Notifications for the local SmartHome

Notifications are required in the SmartHome for various purposes, be it as window-open warnings when leaving the home, smoke notifications or for alarms.

Since LIVISI SmartHome sends the well-known notifications such as email, SMS or push messages via the LIVISI Cloud and there is unfortunately no way to run them locally on the SHC, we would like to present possible alternatives here.

E-Mail

The local SmartHome provides a binding (the SMTP binding) for sending emails. With this binding it is possible to send emails as actions in rules.

With the binding you can send emails via your own user account with providers such as Gmail, outlook.com, web.de, gmx.de and almost every provider that supports SMTP. For some providers it is necessary to create an extra app password because SMTP does not support the common 2-factor authentication or other additional security mechanisms.

See SMTP Binding for more information.

Third Party Systems

Another possibility for notifications of all kinds is to connect the local SmartHome to a third-party system such as Home Assistant, ioBroker or OpenHab and then to react to events in LIVISI SmartHome via this system.

These systems offer a variety of options for notifications, such as:

  • Email
  • Push messages
  • Speech to Sonos and other network speakers
  • Speech output via Amazon Alexa

You can find information about these systems on our page Remote Access the Local SmartHome.

Whatsapp, Signal, Telegram

WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram. One or more of these are certainly familiar to everyone and perhaps one or the other has come across the posts from other users in the community reporting the possibility of sending WhatsApp messages via LIVISI SH.

Providers such as CallMeBot or textmebot.com offer simple interfaces that can be used to send messages to services such as WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram together with the HTTP request binding of LIVISI SmartHome.

At this point we would like to emphasize that you only use this service "for personal use" and that it is in no way officially supported by LIVISI. This manual is therefore limited to the general setup of the service and the use of such services in LIVISI SH.

The setup/registration procedure is almost always the same for all providers:

  1. You save a phone number from the provider in your cell phone
  2. You can then send a message to this phone number to "activate" your phone number for the service
  3. As an answer you will then receive a code with which your messages to the service will be authorized
  4. From then on you can send messages to your mobile phone by calling up a specific URL

Set up service

In order to send messages to your cell phone via WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram, you must first set up the service you want according to the instructions of the respective provider. With our example CallMeBot you will find corresponding step-by-step instructions on their website:

Please make sure that the selected provider and service allow using unencrypted URLs (http:// instead of https://).

Scheme for the messages

The messages are formatted by the providers as a URL, as an Internet address, and can therefore also be sent by simply entering the address line of the web browser. The formats are formatted differently depending on the provider and service, but always work according to the following scheme:

Example URL: http://provideraddress.com/whatsapp.php?phone=[phone_number]&apikey=[your_key]&text=[message]

  • [phone_number]: Your phone number with which you registered with the service. Usually uses the international format with country code: +49123456789
  • [your_key]: The code you received from the service for authentication when you registered.
  • [message]: The message to send. This message must be formatted in a way that is safe to use in a URL. This secure formatting can be done using online tools such as https://www.urlencoder.io.

Some services require other parameters such as:

  • username=[username]: Telegram works with usernames instead of phone numbers. Here you have to enter the user name that you used for registration as a parameter. Example: @mygreatusername

Next you can set up your SHC for sending messages:

  1. Install the HTTP request binding by going to "Devices > + > Select device" and selecting the HTTP request in the "Special devices" section. Follow the instructions to install the binding.
  2. From now on, a new device "HTTP request" will always be displayed in the device search.
  3. Click on the device and install it in the same way as other devices. To make it easier for you to identify it, it is best to give it a name that suits the service, such as "Whatsapp Messaging"
  4. Now go to the settings of the device and enter the URL of the service as URL without parameters (i.e. everything up to the "?"). In the example above, this would be http://provideraddress.com/whatsapp.php

Now the device is basically set up and you can use it as an action for rules in scenarios like this:

  1. Select the device (e.g. "Whatsapp Messaging") as action for a rule
  2. Select "Send GET request" as behavior
  3. Now a page for configuring the action opens in which you now have to enter the parameters. Using the example above, this would be phone=+49123456789&apikey=sssssssss&text=This%20is%20a%20test message%20from%20your%20home%21%20%F0%9F%98%80 . Remember to choose safe formatting for the message.

As a result of the scenario with the action you just set up, you should now receive a Whatsapp message with the following content: "This is a test message from your home! šŸ˜€"