Abstract— Internet-connected technologies have become mainstays of the modern household. From Internet of Things (IoT) connected coffee makers to sophisticated adaptive climate control systems, inexpensive wireless technology and the popularity of voice-activated digital assistants have enabled a wide variety of connected technology. Most of this technology remains closed source. However, many popular connected technologies such as Nest or ecoBee rely on closed source protocols and private cloud backends. What happens to the hardware when these companies go out of business or shut down older services? VueZone shut down its services leaving owners with severely crippled IoT cameras. This paper focuses on building a proof of the concept of open source IoT-connected garage real time controller (GarageRTC). It presents the features, design, and implementation of a reference architecture built on an ESP32 microcontroller and free real-time operating system (FreeRTOS). The results show that the GarageRTC meets most of the performance and design requirements as identified in the concept and requirements phase. The system is more than capable of proving responsive interactivity with a residential garage door system. Moreover, benchmarking – functionally – the system against other commercial offerings enables it – due to its platform flexibility – to outperform its commercial counterparts.