The DoorMate

Pros: The freedom it gives me and my dogs.
Cons: Maybe the quirks of getting used to operating. Pros outweigh cons by leaps and bounds.

I have two great danes; one is 100 pounds, the other 160 pounds and deaf. I bought my Doormate on Ebay from an individual and when I first got it and installed it, I was afraid I'd made a bad buy. I didn't understand how the limit switches worked, ...

Pros: When it works it works great
Cons: It's not reliable.

I bought mine from Ebay since everyone else seemed to be sold out and didn't provide a resupply date. It was pretty easy to install if you are handy and it does work great. Just as the Doormate website said, my dog did get use to it with no problems ...

Pros: it worked well the first year
Cons: flawed design, nonexistent technical support, expensive replacement batteries

The product is flawed. It was introduced to market before it was made user-friendly and it remains unfriendly. Technical support is nonexistent. Ask to speak to the chief engineer/designer Mel Cohen personally because technical support is not familiar ...

Pros: Petmate works
Cons: Unit fails to be consistent. Very noisy. Poorly built.

We bought our DOORMATE from a retailer online. We have a tiled floor over concrete so installing was a little harder, and we needed spacers for the door to get it aligned correctly (not supplied). The first problem is the short or medium brackets for mounting are too flimsy the whole unit vibrates and is very noisy.The manual supplied for programming the unit is a poor photocopy. I had to set my Doormate to its least sensitive and fastest to allow the door to close at all. The website said it will fit virtually any size door but if yours is heavy it really won't work. My 5 year old son can open the door easily but the doormate strains and usually gives up after 3 or 4 tries. Yesterday it went past the limit switch and would not close. The clips that hold the switches are very weak and to not hold them firmly enough to be consistent. As such I cannot trust it to work when no one is home to let my dog in and out

Pros: When it works it worked great
Cons: Plastic gear stripped after less than 1 year, cannot get replacement

You cannot get support for this item, at $400.00 you should be able to obtain info about a repair part. DO NOT BUY!!

Pros: Decent tech support
Cons: It doesn't work

I've had the Doormate system for at least 8 months. I've managed to get it to work reasonably well a few times, but it never lasts. The Doormate either won't close the door after it opens or the slider rattles out of the bracket on my door. Now, it won't work at all. It beeps at me when I push the buttons, but that's the most action I've gotten out of this thing in about a month. I've followed the instruction manual and made many attempts to fix the stupid thing, but it just won't work. On top of all that, I can't get the proximity sensor to sense that the dogs are at the door when they are outside trying to get in. This was a neat idea, but it's just been a big waste of time and money.

Pros: Convenient and secure
Cons: Noisy and a little bulky.

This seems to be an almost perfect solution to the doggie door issue. We had a few problems installing; if you have thick door jams on your sliding glass doors you will need the spacers which is nice to know ahead of time. We've had ours a few months; I have two complaints. It's noisy; it's the equivalent of having a garage door opener in your home; secondly; either I missed it or it wasn't in the marketing material; the pet prox is activated with magnets that the dogs wear around their neck; they work quite well; but if you have two dogs of varying sizes the pet prox is a problem. The height of the pet prox needs to be at the same height as the tag. With all that being said, I'm still really enjoying the freedom the dogs have to come and go; and the security I feel with not having the doggie door in.