u/Traviscat

The short version is you plug the garage door opener into the remote. I took apart the remote like I was going to change the battery, I put the two wires that normally would go on the garage door onto the remote covering the appropriate button and watched on my security camera the door open and close when I opened/closed the door in the Meross app and in the home app. You do need to solder the wires to diagonal (maybe opposite? I only tried diagonal) sides.

I have the liftmaster 6690L and it was able to remotely open it successfully. Since my remote has 3 buttons I should be able to wire up to 3 doors on it. It acts like you are pressing the remote to open the door instead of just triggering the door itself. The only thing you have to watch out for is making sure you wire it to the correct button on the remote and that all the remote buttons are paired to the correct door.

Their guide is at https://www.meross.com/en-gc/mTerminal/FAQ/787.html

I was a little surprised on how well the Magicam handled the storm. The magnet was stronger than I thought it would be, I also have it hardwired in via a usb c to Ethernet adapter (power only) and with the Ethernet cord wrapped around the stand that is drilled into the wall so if the camera fell then hopefully the cord will catch it and it will dangle down instead of fall and not crash into a window.

The storm was pretty powerful, we had some fairly hard rain with thunderstorm and flash flood warnings on my devices. There were messages on the news about how the storm may be able to create tornados and to watch out and be safe a few miles away too. I did check on the camera a few times and opened the live view to make sure it didn’t fall off and it stayed still. The clouds after the storm and this morning were really nice. I didn’t expect to post another video so soon but I liked the cloud activity. I did have to cut out a section and trim the video down as some people walked in the frame.

Sindri n Fenrir herez. Last weak da hoomanz had a pay-n-turr ober doin sum tuch up wurk. Dey close da door but not all da way. We gibe dad a big scare wen we xplore da out syde. Fen was kaut pretty kwik. But I Sindri play in da forrest, I jump ober da lawgs n smak da leeves.

Dad no lik dat, we haz colla on dat had high ref-ref-leck-shun but he still had troublz findin mi in da dark. He bot us neu orang collar dat still fleckive ND he gibe us da traka! He says we haz an aire tagg on uz so he can fin us if we scape gain. Dis no fair! He also sayz minee iz lite red, but we all now it pink… PINK.. I iz furrocious boy cat, I shuld get blak like mi, stealth kitty… naut silly pink… PINK!!!

We no see bear but dad did step in bear poop 😸. Dey no haz litta bawx lik us.

Batari was angry as Kae exists, she demands the world belong to her only. She was staring Kae down and wanted to go smack her. She did smack her ball that was floating around in the pool a few times and she is STRONG. She later jumped in the pool but I didn't see that. She completely ignored the keepers in the keeper chat and decided that sitting down was more important.

Kae took a bath and lounged in the water for a bit, she did decide she wanted to participate in the keeper chat (As Batari said No) and got extra treats.

Picture 14, 17-20 are Kae and the rest are Batari. I had so many pictures it was hard to narrow down to the 20 reddit limits you to in one album.

I took all the pictures myself today. They announced yesterday evening that today was "Caturday" and had extra chats with the Lions and Tigers, along with extra volunteers out that had interactive things you could touch like a tiger skull, lions paw, lion paw print, and tiger skin/fur to educate the guests. It was neat getting to see how a tiger and lion's fur and claws feel without the near guarantee that you'd get eaten.

Willow was cute as always, she was running around this morning, then when I came back later she was asleep and got up and walked to the back. Doofah was monorailing up top then spider-manned up the back wall and down and back to his spot to take a nap. Khyana was not out in the morning but she was out in the afternoon snacking.

I did see one of the babies (or both?) on the camera. I was going to post a pic but the quality wasn't very good (shot of a tv screen up close) and I had like 30 images I needed to get down to the 20 image limit

Reolink did give me the camera to try out and post a few videos. I took a video of my view, this was the first time I took a timelapse video. The camera did fall on the ground from a few inches higher up and the IR filter was damaged as it showed pink when exposed to sunlight. After a few hours it worked again and I started a new timelapse video.

I think this would be a good test as it shows a full 24 hour cycle including high noon, midnight, and sunrise/sunset.

I am taking a few more timelapses and will post a few different videos (they asked for 5 one minute clips) when I can get a different experience. I am hoping we get a nice foggy morning soon and get to see the fog roll in and burn off, along with a nice big rainstorm to see how the camera handles the storm.

The timelapse feature requires a usb c connection and does not work on battery only. I have a Ethernet cord going to my network switch that has 48 POE ports and an outdoor rated Ethernet to usb-c adapter plugged into the camera.

I got a notification that the zoo made a new post, I opened it and triggered Siri and asked her to create the reminders. She scanned the screen to add them to my reminders list and got 6 reminders in one go. It has been really nice being able to say “remind me to get ready to go to the zoo at 7, 7:10,7:15, and leave for the zoo at 7:20” and she creates them all. I did move over to the Siri app on picture one for the screenshot as it showed the full conversation. Creating multiple alarms too is great as I can just have one command and she does it!

I did get the camera for free from Reolink to test it out and post about how I set it up and upload a few videos. I included some photos of it straight out of the box, a size comparison against my keyboard sitting on the numberpad, and what comes in the box.

My first real shot of it with a pretty difficult photo, indoors with a black cat and a black table and black monitor while having a window showing outside.

It does work on wifi only and comes with two batteries. You can use a USB C adapter to hardwire it into something or use an external battery pack. I have a ton of spare ports on my switch (48 POE ports) so I got a USB-C to POE Ethernet adapter for about $13 and a 100’ cord since I can’t do power over usb c for super long distances. I tried it and it works wonderfully, it recognized the power right away and is running on external power. Do note you can NOT use Ethernet or the usb c port for data, it is power only. All data is done via wifi.

I included some of the screens from the app that show the different power modes you can use while you’re in each setting. If you have external power you can have continuous recordings although it’s in 5 minute chunks.

It does come with a magnetic sticker to mount the camera, the camera does have a magnet on the back and you can stick it to anything magnetic that’s strong enough to hold it up. I didn’t have my big ladder like I wanted to use but I found my medium height ladder and set it up. I got a fairly nice view…. Then the sticker failed and my camera took a fall right on the pavers below it and landed in the dirt. The corner is scuffed up and the camera turned pink when exposed to sunlight. This occurred while I was getting the POE cord unraveled and set up and trying to find some tape or something to stick it to the wall and see how I can secure it without screwing things into the wood.

Since it already fell I brought it inside and popped the batteries out and let it sit for a while. I tried checking on it again and went to see if I can still use it and what worked. The black and white images worked and got my cat. I turned it off for a while then used it after sunset to see if I could mount it against the inside of the window to record overnight. That did not work at all, it just captured its own reflection. I popped the batteries out and let it sit overnight.

I went out to an event today and when I got home I tried checking up on it again. I brought it outside and pointed it up to the sky and it worked, pointed it for a second towards the sun but not directly at it and no pink! So I decided to mount it using screws. The mount was better, it had two screws and the entire center rotated 360 degrees. I screwed it into the house and wrapped the Ethernet cord around so the cord didn’t pull the camera down or angle it too bad. Plus if it does fall the cord should catch on the support arm and have it dangling down but hopefully not fall again.

It works great now, it’s already survived two small rain showers (and one big fall) and still works great. I set it up for a time lapse video to record one screenshot every minute for 24 hours. This should hopefully capture a full day cycle showing how it performs in the day, sunset, overnight in the dark, sunrise, high noon, and back to afternoon. I am curious to see how well it performs and hopefully this will be a true test of the cameras full capabilities.

One thing I did do that I’m not sure if I’m supposed to do or not was I peeled off the setup code. I made a cut between the barcode and QR code so I could stick them on two different places and I put them inside the camera. I did it this way so hopefully it will protect the codes from weather. I didn’t want to have to need to set it up again and scan the code and find it all sun bleached or weathered away. The back had a water resistant rubber seal all around it so it should keep the rain out.

If it works well I do plan on raising it up higher if the angle looks better and running the cable through the conduit I have for my starlink that runs to the network closet. I currently have it going down and around the house, inside with a door covering it and taped to the floor leading to the network room.

The media event was short at about 12 minutes and kind of not worth the wait. I got here about 7:50. Got to ride big bear and went home.

He looked so cute I just had to take his photo. I also included a photo I took about 8 hours ago so you can see his cute face.

I have had a high visibility collar on my cats since August 2024 when I was getting ready to move. I kept it on after I moved in and was glad I did. I woke up this morning and didn’t have my cat sleeping at my feet. I went downstairs and found the painters from yesterday had left a door open a crack and the cats knocked it open and were outside…. We have bears, coyotes, and more animals that could easily eat them.

I turned on all the lights and got everyone up and it took about an hour to hunt for the cats. Both were rescued and got inside and were checked for ticks as we have those too. I had to go through the forest around the house and thankfully my cats had their collar on as I could see them by the flashlight reflection in their eyes but if they weren’t looking at me I could spot them by their collar reflection.

One cat was easy to find and ran in quickly when I yelled at him to get inside and hid under a chair. The other I had to track through the trees and bushes.

Both are inside, one is skittishly walking around knowing he did a bad thing and the other is still panting after running outside. The breakaway collar is good to get in case they get their neck caught on a branch or something and the collar will fall off instead of choke them.

The door did look closed and they told us they closed every door and locked them but it was open when we looked at the cameras and tracked when they went out and approximately where they were when they were in range of the cameras. Next time anyone comes over to the house for work the cats are going to be brought upstairs with me and locked in my room until we can do a whole house sweep of every door to make sure it’s locked and secured before letting them out (they have their food, water, litter up here and it’s their safe spot). When the painters were here they were locked in my room with me but we didn’t do a whole house sweep as we didn’t think we needed to.

I got a new zoom lens and I can see the top of wild eagle, a bit of one other coaster and Nightflight Expedition. I didn’t know Nightflight was visible from here. I could see wild eagle before though and can hear the train from my room.

I needed an excuse to visit the zoo this weekend and getting a camera was the right excuse to go. I do really like that I can now "see through" some of the fences so I can get some much better photos of the animals. I rarely took pictures of the painted dogs as I couldn't get many good photos of them but now I can (And get some good shots of Maji)!

I took a ton of photos and only deleted about 60 photos where things like the camera decided to focus on the fence instead and I had to switch to manual focus.

I also got the Lego Red Panda and had to bring it over to the zoo for a photo of the pandas with the lego panda. Doofah was too hard to photograph with the lego, Willow came right up and posed very well, Khyana was hiding and I didn't see her all day.... I was hoping to see her so I could pop the back left leg off the lego and have a mini Khyana with the real one behind it.

All the photos were taken today, I did save them in CRAW format (.CR3) and converted them to JPG for posting on Reddit.

I had to use a mix of my camera and phone to record pictures (The phone got the video as I only have a telephoto lens). I took a video of her in the bath and multiple photos (She told me to post the pool photos for her OnlyPaws account). She later got out of the pool and went on top of her temple, found a ball and did what all cats do when they have an object on top of something.... knock it off.

They did give Jango a meatball in his pool on a big bucket's lid that had a floating thing under it so the lid would float, he tried to get it without getting wet and ate most of it but dropped the last bit in the pool and didn't get to eat that. I have it on video but couldn't upload pictures and videos in the same post.

I saw Bisky today at Zoo Knoxville and he was chewing on his stick.

They haven't announced it but his mom Zahra has been backstage for a few weeks. (🤰🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁). Bisky is still in his viewing room and allowed outside to play in the grass, he does not have physical contact with his father Maji yet but they have been doing the Howdy sessions and Maji does like Bisky. I heard that they were aware Zahra was going backstage soon and they didn't want to introduce Bisky to his parents without a barrier and then have to pull him away as that wouldn't be good for him and he most likely wouldn't be safe with just him and dad, he needs mom there to have a barrier between them.

I'll have to stop by again in a few weeks to see what happens.

Bisky did look really cute in some of the pictures, the last two reminded me of a blind person trying to use a walking cane. I think it is picture 14 where he has the cutest expression 😐

He did get a quail this morning for breakfast however it took him a few tries to get.