Losing your garage door opener is scary, possibly giving a stranger access to your garage and all its possessions. You may be asking: I lost my garage door opener, what can I do?
It is becoming more common for burglars to steal garage door opener remotes to gain access to your many valuable possessions. According to Garaga, stealing garage door openers have become one of the top techniques used to break into someone’s home.
One of the tactics used by criminals is to roam big parking lots, looking for an unlocked car. Once they find one with a remote, all they need to do is locate the registration for the car where they will find your address.
Because of this, as soon as you realize your garage door opener is missing, it is very important to disable the remote. By doing this, the remote will become useless if it was stolen.
How to Disable Your Garage Door Remote?
- Locate the motor housing: the motor housing is the box on your ceiling that provides the power for your door to open.
- Find the Smart Button: depending on the model, you will find a red, orange, green, purple, or yellow Smart Button, sometimes called Learn Button, on the motor housing.
- Press and Hold button: once you locate the button, press it and hold for a few seconds. When it has worked, normally there is an indicator, like a light that blinks. This will disable all remotes and keypads that were programmed to the opener.
- Test that it has worked: If you have access to another remote, push the button to open the door, it shouldn’t work. This means you have successfully disabled all remotes.
How to Reprogram Garage Door Remote
Now that you have disabled all the remotes, if someone has intentions of using your lost or stolen remote to enter your garage, they will be unable to do so. But now, none of your other remotes work either.
According to Garage Door Repair Birmingham AL (website), reprogramming your remote is normally an easy task. You can consult your user manual for information specific to your type of garage door opener.
If you can’t find the manual, search for your manufacturer’s website. It is likely that you will be able to access the user manual, and they may even have videos providing you with step-by-step instructions.
For most brands, it will be a very similar process:
- Find the smart button on the garage door motor housing.
- Press the button once, do not hold down.
- Within about 30 seconds of pushing the smart button, press the button that opens the door on the remote you want to program
Your remote should now be programmed. Hit the button to test it. If you are the type of person who needs to see the process to understand how to do it, I found this video to be helpful.
How to Prevent My Garage Door Remote from Being Stolen?
According to SafeGuardTheWorld, in the United States, there are 2,000,000 homes burglaries every year. One of their methods is to steal your garage door remote so they can get in the garage. In a lot of cases, having access to your garage can also give thieves access to your entire house. This is scary.
Although you can disable the remote if it gets stolen, what if you don’t notice in time? You could be at work and only notice at the end of the day. This would give burglars access to your house all day. Plenty of time to steal all your valuables.
Because of this, it is important to take the steps necessary to prevent it from happening:
- Never forget to lock your car door. Some people have the impression that their car is safe in their driveway, but many garage door remotes are stolen at night in people’s driveways.
- Don’t hang the remote on the visor. Make sure that it is not right there for the potential thief to easily see it. You could put it in your glove compartment or center console. In fact, if you feel you are leaving your car in an unsafe place, you may even consider bringing it with you.
- Another option is a keychain remote. This type of remote is much smaller, like the remote you use to unlock your car. Having your remote on your keychain means that there is almost no chance of you leaving it in your car, and you will almost always have it somewhere safe.
Losing your garage door opener is something that happens. You can follow all the steps to avoid this from happening, and still find yourself haven misplaced your remote. In case it has ended up in the wrong hands, remember to disable it as soon as you notice you don’t have it anymore.