TailWind Smart

We have 2 Chamberlain garage door openers with the MyQ app that I installed in April, 2024. But trying to get any consistent response to open them with the remote when I arrive home was an exercise in futility. Once in a while, but rarely, it would start opening it from the end of the 50 foot long driveway, but rarely. Most of the time I had to be right next to the door for it to work. Very irritating, I might as well just get out of the car to open it like I had to do before I installed the openers. I know, straighten the antenna wire, install special LED light bulbs, but I had already done all of the things you read about on all the YouTube videos, and nothing made it work any better. Plus the MyQ app was very limited, like it only does one thing, open or close, that’s it, no other options. So I started researching aftermarket controllers, and looked at quite a few that give you a lot more features. And out of them all, Tailwind stood out, a lot of features, many options, especially ability to connect with Apple’s HomeKit. Yes, it’s slightly more expensive than some others, but well, well, worth it! And perhaps best of all, customer service! Scott Riesebosch, the owner, is awesome! You have a question, submit a ticket, and he gets right back with an answer. And his website is very comprehensive, very complete, especially the help and support area of the site. Yes, it has a Community area too, but unlike many other websites that just end there, Scott is personally involved in helping with any questions, almost all of which are already answered either in the very detailed manual, on the site, and on his YouTube channel. So I bought and installed Tailwind for 2 garage doors, the needed adapter because I have the Chamberlain openers, and the needed sensor to place in our car that works with our iPhones. Then I went into the app and adjusted all of the multiple settings to suit our needs, loaded the app and settings on my wife’s iPhone, and we were in business. And now every time we come home the garage door is automatically opening as we arrive, and we can just drive right in without a pause. Same thing when we leave, it automatically closes without us having to do it, so we don’t worry if we forgot to close it, it just does it all by itself. And there are numerous other features, night mode, partial open, scheduled open or close, stay open, and on and on. Absolutely love Tailwind!

After Chamberlain decided to start making life difficult for MyQ users, I looked for a new solution for integrating my garage doors into HomeKit and decided to go with Tailwind and I’m glad I did. Installation for two doors took a bit but everything is running beautifully and I couldn’t be more pleased with the result.

I’ve had this for years, I thought the concept was great, but the app has been a beating. It’s a “will it work?” every time we pull up. If I’m in range of my wifi, it’s easier to use Apple home to open it versus the Tailwind app.

Pretty cool in concept. When it works. Sadly, even though they did a great job with YouTube, tutorials explaining how to set it up and get everything working, they really dropped the ball on the software development experience, which is unfortunately all to common. The app itself is extremely buggy. Sometimes the garage door shows up sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes my vehicle shows up in the vehicle list (using the vehicle sensor), sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes the garage door just shows as “null”. They show you notifications about having to turn off and on the sensor when you first set it up even though you have already had it set up (or they are showing either incorrect text, we’re lazy or not properly validating that this is the first setup before showing the message).

Horrible battery drain. Even at home all day it takes 50% of my battery usage.

This app is great for what it is intended to do, but the background battery drain issue needs to be fixed. This drains my battery even when I am not in the house, but when I am at home it drains it so quickly. Please do something about it.

How have we lived without this??? No more leaving the garage doors open all night for the thieves.

We’ve been a long time user of Tailwind. We tried different brands of automated garage door system before, and so far Tailwind is still the best one out there for us. The only problem is when we switched from Android phones to iPhones. We did purchase the additional vehicle sensors from Tailwind, but the automated garage door open and close doesn’t always work. This problem was almost non-existent when we used Android phones in the past. According the note we got in the box of the vehicle sensors, it’s apparently got something to do with the bug within iOS 15. What we’d like to see is the integration with the Apple HomeKit. Siri Shortcuts still require us to tap “Open” after saying the command which is inconvenient when we’re driving. I saw on their website that the integration is still in beta. I hope they’re going to release it pretty soon. The Tailwind watch app also works well so far. We even find it more convenient to use than Shortcuts. I just wish the watch app has that watch face complication… Other than that, I still think it’s the best system to have. Five stars when the HomeKit integration is released and proven works with Apple devices! 😃👍

This was a wonderful add to my home and it worked flawlessly up until recently, the auto open/close feature works sporadically for iPhone users. Tailwind keeps saying it’s something Apple is working in which I don’t understand how it’s an Apple issue. Seems like it would be a Tailwind issue as maybe their app need to include a code for the new iOS 15 operating system. Right now it’s really not dependable and I had to put a security camera in my garage as an extra measure just to verify the garage is closed since I no longer trust the reliability of the auto feature.

Huge battery drain. Has taken the top spot in battery usage and runs down the new iPhones. Needs to be fixed asap