Device down notification to Home Assistant Mobile App on iPhone or Android

[waterwingz]

Is there an option to have a change in any device Alert Down state show up as a Notification on the Home Assistant app for mobile phones?

After a bit of tinkering, I created an simplistic automation that will do that using this YAML but it would be nice to have it as a built-in feature.

alias: NetAlertX Device Offline Notification v4
description: Send notification when any NetAlertX device_tracker goes away or offline
triggers:
  - event_type: state_changed
    trigger: event
conditions:
  - condition: template
    value_template: >
      {% set e = trigger.event.data.entity_id %} {% set old =
      trigger.event.data.old_state %} {% set new = trigger.event.data.new_state
      %} {% set alert = new.attributes.get('alert_down', '1') %} {{ e is not
      none
         and e.startswith('device_tracker.')
         and '_is_home' in e
         and old is not none and new is not none
         and old.state | lower != new.state | lower
         and new.state | lower in ['away', 'not_home', 'offline', 'down']
         and alert | string == '1' }}  
actions:
  - variables:
      devname: >
        {% set e = trigger.event.data.entity_id %} {{ e |
        replace('device_tracker.', '') | replace('_is_home', '') | replace('_',
        ' ') | title }}
      timestamp: "{{ now().strftime('%Y-%m-%d %I:%M %p') }}"
      msg: "{{ now().strftime('%H:%M') }} {{ devname }}"
  - data:
      title: Network Device Offline
      message: "{{ msg }}"
    action: notify.mobile_app_pixel_7a
  - data:
      title: Network Device Offline
      message: "{{ msg }}"
      notification_id: "{{ devname | lower | replace(' ', '_') }}_offline"
    action: persistent_notification.create
mode: parallel

[jokob-sk]

Hi @waterwingz ,

Thanks for sharing. What would make this automation easier?

j

[waterwingz]

What would make it easier is not needing to use an automation at all. Trying to "program" in YAML is a miserable experience at the best of times. So a check box ( labelled "Notify") on the configuration screen of each NAX monitored device that enable the same action as the automation script would be pretty handy.

[jokob-sk]

Thanks for the details, unfortunately I'm still not clear how that would work it NetAlertX. Maybe some screenshots or mock-ups could help? I can only pass the device object via MQTT to home assistant. I can extend it;s properties, but that's pretty much it.

[waterwingz]

Okay - if the only way NAX can talk to HA is via the MQTT broker then what I've done with a YAML automation is likely the only way.

Not being familiar with the underlying details, I was guessing there is an API call that NAX could make to HAOS ( REST or Websocket?) that would allow NAX to request a HA Notification be issued with a specified title and message.

[jokob-sk]

I had a look and the API is a bit basic. Websocket can be used only for outgoing events from HA, so it's not usable.

The REST api has two viable endpoints:

• /api/events/<event_type> - only shows the event id, e.g. download_file
• /api/template - unsure if this is a notification or it only shows the text as the result of the API call

So it seems there are no feasible API calls that could be used, but maybe I misunderstood teh docs.

[waterwingz]

Okay - thanks for looking into that. I guess it goes into the "would be nice if..." pile.

The YAML script I posted does what's needed. It's probably functionality that some people would use if they were aware of it. That's would be the advantage to having it built-in to NAX as another settings option (like in the image I embedded).