LiftMaster8500 Wall Mount Garage Door Opener Package

I just finished installing this opener this afternoon, and so far, I am very pleased with it.It wasn't entirely a perfect experience, but the vendor did a great job making things right. The box arrived in good shape, and appeared to be factory-sealed. When I opened it, however, I found that the 3-button remote and wall control were missing. I sent an email via Amazon's messaging late on a Sunday and got a response first thing Monday morning. They shipped the missing items via Priority Mail and I had them in my hand by Wednesday afternoon.My garage has a support beam that runs the width of the garage which prevents installing a conventional opener. I only have about 2 inches of clearance between the beam and the door when it is open.This opener drives the jackshaft from the end, which avoids my clearance problems.The installation was very straightforward. I found it to be far simpler than any of the chain/belt drive styles. Working alone, the installation took about 3 hours.One thing to be aware of - you need something solid behind the opener to bolt it to. This isn't load bearing, it just serves to stabilize the unit and keep it from moving back and forth as it drives the shaft. I initially tried to install the opener on the left side of my door, but found that I only had drywall behind it. I was able to solve this by moving it to the right side of the door, where I could bolt it to a stud.The unit is incredibly quiet in operation, all you really hear is the door itself.I installed it with the optional Internet Gateway, which allows you to check whether the door is open or closed (and how long it has been that way) from a web site or smartphone app. You can open or close the door remotely, though I am not sure why you would want to.I am looking forward to using it for a while, and I will update if anything changes.***Update*** 2/9/14Have had this opener installed a little over 2 months now, and I *love* it!It works perfectly and is amazingly quiet. I literally cannot hear the garage door operating from anywhere within the house.I thought that the Internet Gateway option would have pretty limited utility, but I find that I use it fairly frequently. It allows me to open or close the garage door from my smart phone, as well as checking the status of the door - is it currently open or closed, and how long has it been that way? What good is that? I often work late on Thursdays, which is the night before garbage day at our house. I can check the door as my teenage son's bedtime is approaching. If the gateway shows that the door has been closed for 2 days, I should probably call home and remind him.I have also set up the MyLiftmaster web portal so that it sends me an email if the garage door stays open for more than 1 hour. There have been at least a couple of occasions where I have finished working outside, cleaned up, and gotten an email reminding that I had left the door open.All in all, I am still very happy with this purchase.

This is being used on a 14' RV Garage door that is quite heavy. It's a liltle sluggish when closing from a fully open position which leads me to wonder how long before it burns up or quits working. The Liftmaster 8500 was recommended by an installer that does this for a living so that iis why I went with it. Not all that easy to install. After reading all the installation instructions I opted to hire a garage door installer on the side for $200 and I am glad I did as there is a lot to do for the install. I am amaized at how quiet it is. I have a standard ceiling mounted door opener on my house garage that is for a normal size door that is 3 times noisier than the Liftmaster. I recommend a wall mount over any other style garage door opener.

These are well built, quiet operating units. The instructions are detailed and clear and installation is pretty easy. This is the second one I have purchased. I do have one complaint however. A year before I purchased the 8500, it was called the 3800; which is the first one I purchased. That one has an LCD backlit display with temp, time and programming instructions. It looks high tech and was easy to use. I also had a bunch of extra remotes for it. The 8500 comes with what I think is a step back as far as a wall controller and now I have two different looking controllers on the wall. I was really disappointed that my old remotes did not work with the 8500 either. It also doesn't work with our vehicles homelink, while the old one did. We would have to buy an additional accessory to regain this function. While I understand that the 8500 has enhanced security, it would have been nice if it was better communicated in the product description. After the fact, I did my research and found that if you dig into the details, the manufacturer does indicate it's not cross-compatible with other units. I then thought I could just buy the old style wall controller and solve my problems but the radio communications are in the operator, not the wall controller, so no deal. If this is your first purchase, none of this really applies to you and let me just clarify that these LiftMaster operators are the best money can buy and there are a ton of cool accessories you can get for them. My incident was an isolated one.

I installed the Liftmaster 8500 about 1 month ago to replace a Wayne Dalton I-Drive which clamped onto the jack shaft of my door. Let me tell you, this unit fixes all of the problems that I had with the I-Drive. The biggest one was the tiny motor on the I-Drive that needed to be retrained 3 or 4 times a year when it would suddenly stop working. Each time, I would disengage the unit and the door would move up and down manually without a problem. The old unit finally decided to stop opening the door altogether. I had thought the the I-Drive was a quiet unit but the Liftmaster 8500 is much quieter!My installation took a bit longer because I had to extend the existing power outlet plus I also decided to run conduit for the wall control and the safety sensors to protect the wiring and make future installations easier. I'm happy that I didn't need to resort to a traditional opener and lose storage space on my garage ceiling. I had one small problem when programming the limits/force but eventually figured it out -- you have to IMMEDIATELY press the button on the unit after pressing the button on the wall control (I had to use the remote instead of the wall control to do it quickly enough). Other than that, the installation was very straightforward!This is the best garage door opener that I have seen. The motor doesn't show any sign of struggling in either direction and it is very quiet.