How to clone Garage door remote controls

The first remote was invented by two US inventors in 1938. The garage door remote opener has come a long way since it was first invented. Wireless remote controls became more popular after their first use in World War 2, back then their only application was to detonate remote bombs.

Remotes were based on a simple concept of a sender and receiver which used a single frequency. The growth in popularity became problematic for the single frequency remote; one would open your garage door and your neighbor’s door at the same time. This problem was rectified by creating a multicode frequency, each remote and receiver would only respond to a certain code on that frequency.

Cloning your garage door remote can come in handy when you have multiple users and only one remote or when your remote has seen the end of its functioning career.

Here is how you do it:

Step 1: Buy a new remote or use an old remote which is still in working order. Open your remote and match the codes exactly with the new remote, test it a couple of times. If it doesn’t work then open it up again and try it with a new battery.

Step 2: Open your remote; if you don’t see any numbers or sliders inside the remote, don’t panic, you simply have a fixed code remote. These can be cloned; all you have to do is purchase a self-learning remote. If you already have one then you can reset the memory by pressing the small button, usually located on the bottom left of the circuit board. Once you have done this, hold the self-learning remote next to the original remote and press the button you want to clone on both of them for about 10 seconds. Test the remote to see if the programming took, if not try programming it again.