Chamberlain Group is discontinuing its HomeKit-compatible myQ Home Bridge Hub because of low sales, though existing models will continue working.
The myQ Home Bridge Hub has been out of stock on Chamberlain's website for a few weeks. On Tuesday, the company confirmed to The Verge that it has officially discontinued the hub.
"As our products continue to evolve, we have decided to discontinue production of our myQ Home Bridge Hubs," said George Rassas, group product manager at Chamberlain Group.
As far as why, Rassas said that less than 1% of myQ users were actually using the Home Bridge product. However, Rassas said that existing products will continue to work "for the foreseeable future."
Chamberlain is known for making a range of myQ garage door openers that connect to the internet via Wi-Fi. Its hub, which was first released in 2017, served as a gateway between its others products and Apple's HomeKit platform.
Prior to being discontinued, the bridge ranged in price from $70 to $90. The bridge https://appleinsider.com/articles/17/01/04/chamberlain-announces-smart-garage-hub-to-connect-any-garage-door-to-apple-homekit">allowed Apple users to ask Siri to open, close, or check the status of their garage door openers, as well as other products.
When asked by The Verge about any potential alternatives to the hub, Rassas only said that the company's goal is continuing to work "with leading connectivity brands to deliver seamless products and services that complete the smart home."
26 Comments
We have one of these, and it's the only way to bring our garage door into HomeKit - the garage door uses RF to communicate with the bridge. It has been very reliable in general with only one off-line incident in several years.
The reason for low sales is that it’s well known that it’s a piece of crap device. I can attest to the accuracy of that as well since I have one. Initial setup and configuration is a nightmare…and I’m a tech guy. The install instructions never worked and always required a call to the support line that had different instructions…that they would never post!!! Also the design and architecture of the chamberlain/liftmaster setup in general is terrible.
Sure they are supporting matter right?
We have one as well and its performance was spotty at best. When it worked it was really good. But it frequently took itself offline and twice just disappeared from HomeKit. When I changed routers I could never get it back.
Unfortunately, that's expected with the upcoming Matter protocol that will be the standard for home automation. Why support a device that only works with specific platforms? That's the biggest issue I had with Apple's HomeKit. Apple finally will add support for Matter meaning that every device with Matter logo should work on HomeKit, even if it's not built for it.