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a little light reading

Lighting Trends - Product Insight - Industry News

Do LED Bulbs Interfere with Garage Door Openers?

10/19/2017

20 Comments

 
Garage Door Opener with LEDs
If you use a garage door opener and it's suddenly stopped working with its remote opener after working fine for years, you might need to take a look at your light bulbs. At least if you changed them right before the garage door opener stopped working.

That's because a door opener works with its remote control on radio frequencies, just like remote controlled cars and even household wireless phones. And like any electronic device, a light bulb can produce electromagnetic fields with the potential for interfering with those wireless devices.

This is especially a concern with the rising adoption of LED light bulbs, whose drivers (a part inside the bulb) actively produce a field in a range that can interfere with garage doors. Some bulbs have been known to prevent garage doors from opening, or even to open them on their own!

Rest assured, you can still use LED bulbs for your garage lights, even within the garage door opener. You just need to buy light bulbs that don't cause this problem. How do you do this?

Well the fact is, a little shielding inside the LED can keep most of the Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) from escaping and can allow your garage door to work just fine. Unfortunately, with consumers demanding the lowest price possible on LEDs, plenty of companies have tried to meet that demand by foregoing quality issues like this shielding. We've spoken before about the risks of buying LED bulbs from unknown brands that don't have US reputations to uphold and may not be around to back up their warranties. We can add this to the list of risks.

While we can't guarantee that a name brand LED bulb will work with your garage door, we expect it to give you excellent odds. Especially because name brand LEDs should be marked with the FCC logo showing FCC compliance -- this includes minimizing RFI that would keep a garage door from working. If you see that logo, it's likely that the bulb will work without issue.

Of course if your garage door opener has stopped working with its remote, make sure to check the batteries in the remote before you take additional steps like buying new light bulbs. But if new LED bulbs seem to have caused the problem, look for a brand you can trust and an FCC label and you should be in good hands. Since we only carry LEDs whose brands we trust, you may want to look at our selection here. And while they last, you may want to consider this package of non-dimming A19 LEDs here for a great price per bulb.

Will those low-cost bulbs solve this problem? They should. The back of the package begins with the following:

"This device complies with Part 15 of the FCC rules. Operation is subject to the following two conditions: 1.) This device may not cause harmful interference, and 2.) This device must accept any interference received, including interference that may cause undesired operation."

20 Comments
david Ambler
8/15/2018 04:03:10 pm

I just installed a Craftsman series 100 opener I used incandescent bulbs in it and the garage overhead lights.However the outside light for the garage is LED mounted motor high. When I flip that light switch the door opens or closes without touching any opener controls...Been driving me crazy for 3 days...Tonite I will replace all LED's within 20 feet of the unit...

Reply
Brittney @ Lighting Supply
8/16/2018 11:42:40 am

Hi David -

Glad this article may have helped you! I hope the issue is solved once the light bulbs are replaced.

Reply
Rick W
9/25/2018 12:31:07 pm

I replaced my garage overhead light with an LED bulb and could not figure out why the door would open but then not operate for about 3 minutes via the remote. Waiting was annoying to say the least. Now, I realize that the waiting time was for the light to go out! Will be replacing the LED bulb tonight as soon as I get home.

Thanks!

Reply
Brittney @ Lighting Supply
9/28/2018 01:53:50 pm

We're happy you were able to figure out the problem! Let us know how the switch goes :)

Reply
William D Lee
10/25/2018 04:11:29 pm

I just installed some LED tube bulbs in my bedroom. With the led lights on, my ceiling fan remote will not turn on or off the ceiling fan or light. RF issues?

Reply
Ron
11/18/2018 06:35:39 am

Replaced light on GDO with 100w LED, remotes and Homelink worked intermittently. Suspected light bulb, these comments confirmed my suspicion. Thank you, Ron

Reply
Brittney @ Lighting Supply
11/21/2018 04:04:40 pm

Glad we could help!

Reply
Stephanie Lee
12/11/2018 06:21:31 pm

Can LED lights from a NEIGHBORS house interfere with my garage door opener? (or- up to what distance will LED lights effect an opener?)

Reply
Mark
12/16/2018 03:09:38 pm

This is exactly what happened to me. I put in LED lightbulbs in my remote control in my car stopped working. I was shocked to find out that it was the lightbulbs. Ecosmart brand.
12-5-18.

Reply
Sam
12/23/2018 02:44:24 pm

I installed a Ring camera outside the garage and now my remote stop working. The Ring camera does have LED lights on it. Can this be the issue? Anyone has ran into this type of problem before?

Reply
Chris Conrad
3/21/2019 11:07:39 pm

My garage door opener range is about 10 feet since I installed the Ring Floodlight Cam!

Reply
Ken Detmer link
1/12/2019 09:55:27 pm

Yesterday I removed that LED bulb after the opener surprisingly stopped at 3/4 way open. My mirrors and backup said all was good but being in a hurry, I backed our van and crunched the door. Nobody needs an intermittent problem like this.

I went about 3 years with the LED bulbs in my garage door opener and thinking back made me realize our remotes sometimes had annoying issues when approaching the garage. I thought the openers were getting weak.
For instance it would open a few inches then stop. It always worked though when you got closer or the bulb warmed up a bit.

Reply
Brittney @ Lighting Supply
1/14/2019 04:21:03 pm

Hi Ken -

I'm so sorry to hear about your garage door and van! Hopefully there wasn't too much damage done. It's quite possible it's the LED bulb that is causing the issues. It may be in your best interest to switch the light bulb for a different technology to test it out.

Reply
Dan
2/4/2019 08:15:10 pm

I have the same problem with my garage door opener. The problem is that I bought Cree bulbs (different location) that had the message "This device complies with Part 15 of the FCC rules." but they still interfered. Counterfeit bulbs maybe? Can you link me to a proper A19 non dimming 60 watt replacement bulb on your site? I need a pair of quality bulbs for my opener.

Reply
Brittney @ Lighting Supply
2/6/2019 03:05:51 pm

Hi Dan!

We have a TCP 4-pack of non-dimmable LED A19 bulbs. However, I cannot guarantee that they will not interfere with your garage door opener. These bulbs come in 2700K (warm white) or 4100K (cool white) and are both in stock.

Item numbers: L9A19N1027K4 / L9A19N1041K4

I hope these help!

Reply
Scott
1/10/2020 03:34:32 pm

In my garage I have a LiftMaster door opener from 2016. I used LEDs from Genie that are supposed to prevent problems mentioned in this post.
It’s been two years with no issues

Also in the garage I have an overhead 8-foot fluorescent
And out I have four Hue bulbs

No issues

Reply
best garage door remote controls link
6/14/2020 06:08:29 pm

Hi there, just became alert to your blog through Google, and found that it is truly informative. I am gonna watch out for brussels. I’ll appreciate if you continue this in future. Lots of people will be benefited from your writing. Cheers!

Reply
Nemur Haber
7/7/2020 12:13:24 pm

I have a lift master opener and I installed 100W LED bulbs. All was good until recently the light on the opener comes on by itself.

Reply
EShine link
10/21/2020 04:40:35 am

Thanks for sharing this precious information with us this help me in my project even...

Reply
Frank Coyer link
10/23/2020 10:47:31 am

Intriguing! Many would never have even thought about it that a light bulb can interfere with its functionality. During garage door repairs, you can confront several obstacles like these that you will not even know about it.

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