Help! My Neighbor’s Remote Opens My Garage Door

Published on By Champion Garage Door Repair.
(Last modified on March 26th, 2024)

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Question:

My daughter built a new home a year ago equipped with a LiftMaster Garage Door Opener.  It turns out when the neighbor across the street opens/closes his garage door, hers is activated as well.  Is this a frequency problem? Can you suggest how to remedy this? Thank you.

– Frank R.

Answer:

If your neighbor’s remote or keypad can open your garage door, or vice versa, it is unlikely to be a frequency problem. It is possible that your neighbor’s opener and your opener have similar signatures.

The opener’s signature is a code that helps identify programmed remote controls and enables the garage door opener to distinguish signals from different remotes and keypads. The unique signature associated with a particular remote control allows the opener to interpret and respond to the transmitted signal accordingly, opening or closing the garage door.

To address this issue, you can follow these steps to reset the opener memory and erase the opener’s signatures:

  1. Locate the opener’s smart button or learn button. This button is typically found on the opener unit itself, on the motor’s control panel.
  2. Press and hold the opener’s learn button for 5-10 seconds. Make sure to keep the button pressed until the diagnostics LED turns off.
  3. To verify that the reset was successful, test a remote control that was previously programmed to the opener. If the remote control no longer operates the garage door, it indicates that the reset was effective.

Erasing the opener’s memory will render any previously synced remotes, keypads, and cars inoperable. To reprogram remote controls to the opener, press the smart button once, followed by pressing the button of the desired remote control several times.

4 comments

    • Hello Peter, the fact that your neighbor’s remote opens your garage door doesn’t mean that your remote will do the same.

  1. I have 2 garage doors. One is programmed for a particular remote. Never a problem before but now the second door is opening when programmed door is opened using remote.

    • Hello Keith, if your garage door opener remote opens both garage doors, reset the memory of both openers and reprogram the remotes using the steps above.

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