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Homey Garage Vehicle Detection

Garage Door with Homey

Open your garage door automatically when you arrive home by car — and only when you're driving.

What You'll Build

When you arrive home and your car is detected nearby, the garage door opens automatically. When you walk or cycle home, nothing happens. The automation uses:

  • GeoHook to detect when you enter your home area
  • GeoHook Vehicle Detection to ensure you're driving (Tesla Phone Key or iBeacon)
  • Homey to receive the webhook and trigger the garage door opener
Safety note: Automating a garage door has real-world safety implications. Consider adding safeguards in your Homey flow — for example, only open the door during certain hours, or add a confirmation notification before opening.

Prerequisites

  • GeoHook installed on your iPhone with an active subscription (required for vehicle detection)
  • A vehicle configured in GeoHook (Tesla Phone Key or iBeacon placed inside the car)
  • A Homey Pro or Homey Cloud with the Webhooks app installed
  • A garage door opener connected to Homey (via Z-Wave, Zigbee, or another supported protocol)
Network tip: Homey Cloud webhooks work over the internet out of the box. If you use a Homey Pro on your local network, we recommend Tailscale — a free VPN that makes your home network accessible from anywhere without opening ports or configuring your router.

Step 1: Create a Webhook in Homey

  1. Open the Homey app or Homey web interface
  2. Go to Apps → Webhooks → Settings
  3. Create a new webhook and give it an ID, e.g. open_garage
  4. Homey will generate a webhook URL like:
https://webhooks.athom.com/webhook/<your-unique-id>?tag=open_garage

Copy this URL — you'll need it for GeoHook.

Step 2: Create a Homey Flow

  1. Go to Flows (or Advanced Flows) in Homey
  2. Create a new flow:

When…

Select Webhooks → A webhook is received with the ID open_garage

Then…

Select your garage door device → Open (or Toggle, depending on your device)

Optional safety: Add a condition card to only allow opening between certain hours (e.g. 6:00–23:00) or only when someone is home (Homey presence detection).

Step 3: Set Up the Area in GeoHook

  1. Open GeoHook and tap + to add a new area
  2. Name it “Home”
New area with name Home
  1. Tap Add area detector
Add area detector dialog
  1. Choose Add Geo Area
  2. Set the location to your home — use Use Current Location or Edit on Map
  3. Set the radius to 150–200m — large enough to trigger before you reach the garage
Geo area editor with coordinates
  1. Confirm with Save
Why “Add Geo Area”? GeoHook supports two types of area detectors: Geo Area (GPS-based circle) and iBeacons (Bluetooth-based). Both count equally — an entry is triggered as soon as any detector is satisfied. For this guide, a Geo Area is sufficient. You could also add an iBeacon inside your garage for more precise detection.

Step 4: Add the Entry Webhook with Vehicle Condition

  1. In the location editor, scroll to Entry Actions and tap Add Action
  2. Configure the webhook:
    • Name: Open Garage Door
    • URL: Your Homey webhook URL from Step 1
    • Method: GET
Webhook editor with Open Garage Door name and Homey URL
  1. Scroll down to Only execute when
Vehicle condition section showing Always, Nearby, Not nearby options
  1. Select Vehicle nearby
  2. Choose your vehicle — this ensures the webhook only fires when you're driving
Vehicle nearby selected with Tesla Model Y checkbox
How it works: When you enter the geofence, GeoHook checks via Bluetooth if your car is nearby. If it detects the Tesla Phone Key or iBeacon signal, the webhook fires. If you're walking or cycling, the vehicle condition is not met and the webhook is skipped. You can see the result in the Activity tab.

Step 5: Test It

  1. Open the location in GeoHook
  2. Scroll to Debug & Testing
  3. Tap Simulate Entry
  4. Check the Activity tab:
    • If your vehicle is nearby: webhook should fire with HTTP 200
    • If your vehicle is not nearby: webhook should show as skipped (vehicle condition not met)
  5. Verify in Homey that the flow was triggered (check flow activity log)
Debug section with Simulate Entry button

Advanced: Close on Exit

You can add an exit action to close the garage when you leave:

  1. Create a second webhook in Homey with ID close_garage
  2. Create a second flow: When webhook close_garage received → Then close garage door
  3. In GeoHook, add the close webhook as an Exit Action
  4. Set the vehicle condition to Nearby (only close when leaving by car)

Advanced: Lead-In Area for Earlier Trigger

If you want the garage to start opening before you actually reach it, use GeoHook's Advanced Arrival feature:

  1. Edit the location and set Arrival Mode to Advanced (Early Arrival)
  2. Add a lead-in area with a larger radius (e.g. 300m)
  3. Enable directional check to only trigger when approaching home (not when passing by)
  4. Move the garage webhook to Arrival Actions (shared between lead-in and main area)

This gives the garage door time to open before you pull into the driveway.

Tip: If you only need the lead-in area as a wake-up helper for precision mode (not to trigger actions early), enable “Defer main area actions” in the lead-in area settings. This way, the app wakes up and activates precision monitoring when entering the lead-in zone, but actions only fire when you actually reach the main area.

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