I have a basic Notifications app setup to send an SMS message to our phones when a water sensor gets wet. I worked when I first set it up but it's no longer sending SMS alerts.
A test message from my phone device "Device Notification" works fine.
I can see the sensor trip and it show wet on my dashboard, but it never sends the SMS message.
Ideas?
Thanks,
Dave
Hubitat dropped built-in support for sending (free) SMS messages several years ago. I believe it was a cost issue for them.
But you can still use Hubitat to send sms messages if you’re willing to setup an account with twilio, and pay a small cost per message sent.
Are there any other options, I'd rather not rely on a 3rd party for notifications.
For sending sms messages?
Or other types of notifications?
Whatever it takes to get notified on my phone real-time when a water sensor triggers.
I use Pushover for all 3 family hubs.
Lifetime membership, whatever a lifetime is these days, is peanuts and works great.
I think pushover’s great too. But the OP said;
If that’s important enough, the Hubitat mobile app can receive push notifications when automations running on the hub are configured to send to a phone running the mobile app.
ETA: just keep in mind we’re talking about sending notifications through the cloud here. After a certain point, it’s all “third party” whether from your or from Hubitat Inc’s perspectives. Pushover is an example of an extremely reliable third party push messaging solution that’s well supported by Hubitat.
So I'd have to create a rule vs. using a notification? The app is running on all our phones.
Well no matter what method of notification you want to use, you have to configure an app running on your hub to send the notification.
That could be rule machine, basic rules, notifications, it depends on the complexity of the automation that sends the message.
notifications only has the option for Text notifications, I don't see an option for push?
The automation you’re creating doesn’t particularly care whether it’s a push notification or an sms notification. They’re all text notifications.
Have you setup the mobile app on your phone and configured it as a notification device for your hub?
https://docs2.hubitat.com/en/how-to/create-new-presence-and-push-devices/
I already have my phones setup, the key to that article is that you have to use a rule. A simple notification only allows for SMS.
Thanks
I believe you’re still misunderstanding something.
You do not need to use rule machine to send a push notification of any sort (Hubitat mobile app, pushover, or any other push notification service).
Here’s an example of a pushover push notification I configured with the Notifications app.
I could create a similar notification and select my iPhone running the Hubitat mobile app as the device to push a notification to, if I wanted to.
If you don’t see the option to select your phone running the Hubitat mobile app in the notification you’re trying to configure, then the most likely explanation is that something isn’t working correctly with your mobile app’s link to your hub as a notification device.
The hub’s notification app can’t give you the option to select a device if it doesn’t know the device exists.
The confusion is, I'm not trying to create a presence sensor, I want to push an alert to my phone when a water sensor is tripped. The send text under notification does not work when my phone is selected as the device to send message to.
It only works when a triggered event is defined in Rule Machine.
I understand you’re not trying to create a presence sensor.
But when you login to the mobile app on your phone, the hub should create a virtual device that serves the purpose of both presence sensor and push notification recipient.
Do you have a virtual device that represents the phone the mobile app is installed on, in the hub’s list of devices?
This is mine, for example:
When I click on the device details page, I can send a test notification to the device manually, to confirm the connection is currently working.
Please confirm that you can do the same with your mobile app device on your hub.
My phone has the app, is listed as a device, is present, and I can send a test to it.
I had a Notifier setup under Notifications with the water sensor as a trigger and my phone listed under devices to receive a text message. I would not send a message. I've had this setup like this for over a year, it stopped working. Earlier in the thread I was told text no longer works. Am I mistaking Text Message for SMS vs. push? Either way, it doesn't work anymore.
I created a Rule under Rule Machine using the same parameters and it works.
You could be mistaking those terms I guess?
SMS is a means of getting a message to a mobile phone, via a cell network.
Push is a means of getting a message to a device that can connect to the internet (including modern mobile phones).
They are both, generally speaking, a form of text messaging.
Any Hubitat app capable of sending notifications could send either type of message, if your hub is configured properly to send each type of notification.
In the case of sms, you would have to setup and pay for the external service (Twilio) that actually sends the message as an sms; if you never did that, then your hub would have stopped sending sms messages maybe four or five years ago?
What happens if you create a new notification on your hub, using the Notification app? Are you able to see your phone listed as an option for recipient of a text message?
My advice would be to forget SMS. "They're" making it too hard to use it. Even Twilio, as I understand it, nevermind the cell carriers. Maybe if you're a GMail user, but I'm not sure how complicated that community app can get or its reliability.
I've been using the Pushover app. Cheap one lifetime payment, reliable, simple, flexible (though I haven't gotten fancy).
Or, you can use the Hubitat app. More people complain about it than the Pushover app, but that's just my subjective observation.
These are apps on your phone that you need to have installed.
Yeah, I'm an idiot!
At some point I added the option to repeat the alert several times and mistakenly entered 1 in the field labeled "For how long? (minutes)". It was working, it just that is was set to wait 1 minute before alerting. I've set it to 0 (zero) and it now alerts immediately.
Thanks for the help, I just hope my mistake helps others that might make the same mistake.
So that this isn't a total loss...I still have both apps loaded on my phone, the old and the new. Is the never one ready for primetime? Should I dump the old one?
Thanks again and Merry Christmas!
Oy
Download the Hubitat app
