The garage door safety sensors are designed to ensure maximum safety for your garage door opener operation. The Genie garage door safety sensor kit (Safe-T-Beams) uses an invisible infrared beam across the opening of the door, the system detects any object passing through the infrared beam of light and automatically reverses the closing garage door. The Genie Safe-T-Beam system is required by US Law as of 1993.
However, the Genie Safe-T-Beam kit is self-diagnostic. If there is an issue or obstruction there is a series of garage door opener light flashes or small lights on the safety sensors to let you know what the issue could be (see chart below). If you are experiencing a garage door that will not close and a blinking garage door opener light you may have an obstruction of the Safe-T-Beam infrared light. If there is no physical obstruction you may have light interference. If the sun or another bright source of light shines into the garage door safety sensor lens it can cause a false positive and reverse the garage door. This can be a nuisance but good news, there is an easy fix available.
The Genie Version 2, Safe-T-Beam system (Model GSTB-R) has a lens cover that protects from alternative light interference, as seen in the picture below. This updated version should eliminate any false positive safety sensor signals. This is a very easy upgrade to your existing Genie garage door opener that should only take a few minutes to install. You can reuse your existing wiring and mounting locations. You simply remove the wires from the current Safe-T-Beam sensors and unscrew them from the wall. Then reconnect the wires and remount to the wall. The garage door safety sensor beams should still be lined up. If not loosen the mounting to the wall slightly and realign them by hand until both the red and green lights are on both sensors (one each on the left and right sensors themselves).
If an operating problem continues and you cannot close your door you can disconnect your Safe-T-Beams from the operator and hold down the wall control button until the door closes (remote and wireless keypad will not work without Safe-T-Beams).
You have just successfully upgraded your Genie Safe-T-Beam system!
82 comments
@Steven – Yes, the safe-t-beams have to be installed for the garage door opener to work.
I’ve just finished installing Genie opener 1035. Do the two safety sensors have to be installed for the opener to be functional ??
@ Bryan – It could be an issue with the wire, are you able to get either side to light up? We would need some more detail to assist you with this. Please contact our Genie customer service at 1-800-354-3643 for assistance.
Installed a 1035 today. Everything works great except I cannot seem to wire the safe t beams up correctly. I used the original wiring for the power head that was installed with the house when I bought it. Nothing seems to get the sensors to power on or work correctly. Any help is greatly appreciated.
@Frank – please reach out to us at 1-800-354-3643 to troubleshoot.