Welcome to the second part of our guide to the smart home, a ten part series focusing on what devices and gadgets you can use to turn your home into a smart-home on a budget, sort of.

You may have noticed, but here at A&T Tech we cover a fair amount of news about smarthome gadgets, such as the Nest Protect smoke alarm, Phillips Hue light bulbs, Thermostats, washing machines, door locks and more. While those products get mentioned in a news format – we never discuss the actual gadgets at length. Well, in this new ten or so part series we discuss the latest gadget for your home and how they can make your life easier.

Next is the Chamberlain MyQ garage opener. This simple device basically can open the garage door from your phone or tablet, it can also show you if it is open or closed. Essentially, this is an internet connected door opener, but it can integrate with the rest of your connected devices – which makes it have a lot more value. It lets you open and close the door from your smartphone, give you access to whether the door is open or closed and it will alert when if opens. The actual device is a small black rectangle (about palm size) which attaches to the wall on your garage. Like everything in the IoT – it comes with an app, the MyQ app is available on iOS and Android and it uses the home network to connect to. Also, when HomeKit finally launches – Chamberlin are one of the launch partners.