Homelink very flaky

I back my car in so homelink rarely works unless my trunk is right up against the garage door.... Well this morning I did my normal routine and forgot to pull out all the way, the garage door closed and scraped the trunk and tore off the Tesla T on the trunk... Slightly dented but fixable.

So yea, Homelink has been deleted and I put my old garage door opener in my car...

Don't tell anyone, but aside from evMote, this is another problem I'm working on fixing. Small teaser:
Project Brahma - YouTube

I have this problem too. Does it happen when you use the original garage opener? If I remember correctly, I had to press that one a few times too.

I assumed it wasn't a Tesla problem, but if there is a solution I'm definitely interested in hearing it too...

Homelink is all over the place.

For me, I have a lift master door opener that's 12 year old. with rolling code. This has always worked flawless for me at 40+ feet away.

My Gate though is another story. I had a old version of a craftsman add on rolling code receiver that was never all that sensitive for my other cars. You had to be with 6-7 feet to get it to work. With the Tesla you had to have to nose almost touching the gate about 3 ft away from receiver to get it to work.

I ended up replacing the Gate receiver with a new Lift master receiver with a better external antenna. Now I can get about 10 ft of distance and have it work reliably.

Woland said:

Oh, to clarify, yes the normal garage door opener clicker works fine. I'd just prefer to not have to use it. Thanks!

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Never had an issue, indeed I can reliably open it before gps location makes icon go green. Let me know if you want me to pop over and try it with mine? (Back as of yesterday - yay! )

Woland said:

Does anyone have any insight into ways to improve my Homelink signal? A couple months ago it became very flaky: sometimes it opens / closes the garage door immediately, and from farther away; sometimes I sit right in front of the garage door and have to press the button 5 or 6 times (with 3-5 second pauses in between) before the door opens / closes.

Thanks for any insight / advice!

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I've been having the same exact problem, and just like you it started a few months ago. Before then it worked perfectly every time. The opener hasn't changed, the antenna wire is still hanging down. I've started to experiment with rebooting the 17" to see if it makes a difference. I have an RF cycle counter that I could also use to see if the car is actually transmitting a signal when this happens.

The transmitter is located in the front and I find it very directional. With the car ninety degrees to the garage opening, it gets iffy.
Make sure the antenna on the opener receiver is exposed and away from metal objects.

Funny that mine just started doing this last week. I have rebooted the main screen to see if that had any effect...it did NOT. Sometimes I can open the door from 100 yards out. Other times from 3 feet after pushing the Homelink button repeatedly. Never had this problem previously and nothing that I know of has changed on the receiver antenna or the car. Curiouser and curiouser as Alice would say.

I had the problem too, for the first six months. It is Tesla specific as the old remote worked correctly, but not from within the car.
So one day I decided to try something : I took a 15 feet phone wire and connected it to the Liftmaster short wire antenna.
I brought this extended wire all the way outside the door and passed it above the door plastic molding, and connected an unused old FM radio antenna, to this end.

I can now opened the garage door from the street...

P.S. I recently found this video that pretty much propose the same solution, but in a most permanent manner : Garage Door Opener Antenna Extension - YouTube

Mine has always worked flawlessly. Have you tired reprograming it?

I have an old old genie and a recent chamberlain. Both worked fine until recently. Couldn't figure out what was wrong... A lot of head scratching, until I figured out my new garage LED bulb replacements were to blame. The power converter in each bulb was totally messing up the homelink reception. Most of the newer cheaper LED bulbs create this kind of radio interference...

This was the fix Antenna Extender Kit 41A3504

Has worked perfectly ever since I installed one on each garage

vkrishan said:

I have an old old genie and a recent chamberlain. Both worked fine until recently. Couldn't figure out what was wrong... A lot of head scratching, until I figured out my new garage LED bulb replacements were to blame. The power converter in each bulb was totally messing up the homelink reception. Most of the newer cheaper LED bulbs create this kind of radio interference...

This was the fix Antenna Extender Kit 41A3504

Has worked perfectly ever since I installed one on each garage

Click to expand...

Interesting, but can't be my problem as I've had LED bulbs in my openers for well over a year and the problem only started a few months ago.

jcaspar said:

Mine has always worked flawlessly. Have you tired reprograming it?

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Mine as well. I can open my door from way down the street, well before the pop-up even shows.

My Homelink is flaky as well. Most of the time it works. Here and there, I have to press it twice.

I gave up on HomeLink for my gate and for the garage. Instead, believe it or not, I just use a 3-button (I use 2) remote control opener that clips on to my sun visor. It works far more reliably, and at further distances, than the car's HomeLink. About half the time I can back out of the garage and be 1ft from the garage door and HomeLink fails to work.

This seems to be the most recent Homelink discussion thread of several, so I'll bring it back to life.

I've had zero problems with Homelink until today. My wife absolutely could not get it to open our door, no matter what she tried. After 5 minutes of trying, she called me and I went out to the garage and pressed the button to let her in. We left an hour later together, and of course it worked when I pressed the button to close the door behind me. Returned home and it worked for me again to open the door.

Two more hours passed and I was headed back out and could not get the button to close the door. I didn't have 5 minutes to spare, so I called the house and had someone close the door for me. When I came back home tonight, nothing I tried got the door to open. I've usually been able to get the door to open 100% of the time from a spot at the end of our driveway as I turn around to back in to our garage. Not tonight. Not at any distance. Not even after I stepped out of the car and opened the door with an external keypad and parked in the garage could I get the Homelink to communicate with the opener.

Rebooting the center screen didn't help. I haven't changed any lightbulbs anywhere near the garage in several weeks, and haven't changed the bulb in the opener since before we bought our Model S. Any ideas other than trying some sort of range extender? I'd really like to know why it suddenly stopped, as a range extender wouldn't seem to be all that useful if I can't even get the door to open if I'm parked under the door operator right now.

I have the same problem, but only with one of my doors. This normally would be an indication that the receiver is the culprit, but I've ruled that out by carrying the normal remote with me in the car and that works flawlessly.

This has happened to me. Deleting and reinstalling the entry fixed it.