So Many Remotes, Not Enough Space

Jeanne has this cool item on her bike. Flash the high beam on her Harley and her garage door opens. Flash again, and the garage door closes.

I’m intrigued.

I hear it now—I can go down to the local Home Depot and buy a mini transmitter and carry it with my motorcycle key………….

Except it’s pretty cool.

Handy too. Not to mention that it means one less item to lose. I like operating on the KISS theory as much as possible, especially when riding.

I don’t even carry a garage door opener on me when I ride. I usually have my car keys and I’ll ride up, unlock my van and use the Homelink in my Ody. Except this past Saturday, I forgot my keys. See? Something to remember and keep track of!

I checked out Jeanne’s solution: The Official Harley Davidson Thingamabob. At $126.95, I’m thinking there’s got to be a cheaper workaround. Not that it’s overly expensive compared to any chrome item (or any item branded with the Harley Davidson logo for that matter), but I’m thinking more in the terms of frugality. I can get a mini-remote transmitter from Amazon for twenty bucks!

Sigh, the old HD saying is into play….it doesn’t mean Harley Davidson, it means Hundred Dollars!

And the fact that it only fixes the problem for one bike. It’s another $65.95 to equip my V-Star with another transmitter.

Installation is not a problem; I’ll put the darn things on myself. It’s just justifying spending $200 to open my garage door….especially when I already have a working solution!

Enter the Internet! With a few keystrokes up pops Flash2Pass. It’s the same technology with out the Hundred Dollar Logo on it and retails for $79.95. An additional transmitter costs $34.95.

So I’m out a little over a hundred bucks instead of two hundred. Still, that’s money to reinvent the wheel--just so I can not get off my bike.

I did find another solution from Jollytec. It’s basically a remote transmitter with a pushbutton on a wire. The pushbutton is mounted on the motorcycle—either by attaching it to the handlebars or drilling a hole and mounting. Cost is $39.95 for the pushbutton or $47.95 for the handlebar bracket version. I’m not crazy about having to drill a ¼” hole in my bike to mount this button either….

This is getting to be down my alley as far as pricing. Except I still have two bikes to equip!

If you haven’t figured it out, I’m all about cheap! And I know that the mini-remotes are $20—half the price of the Jollytech solution. I could just get the mini-remote, put it in a skin and mount the thing under my motorcycle seat.


Then again, I do have a full sized remote that has a broken housing, so I may tinker around and see if I can wire the switch to my high beam switch. Knowing me and my simple projects that morph into an unbelievable complex problem, I’m not sure I’ll want to start this one. If it’s a matter of putting a couple of resistors on the circuit, then it won’t be a problem. Somehow, I’m thinking it won’t be that easy……….because it never is………..

I’m going to kick all options around and see what I come up with.

Keep The Shiny Side Up!

~The Rainbow Wahine