Pico Pi Powered Garage or Gate Controller

Raspberry Pico Pi W to Trigger a 330 MHz Gate/Garage Controller via a Relay Switch

• A lightweight web server on a Pi Pico W to toggle a relay switch.
• Easily integrated into Home Assistant to work with sensors, automations and scripts
• For my purposes, the relay switch is soldered to a 330Mhz gate controller to close the switch and simulate a physical button press.

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Features

• Minimal HTTP server with routes:
  • / – simple UI page
  • /led_on, /led_off – onboard LED control, I used this to make sure everything was working before soldering the relay to the Pico Pi
  • /toggle_gate – pulse a relay for 1s (GPIO 20 by default, but you can tweak this in the code)

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Hardware

• Raspberry Pi Pico W
• 1-channel Relay Switch
• 330MHz (or 433MHz) Gate Controller, or really any other similar remote
• Connect the Gate Controller to the Relay Module, and the Relay Module to GPIO 20 of the Pico Pi (adjustable in main.py)

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Demo

Setup

1. Flash MicroPython

Flash the official MicroPython firmware to your Pico Pi W using the Raspberry Pi instructions.

2. Clone this repository

git clone https://github.com/markbala/pico-gate-controller
cd pico-gate-controller

3. Input WiFi Credentials, save a secrets.py file

Copy the example file:

cp src/secrets.example.py src/secrets.py

Edit src/secrets.py with your details:

WIFI_SSID = "YourWiFi"
WIFI_PASSWORD = "YourPassword"

⚠️ Important:

• src/secrets.py is .gitignore’d — never commit your real passwords.

4. Upload to Pico W

Use Thonny to upload the src folder (or just these 3 scripts) main.py, utils.py, and your secrets.py onto the board.

5. Reboot. Script will run automatically upon boot

• Reboot
• Identify the IP address of the Pico Pi W through your router.
• Visit http://<pico-ip>/ in a browser. Should be a local IP, e.g.http://192.168.x.x
• Set a fixed IP for this device for convenience thereafter.

Security Notes

• Use exclusively on private LANs or behind a VPN / reverse proxy (Tailscale, Cloudflare Tunnel).
• Never expose directly to the internet.

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6. Home Assistant Integration

You can call the Pico endpoints from Home Assistant using rest_command, then wrap them in a script and trigger them via an automation or UI button.

1) REST Commands (configuration.yaml)

rest_command:
  pico_toggle_gate:
    url: "http://PICO_IP/toggle_gate"
    method: get

Replace PICO_IP with the IP printed in the Pico serial logs (e.g., 192.168.1.123).

2) Scripts (configuration.yaml or scripts.yaml)

script:
  toggle_gate:
    alias: Toggle Gate
    mode: single
    sequence:
      - service: rest_command.pico_toggle_gate

3) Automations

Example: Open the gate when a specific person arrives home. Can be integrated with sensor that checks if the gate is open or closed

4) Lovelace Buttons (UI)

Add a Button card and call the script on tap:

type: button
name: Toggle Gate
icon: mdi:gate-open
tap_action:
  action: call-service
  service: script.toggle_gate

Notes

• Home Assistant must be able to reach the Pico’s IP (same LAN/VLAN).
• If you use VLANs or firewalls, allow outbound HTTP (port 80) from Home Assistant to the Pico IP.
• The Pico server is HTTP only (no TLS). Don’t expose it directly to the internet.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.

Credits

Initial code by Vivian Balakrishnan Adapted for everyday use by Mark Balakrishnan