Chamberlain - Whisper Plus (Garage Door Opener) (Rating: 5)

Just a quick note on the Chamberlain Whisper Plus from the box store. As a garage door opener it works great, you can leave it partially or fully open, and it has a battery backup, and a neat digital opener instead of the simple doorbell button to open and close it, which includes the ability to lock the garage door, and tells the time and temp. As far as woodworking goes, this is not the main reason I wanted to mention this opener. It also came with a little gizmo you plug into the wall, and you then plug your lamp into, which you use your opener to turn on when you get home. I repurposed it for my shop vac dust collection system.

In the past I had to constantly pull the shop vac cart out to reach the plug and power switch. Now, I have a little keyfob I keep on me which I use to turn the shop vac (with the Oneida dust deputy) off and on and a 20' hose. It is absolutely 100x easier to keep things clean now. Of course the keyfob also works the garage door which I will sometimes leave partially open with a fan blowing out.

This item is not explicitly for woodworkers, but I really feel it has made a huge impact on the efficiency of my little DIY workshop without buying a special remote, and it keeps control of the both dust collection and garage door in my pocket.