Creating a Visual Solution for Enhanced Customer Experience Using Amazon Rekognition with Chamberlain Group

CG, a global leader in intelligent access, was founded in 1954 and has products in more than 50 million homes across the United States. Its myQ app has over 11 million users and counting, plus 8.4 million connected garage door openers. With the myQ solution, residential customers can automatically open and close their garage door, schedule a time for their garage door to close, and record access events.

Previously, customers had to search a list to see if their device could connect to the myQ app and then find and follow instructions to connect. CG wanted to get users connected as quickly as possible and chose Amazon Rekognition. “We already used AWS for our video and camera infrastructure,” says Benjamin Hunt, video, artificial intelligence, and middleware developer at CG. “Our experience using AWS services brought peace of mind concerning reliability, uptime, availability, and ease of use.” Using Amazon Rekognition, potential customers can scan their devices with the app to determine and initiate connectivity.

After initial testing, CG’s myQ solution using Amazon Rekognition was in production within 1 month, and the new features went live in November 2023. The myQ Compatibility Checker was launched to let anyone with a garage door opener take a video of it with the myQ app. Amazon Rekognition uses video images to determine whether the device can connect.

“Anyone with a garage door opener, regardless of the brand, can scan it and connect it to our system,” says Jishnu Kinwar, vice president of advanced products at CG. “Our goal is to make it very easy for consumers to identify what they need to connect.”

The connection process is much quicker and requires less work for the customer. If the garage door operator has wireless internet, the myQ app will prompt customers to make an account to get it connected. Alternatively, if the garage door operator is compatible with CG’s Smart Garage Control hub, it will ask customers if they wish to purchase one. This reduces friction for customers who previously had to identify connectivity on their own.

CG has seen a significant uptick in user connection rates in the myQ app since adding Amazon Rekognition, with thousands of new connections. Users who scan their garage door openers are much more likely to get it connected than before.

CG continues to innovate its myQ solution and add more features. The company is considering the use of 3D-generated data to train machine learning models using AWS to further capture the capabilities of garage door openers for its app.

“Our new feature using Amazon Rekognition has shown to be incredibly valuable in giving customers a better understanding of how to connect,” says Hunt.