I use Echo Speaks to notify us if a person, vehicle or package has been detected by one of our Unifi cameras. Nearby lightning detected by the Tempest weather station in case one of us is working outside or in the pool (there's an Echo device on the patio), when rain is detected, because my wife has a habit of leaving her car windows open, and low battery notifications for the few battery powered things we have.
Pushover for a few things that I want to be notified immediately about, such as motion detected in our vacation house during the winter.
Critical things like smoke, fire and leak detection are handled through our alarm system and the associated phone app.
So to take this a step further... how do you configure your smart home to send a notification using the notification platform you call out..... Are you using Rule Machine or other apps to send a notification....?
My system is very comparable to what others have mentioned. Use of webCore and RM to initiate the notifications. GH for voice use and a combination of push message to HE app and pushover.
For feedabck type messages, I use a series of webcore pistons to send a pushover notification with an included url to a seperate piston with the intended action. Either you act or it will time out, either way you get a additional confirmation notification. Could probably be done with RM and webhooks too.
For my dashboard, I created a simple driver that creates a running list of recent notifications that marquee scrolls across the top.
Hubitat app notifiications for Locks so we know specifically who unlocked the door and it's also used for HSM moisture sensor alerts.
Smoke/CO is Nest Protect in our house, so I don't bother with anything but the Nest app for that.
Alexa annouces someone at the door when the doorbell button is pressed, and it responds with an answer to the question "are the dishes clean?" It can also tell us the day and time the dishwasher last ran if we ask.
The LED indicators on an Inovelli LZW36 light/fan controller tell us the state of our door locks with a glance.
light leds for weather alerts using color cast weather.. steady once for upcoming rain wind snow etc each in a different color.. blinking 3 times for warning or watches again different color depending on the type of alert.
for low priority hubitat app or email
for higher priority both hubitat and sms via text gateway
and for highest ie water leak etc., intrusion, temps too cold or hot, or freezer failure etc.
also color lights, and text and voice alerts over alexa that since all on same account work no matter what house i am in.
for the highest level of alert some sms's also go to wife as well as me.
wyze cameras in all houses as well as backup so if i get an alert i can usually also look at the camera for confirmation.
we also have a verbal over alexa confirmation for the dog gate opening or closing as well as outdoor lights go on for a time if after sunset.. not much use anymore as no more dogs as we want to travel. but when we did we needed to have confrimation that when we told alexa to open or close the dog gate it did, else dog could be locked out or in depending on circumstances.
I use RM to cause messages to fire a Pushover message.
The big problem I have with Pushover, btw, is that it sends all messages to both me and my wife. She wants some of them, but not most, and I'm having a hard time getting it to limit them to just me. Device selection doesn't seem to work.
I primarily use Zooz switches and dimmers thought my house. With the right driver, you can use Rule Machine to change the color and behavior of that LED.
For example, the LED is white when switch is off during normal situations, and LED is off when the light is on. However, if an automation activated the switch, then the LED will be green even though the switch is on. For example, when the humidity in the bathroom exceeds the ambient by a certain amount, the fan turns on and the LED turns green to let anybody know it was automatically turned on rather than left on.
When home is in Night mode or security alerts are on, the usual white indicator turns blue.
If there is an emergency (water leak, glass break, etc), the LEDs on all switches turn red and stay on regardless of switch state until situation is manually overriden or problem is solved.
One or two things come through as notifications on our phones.
As we've wall mount tablet dashboards around the house there's a tile dedicated to @thebearmay 'message rotator tile device'. That cycles messages (currently displaying that it's a standard black bin collection tomorrow). I combine that with his 'Daily Reminder' app; that references text files where I have the schedules for some sports events set - moto gp, world suberbikes, local football team, and puts them on that same tile at midnight on the day of the event.
same via hsm - as for this on my dashboard i also have alert icons and clear alert that turns off all lights and siren (if applicable) that were turned on for the alert. and alexa command. Alexa clear alert.
as for the tablets.. thought i would use one.. put a special 3x normal size mount with a wireless charger in the wall and using an older nexus tablet..
never look at the damn thing.. glad i didn't do it in the other house. hsm disarms automatically when garage door or door opens, and arms when cars leave,
Isn't this essentually just a cloud connected smart bulb? I'm bullish about investing in any new Amazon devices. I'd much rather use a fully local Zigbee color bulb.
I forgot to mention in my previous post that I do actually do that. I have my garage lights setup so that a middle button hold on the Pico in the garage will toggle between keeping the lights ON, versus allowing them to return to being activated by a motion sensor and then turning off after a timeout. For me this was the ideal way to go for when I'm using my power tools or doing something where I'm not moving around (this was before I had mmW sensors, but meh, it's fine as is).
When I hold the button, the lights flash once and then turn back ON, and a Hue color bulb that also serves as the light on my bandsaw turns RED for a moment and then turns off to indicate the lights will stay ON. Another hold of the Pico button will again flash the garage lights and then the Hue color bulb turns on breifly to GREEN, indicating the lights are set to automatic mode. If I forget which mode they are in, I just press the Pico middle button briefly and the Hue bulb will momentarily light up to either RED or GREEN, depending on which mode the garage lights are in.
It's a highly reliable automation, but if I were to redo it, I'd simply put a mmW sensor out there in place of the two motion sensors that I'm using. But it's fine and I think I just like the Rube Goldberg nature of it. I'm like that.
I'm using the glow, mainly because our grandkids are used to having a light change color to tell them it's time to wake up. I use Echo Speaks and send a voice command as text through a Rule Machine rule. That does cause an echo to say "ok" to confirm the command, but I use the garage echo for the target of the command, so no big deal.
Google speakers will play mp3 files stored locally on HE or the LAN. I use this feature to play some ambient sound, chimes, etc. Uses the Chromecast capability. I'll see if i can find an old Midi file and test it out.
UPDATE: I dug up some old *.mid files and tried one. It will not play on Google Chromecast without first converting it to some other format. MP3 would work for sure...probably WAV also.
I do exactly this with a Samsumg button magnetised to the bed head and the colour Hue bulbs I have in lamps on either side of the bed, red when motion lighting is off, green when it's back on.
