Sometimes I come up with an idea that I want to patent but I am so busy that I just blog it instead. Hopefully this will make it into the Internet Archive and folks can send me money when they want to license my invention.
This one is pretty simple – add a battery-backed up light or LED to garage door openers so that when power fails, the light comes on and makes it safe to go through the garage. You just need to put electronic logic for the charging and lighting and a battery.
You could do these separately – but it would be really nice to just have this a feature of all garage door openers for safety.
The batteries would need to be replaceable – it would be nice to use low power LEDs which have a good light to power ration – and then you could probably do this with 4-6 rechargable AA-cells and get a few hours of light.
Picture:

Update: This patent has already been challenged based on prior art. Aaron Z showed me this page:
http://www.lonestardoor.com/wd_doormaster.html
With this quote:
It even features emergency battery-powered operation!
* U.S. Patent No. 413,867
Innovative technology that provides maximum safety, convenience and security for your home and family.
And Aaron actually had such an opener. So that might suggest that my blog-patent is not worth much – but with Byzantine Patent law – it might still work out nicely for me – even though there is a long-standing product in the market – and a patent – it is OK. Part of the patent process is disclosing any prior art you know of – so this is my official disclosure.