The Genie Company has been a leading manufacturer of garage door openers (and lots of other stuff, too) for decades. It has a major chunk of the market for residential garage door openers under the Genie and Overhead Door brands. Although I will admit that there are many Genie openers out there that have been basically working fine for years, I am not a fan of how they are designed for the most part.
There are, however, a couple select situations where Genie openers and other products can be the way to go. Please, read on.
Build Quality
I would classify the build quality of the Genie Max line as pretty solid, but these openers come with the terrible mounting bracket discussed in the next section.
The budget line of Genie openers are flimsy junk, you would be better served by a Chamberlain or Craftsman.
Noise Level
Genie openers with a D/C motor and belt drive are all very quiet. I would say that they are at least equally quiet to a LiftMaster 8550W, and don’t make the same high pitched whirring sound.
The Terrible Bracket
One problem with Genie openers is that the wall mount for the opener rail is a terrible design. It is long and skinny, but has a very small vertical footprint. This means that it does a poor job of supporting the up and down vertical force applied by the weight of the opener and the weight and action of the door.
As a result, it will inevitably come loose when mounted over drywall. And there isn’t room to tighten it down without unhooking the rail, which can be a huge pain in the neck to get back together when you are done tightening it. And to top it off, if the holes for the pin that holds the rail to the bracket don’t line up PERFECTLY, it won’t fit.
Maybe you will try remedy this by cutting away the drywall and attaching directly to the header only to find a stud (which it won’t fit on because it is oriented horizontally. Most other brands have a more vertical bracket that disperses the forces better)
This design has been in use on some Genie Belt and Chain models for decades, and is now part of the redesigned rail for the Screwdrive, too.
Safety Eye Sensors
Not to be outdone by Chamberlain, Genie openers come with safety eyes so poorly designed that it is comical. Why make your safety eye brackets impossible to adjust or extend and difficult to mount? Shouldn’t the eyes be small and compact instead of really long? Are the designers not aware that in many garages there is a concrete “stem wall” up to several feet tall literally touching the garage door track?
Circuit Board Problems
The vast majority of bad circuit boards I have seen during my career have been on Genie products. This does not mean that the new ones will have problems, but since they haven’t really improved some of the other major flaws with their products…
But it May Solve Interference Issue
As I mentioned before, there is one increasingly common situation where a Genie opener may be your best option: outside Radio Frequency Interference (RFI). RFI can reduce or completely eliminate the range you get with your handheld remotes, and can come from all sorts of different sources
Genie remotes and keypads operate on a dual 315/390 mhz frequency that is more robust than the single frequencies (usually in the 310-318 mhz range) used by other manufacturers.
You could also deal with RFI by installing a Genie Universal Dual Frequency Receiver Kit (a good product) on your existing opener, it will work with pretty much anything that is out there.
Conclusion
A professionally installed top of the line Genie Chain, Belt, or Screwdrive should be reliable, but there are better openers on the market. The do-it-yourself Genie openers that you buy in a store aren’t very good.