the driveway, was iffy at best. Forget opening or closing the door with the remote control unit in the car–too much metal shielding the signal.
My fix for this was to replace the dangling wire serving as an antenna with some RG-58/U coaxial cable, and run the cable along the drive beam, and out the front of the garage, above the door header, and mount a magnetic antenna base, upside down, to the bottom of the bedroom through the wall air conditioner sleeve above the center of the door.
I used 806mm (full wavelength for 372MHz) of stainless steel welding rod, and wound the center few inches into a coil, leaving a bit of it straight above and below the coil, and secured it to the antenna base.
Now, the door opens reliably, every time, even with the remote control sitting under the seat, in the car; which isn’t where it’s going to be permanently, but it makes for a good, worst case testing scenario.
I haven’t tried any of the modules, since there isn’t much need for any of them–except, maybe, the cord reel. That’s for another time, though.
Overall, I’m very satisfied with the product, and it’s performance (after the added antenna, of course). I hear that Ryobi has come-up with an antenna kit for such circumstances, should people need it.
Ryobi Tech Support was able to provide the information that I needed to make my enhanced antenna, and was forthcoming about the issues that have been reported with remote control signal reception. Upon that basis, I would recommend that anyone consider this unit for their own needs.
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Just bought one of these thing yesterday. If it holds up I’m going to be EXTREMELY happy with it. The only complaint I have is that there was nothing that told me it didn’t come with the mounting bracket. It was the only PITA I had. Other than that it seems like a very solid product. I’m a Milwaukee and DeWalt guy and have always been hesitant buying Ryobi but between this and the power washer I borrowed, the might have better products than I gave them credit for.
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UPDATE:
I’ve now had this GDO for over three months. I have only had one issue. Something got in the way of the safety sensor which caused the door to stop (a good thing). I was able to get the door back up but for whatever reason, it would not go back down. CS was outstanding in helping me over the phone. Their suggestion was to turn the sensors 180 degrees (which I admittedly scoffed at) and for whatever reason it worked.
Thought I would share this too… I can be a bit of a perfectionist at times and felt as though I could get the mounting bracket straighter than I did. So, I took the unit down and then… SLIP… and then… BANG! There was the best GDO I have ever had… laying there on the garage floor following a big THUD… I am happy to report that, internally, everything must have survived just fine because once I got everything mounted back up, everything worked just fine.
I love this GDO. Do I wish the extension cord was better than 10 amps? Sure, but most things will work just fine on 10. I can not give a higher recommendation for a GDO.
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Love the Ryobi GDO except for the outdoor keypad can not be used to open the door. I have an insulated steel door so I suspect that there is a signal issue. I contacted Ryobi and they sent me a new unit FOC but I had the same issue. The unit will close the door but not open it. Obviously this is inconvenient at times but it’s not really an overwhelming issue as I can use the phone app to open the door.
So I purchased this and installed it. Upon completion I had 2 FOBs a key pad a interior door remote , my built in Jeep opener and the app all cued up and working last night… this morning the app dropped my password and said I was wrong on entering it… had to reset it and NONE of the remotes worked except the app after password reset anyone else experienced this? Oh and the sensors are appropriately installed as well both six inches off the deck and leds both working properly one red one green, green goes out if something crosses the beam.
Try checking the lock. Sometimes its seemed to set itself in travel mode in the app and disables the remotes.
If you mean on the remote I’ll try that I haven’t found a lock function in the app yet
You’re right I dont see it in the app either. Try the lock button on the indoor keypad that’s hardwired to the motor.
So I spoke with Ryobi techs got a knowledgeable one thankfully. He walked me through the manual reset procedure (hold program for 30 seconds no indicators given that 30 seconds has hit) once I did this I was able to reprogram all remotes without an issue. After we discussed it the only thing he could come up with was that the GDO was still in a test mode from the factory which causes it to reject programmed remotes or dump them. Hope this fixes the issues.
Just thought I’d update this. So after speaking to the last tech my Ryobi worked for two days. Then the app server crashed and locked me out of the app for 12hrs… during that time my remotes operated the door no biggie right… after the app came back it forced the opener to dump my remotes. Called customer service after waiting hours I was informed I needed to unplug my GBO for five minutes which should reset my remotes to work… no luck still didn’t work. After calling customer service again and explaining what happened they told me it was a defective motherboard, and needed to be warrantied and sent back to them… that’s kind of ridiculous the unit was brand new and had been installed for less then week, on top of that I am a electrician everything worked fine until the server crashed… it’s not broken. The rep then decided to argue with me and told me they make over 100000 units of this… and some just slip through broken past there QAQC… so I asked about the complaints going back to 2016 regarding this same issue I found… no response. Needless to say I uninstalled and bought a Chamberlain 970 and have been absolutely impressed by it… out of the box remotes worked installed in two hours and tied right to my home WiFi and alarm without issue.
Curious as I have one but mine doesn’t have places to plug a battery in and have yet to get it to work on WiFi or the app. How did you get someone from ryobi on the phone?
One of the best things I did in my garage was to replace the belt based opener with a direct drive unit. No track or opener in the middle of the garage and it’s much quieter. I also re-did the tracks at the time so the door follows the roof line at a ~30degree angle so I also have more space. Of course, this required new springs but the math wasn’t all that hard and it really wasn’t as scary as I expected to work with the torsion.
Personally, I can’t understand why anyone would want their garage door opener on the internet. Seems like you’re just asking for a security problem because there is no way it’s going to be hacker-proof.
For anyone looking to disable the alarm, here’s how it’s done. I don’t recommend unless you are qualified and comfortable working on power or electronics. This will also likely void any warranty you have.
About center on the board is a round speaker. To the lower right it will be marked buz1. Use a soldering iron to unseat the two pins. Done!
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Nice fix
I know some people have claimed that the alarm is really loud, but mine is about the same volume as my old garage door, which doesn’t bother us.