When we moved into our current house just over 10 years ago it had a couple of electric roller garage doors made by Gliderol. Then when I bought my S5 and paid for the Homelink option I had hoped that it would be compatible, but alas no. The doors were a bit clunky and loud, but worked, so I was loathe to replace them. My wife never like the colour, but claims that this had nothing to do with her forgetting to open her door before reversing out of the garage one day. A bit of metal bashing later the door was working again, but now even louder and more clunky. So I decided it was time to replace them.
I was then surprised at how few garage door manufacturers support Homelink. There are plenty of the type of operator which attaches to a manual door (e.g. the type which hangs from the ceiling and pulls an up-and-over door) which are Homelink compatible, but not for brand new bespoke solutions like electric roller doors. Most of the time when I contacted a company to ask if it was compatible the answer was "no", or even "what's Homelink?". But in the end I did find one - a company called Novoferm - and we have just had the two dirty cream-coloured clunky steel 25 year-old Gliderol roller doors replaced with insulated aluminium slat roller doors in a green colour which the wife likes.
Time to program the Homelink system in my S5 to operate the Novoferm doors which are Homelink compatible.
Now who is thinking "well Dippy, that must have been an easy process, I bet it took only a few minutes to do"?
Nobody? Well you must be a cynical as me then!
Indeed, after failing to get the car to recognise a new remote either with the "old" method described in the handbook, or the "new" one where the MMI provides guidance directly, I resorted to the interweb. Lots of info there. Mostly American (gotta love 'em). Most of it useless. But then of course, buried in the umpteenth thread I had found, was the pearl of wisdom I needed. Someone advised that it was necessary to hold the remote next to the Audi rings at the front of the car for rather longer than most people would think necessary. I had programmed the remotes to the new door operators by holding down the button for a mere second or two, so I think maybe I had waited around 10 seconds at the front of the car. Surely that was enough?
So back to the car. Set the MMI up to program one of the buttons. Back to the front and hold the remote at the rings and press the button. For how long? Well like waiting for a washing machine door to unlock at the end of the cycle I counted the seconds. I got to 20 and thought about giving up, but persevered. Then at 29 the indicators flashed 3 times - exactly what was supposed to happen when the car had learned the remote. Testing it out, indeed I had managed to sync the car's Homelink button to my new garage door, and it is now working well and with a good range.
But nearly 30 seconds? (and it wasn't a one-off, that's how long it took to learn the other button, for my wife's door). Surely that is something that the good people at Audi should have warned about in the manual?
