My son broke my garage door opener (won’t get into how – that’s a whole other post). Anyway, I picked up a new Genie and I’m digging into the box. It doesn’t come with bulbs but there’s a flyer in the box advertising Genie’s name-brand LED Bulbs and it says they don’t interfere with the the RF signals from the remotes. Is this a thing with similar LED bulbs? Or is this another way for Genie to make money?
Interesting, never heard of that being a thing before.
Sounds like genie wants more of your money to disappear! Tada!
I have had issues with some LED bulbs with my old genie opener. I would switch them out with another brand and it would work just fine. So I think there is some truth to it.
You could try just about any LED bulb you have and see if it works. If it works once, it should be fine.
Or just throw a regular incandescent bulb in it.
Or just throw a regular incandescent bulb in it.
Can you even find those anymore? regardless, garage door openers seem to eat through incandescent bulbs pretty quick. Not sure if it’s the vibration or what. So I’d like to go LED. I guess I’ll try the regular old GE or Sylvania bulbs first. Really don’t feel like paying extra for special bulbs – if they mess with the system, I have plenty of other uses for them in the house.
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>TillrLife wrote:</div>
Or just throw a regular incandescent bulb in it.Can you even find those anymore? regardless, garage door openers seem to eat through incandescent bulbs pretty quick. Not sure if it’s the vibration or what. So I’d like to go LED. I guess I’ll try the regular old GE or Sylvania bulbs first. Really don’t feel like paying extra for special bulbs – if they mess with the system, I have plenty of other uses for them in the house.
Yes it is a thing. Garage door openers have special bulbs for the purpose of frequency and vibration. Only reason I know this is because my cousin and uncle have been garage door guys all my life and I’ve done lots of work with them
LED bulbs operate at lower voltage than the 120 vac coming out of the wall. They have some electronics in the base to provide the correct power. Like most consumer products, it frequently is poorly designed and absolutely filthy as far as spewing out RF. How do I know this? I can hear my neighbors bulbs all over the place with my Ham Radio.
Interesting that these bulbs are noisy enough to mess up the operation of the garage door opener.
SR
had the same problem and had to get led garage door bulbs. took me over a month to figure out why my garage door opener wouldn’t work half the time. Led lights will also mess up TV’s at times if you are running off a antenna.
I believe it! When we use 2 way radios on jobsites, sometimes they power down the temp LED lighting when you hit the talk button. I have been finding the old school incandescent lights here and there. My wife hates LED so she has been hoarding the incandescents.
garage door openers seem to eat through incandescent bulbs pretty quick. Not sure if it’s the vibration or what. So I’d like to go LED.
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There are heavy-duty incandescent bulbs for vibration applications. That’s what I have in my opener, and they’re at least 2 years old.
y garage door opener wouldn’t work half the time. Led lights will also mess up TV’s at time
If you buy more quality LED that don’t flicker, there seems to be no visual difference to me. LEd can be current limited or use pulse width modulation to control brightness. If the pulses are too slow, you see them and they are very distracting.
Did you Genie come with phone open/close capabilities ?
I assume all brands come wifi enabled for use with phones.
The Chamberlain MyQ is simply one of the best items I have ever purchased and owned. You can check if your garage door is open or closed from your phone – anywhere or anytime. No remotes left in a truck or car than can open your garage door – by anyone!
Kind of wish we had this when our kids were in High School 
The app records the times the garage door opens and closes.
Regular “white light” LED bulbs work fine in our Chamberlain garage door opener. They have lasted a couple years now.
I had a problem with LED bulbs interfering with not only my garage door opener but the neighbors as well. I just tried a couple of different brands until I found one that didn’t cause a problem. This was a Sears Craftsman opener. It took me a while to figure out what was going on. The remote opener always worked when coming home since the bulb was off. But when leaving the garage and trying to close the garage door, if often wouldn’t work. It even caused the next-door neighbor’s garage door to open. Weird and kind of scary.
Next time your at a home store like menards, home depot , etc. Just get garage door opener bulbs. They are labeled and cheap enough to buy every few years. No need to keep trying random bulbs. That makes no sense.
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After replacing incandescent bulbs every 4-6 months I put random LEDs in my chamberlain opener and haven’t changed one in over 12 months. No problems with mine.
My son broke my garage door opener (won’t get into how – that’s a whole other post).
OK TL –
Now that you have your bulbs –
I recommend and use the Genie bulbs. I use them in both of my garage door openers. I tried regular led bulbs and the range of the wireless remotes was significantly reduced and sometimes didn’t work at all.
Isn’t the light “OFF” when you press the remote button?
Except when closing of course
My LED shop lights interfere severely with any regular FM radio in my garage. Super annoying, but as others have mentioned, a very real phenomenon.
Isn’t the light “OFF” when you press the remote button?
Except when closing of course
I’d say not always. The light stays on for about 10 minutes after the door closes. If you try to reopen in those 10 minutes the lights will be on.
I’ve never had an issue even when I have some super bright led lights in my garage too. I have something these and sometimes they get left on. Still, I’ve never had an issue.
This is good info in case I start having issues.
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Thanks all! Very informative replies, I’ll look for Garage Door LEDs…
I run Eco brand LED’s from Home Depot in my opener and have no problems. The interference probably comes from early LED technology. Todays LED bulbs are much better then 10 years ago.
I put a wall mount opener on the shaft, eliminates all overhead stuff and you don’t have to worry about the light bulbs in it! Way easier to install also.
I’ve never had an issue even when I have some super bright led lights in my garage too. I have something these and sometimes they get left on. Still, I’ve never had an issue.
I have those same lights, but I find they are not that dependable. I already had to replace 2 of them and one is out again.
How can the bulb interfere with the signal if it doesn’t come on until the door opener engages?
Guessing only when you go to immediately close it? Our opener has lost its range in every scenario. All four transmitters work at roughly half the distance they used to but I cant complain about a 25 year old unit.
Most openers have a button on the wall mount opener to turn the light on independently if you’d like to have it as a source for extra overhead lighting. Also, if something trips the photo sensors, the light usually comes on for 30 seconds or so. that’s the only 2 scenarios I could think of where the lights would be on prior to hitting the button. I do often utilize the light by itself so I will look for Garage Door LED bulbs.
We have recessed led’s in our garage ceiling. I’ve had times where I’m out there working with the garage door shut and the wife comes home and her opener doesn’t work. Usually I hear her pull up and open the door for her, but if tools are going you don’t always hear that. She’ll get out and use the keypad or her horn if she knows I’m in there.. No idea what bulbs are in the actual garage door opener.
A few bulbs flicker like crazy on the super cold winter days until they warm up or something. Maybe I need to find better bulbs.
How can the bulb interfere with the signal if it doesn’t come on until the door opener engages?
I have a feeling it has something to do with the safety features like the sensors for objects in the way.
We put in a new Chamberlin opener. Haven’t found a LED bulb that will not interfere with the opener if the light is on. Max distance on the opener is 15 feet from the door with the lights on. I can open it from 4 houses away if the lights are off. The best luck so far is an adapter that screws into a light socket and installed LED lighting that plugs into the adapter. I mounted the light bars as far away as I could get them from the opener.
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