TL;DR
A photo eye is an infrared transmitter-and-receiver pair mounted near the bottom of each garage door track that reverses the door if anything breaks the beam while it is closing. UL 325 has required this entrapment protection on residential openers since 1993, with the sensors typically mounted no more than six inches above the floor.
What it means
A photo eye is an infrared transmitter-and-receiver pair mounted near the bottom of each garage door track that reverses the door if anything breaks the beam while it is closing. UL 325 has required this entrapment protection on residential openers since 1993, with the sensors typically mounted no more than six inches above the floor. Misaligned or sun-blinded lenses are the most common reason a door refuses to close while the opener light flashes.
Where it sits in the glossary
Photo eye is part of the Certifications group inside the ProFix Directory glossary. Browse every term in this category from the glossary index.
Why Ohio homeowners should know it
This is a term Ohio homeowners encounter when reading contractor quotes, hiring paperwork, or inspection reports. Understanding it well enough to ask one good follow-up question is usually all the protection a homeowner needs.
ProFix Directory keeps definitions short on the index page and saves the longer context — Ohio-specific rules, where the term comes from, and which ProFix tools touch it — for these per-term pages so the term is easy to cite and easy to share.
ProFix tools that touch this term
See also
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