Advanced HomeKit Notifications offer a new level of interaction between you and your smart home. With them, your home can notify you about everything important and lets you immediately respond with the right actions.
With a combination of HomeKit automation, Shortcuts, and our powerful Notification Server, you can design much more useful Notifications than Apple Home offers.
On top of that, each Notification can have multiple actions, so you can choose how to react when you receive it. This way, you can be part of an automation chain and influence the result as you need it.
Here are some messages to give you an idea of what's possible.
IMPORTANT
- High humidity and closed window in the bathroom!
- The living room is above 23°C, and the heating is on!
- You left home, and some light is still on!
OBSERVING STATE & TIME
- The bathroom window has been open for more than an hour!
- Backyard motion detected (3x in 10min). Tap to view camera.
USAGE DEPENDENT
- You slept 15 times in your bed. Time to change the sheets!
- The coffee machine has been used more than 30 times since the last cleaning!
HUMAN TASKS
- Irrigating since 15min. Move the sprinkler!
INFORMATIONAL
- The swimming pool is now 22°C warm.
- Motion sensor battery below 5%!
- Finished cleaning of 1st floor.
- The laundry is done.
SIMPLE REMINDERS
- This is your monthly backup reminder!
- Remember to water your plants!
TROUBLESHOOTING
- Your Automation was just executed!
- The device state has not changed in the last day.
Four key elements make Advanced HomeKit Notifications possible:
ADVANCED HOMEKIT AUTOMATION
Automation is the starting point of most Notifications. Controller enables you to use the full capabilities of HomeKit automation. Including multiple start events, complex conditions, and manufacturer characteristics.
SHORTCUTS
Apples Shortcuts App lets you modify HomeKit Automations to run a Shortcut instead of a Scene. These offer much more flexibility, as you can read current values from devices and use many actions to extend your Automation. Crucially, the "Get contents from URL action" allows you to send Notifications with our Notification Server.
NOTIFICATION SERVER
In addition to sending out a Notification immediately, our server can send notifications with a delay or at a future date. It can also keep a count and send a message when that count reaches a specific value.
The ability to reset a count or cancel scheduled notifications gives you even more powerful use cases, as one of your Automations can schedule a message while another cancels it.
NOTIFICATION ACTIONS
When you receive a Notification, there's a good chance you want to react to it. Controller lets you set multiple actions you can choose from when you get the Notification. The possible action types are:
- Execute a scene
- Run a workflow
- Open a specific view
- Open a camera stream
- Snooze and remind me again later
BONUS:
APPLE WATCH:
In addition to executing Scenes, you can check your HomeKit Cameras from your wrist. Controller Notifications from your iPhone can be forwarded to your Watch. Actions that execute a scene or view a camera are supported.
WORKFLOWS:
Use the "CALL URL" step with the new Server Notification URLs. With that, a workflow can schedule a notification or raise a count on the server.
Sounds interesting?
The Advanced Notification Documentation will help you figure out how to get started and how to get the most out of our notification feature.