Smart gate opener upgrade in Great Falls, Virginia

All work is low-voltage (under 50 V DC). No line-voltage electrical work is performed.
Perimeter Surveillance Upgrades: Coming Soon (awaiting Virginia DCJS licensure)

Camera work is not part of any job booked here right now. The Virginia DCJS Electronic Security Business certification is in progress; this notice changes the day it is issued.

No video feeds are offered or installed today.

If your Great Falls driveway gate already has an opener, the smart part can be small: a relay module wired to the opener's push-button input, with a network cable and a battery buffer so it keeps working when Wi-Fi at the end of the driveway doesn't. Heron Networks LLC does that as a low-voltage labor job.

Start the Perimeter Upgrade Calculator

What "smart" means in this install

The module is a Shelly Plus Uni: a small controller with two dry-contact relay channels. We wire one of them to your opener's push-button input. When you tap the button in Shelly's app, the relay closes the contact exactly as a wall button would, and the opener does the rest.

To be clear about who does what: the GateWire site and app handle your job (the calculator, vetting, the deposit, your receipt and scheduling your install). They don't open or close your gate. Shelly's own app does that.

Our research found that the original Shelly Uni has been discontinued, so the Procurement Hub links the Shelly Plus Uni instead.

Why we run a cable instead of trusting Wi-Fi at the gate

A recurring complaint we found about a popular smart opener app was devices showing offline. Reviewers often traced it to the Wi-Fi: myQ hardware needs a 2.4 GHz network and doesn't work on a 5 GHz-only one. A gate at the end of a long driveway also tends to sit at the edge of any Wi-Fi signal.

A buried PoE line gives the module a wired network connection and its 12 V power over the same cable, so the connection doesn't depend on Wi-Fi reaching the gate.

If your opener already has a brand app

Some opener makers sell their own connectivity add-on. Ghost Controls, for example, requires its paid AXMC-R MultiConnect module for app control, and its smart bundles were listed at $734–$1,364. Reviews of the Nice G.O. app describe it getting stuck showing a gate as opening. We don't remove, reconfigure or troubleshoot a brand's own module or app.

If your opener's push-button input is already used by something else, say so when we contact you after vetting. A human reviews every job, and a shared input is exactly the kind of detail that decides whether it's in scope.

Great Falls specifics

Great Falls is an unincorporated community in Fairfax County. Nothing about the service changes with the ZIP code, but driveway length does, and a run longer than 328 ft needs a documented mid-span plan. The calculator checks this before you submit anything.

How a job goes

  1. Run the Perimeter Upgrade Calculator and add two line-of-sight photos.
  2. Your job is vetted on technical scope only.
  3. If it fits, pay the $400 refundable deposit (see the deposit terms).
  4. Buy the parts through the Procurement Hub and upload your receipt.
  5. Once the receipt is verified, tell us when you are free and we confirm a time.

Frequently asked questions

Does the GateWire app open my gate?

No. The GateWire site and app manage your installation job. The gate is triggered from Shelly's own app through the Shelly Plus Uni we wire to your opener.

Will the gate still work during a power cut?

The batteries at the gate keep the 12 V equipment there running for as long as the battery sizing in the calculator shows for your load. Opening it remotely during an outage also depends on your home network staying up.

Which Shelly module do you install?

The Shelly Plus Uni. You buy it through the Procurement Hub link, and we wire it to your opener's dry-contact input.

Can you add cameras to the gate at the same time?

No. Cameras are not offered until our Virginia DCJS licensure is in place, and a camera-first request is marked out of scope during vetting.

Sources