Home Assistant Notifications Setup Guide
Home Assistant is a platform for creating, automating and managing smart home and IoT. There are almost 2,000 systems and devices in the app's integrations directory. This allows you to easily combine different brands into one ecosystem.
Each device connected to Home Assistant performs a certain action on a pre-set command. Still, such automation alone is not enough. It is important to know the status of their implementation and always be aware of incidents in the house.
In this article, we'll show you how to receive Home Assistant notifications on your phone or computer via your favorite messenger or other communication tool.
In this article:
- How to receive Home Assistant notifications?
- What kind of Home Assistant notifications are supported?
- What ways to receive Home Assistant notifications are available?
- How to set up Home Assistant notifications?
How to receive Home Assistant notifications?
Home Assistant allows setting up dozens of automations to make your life easier. But not always everything goes according to plan. For example, a washing machine may fail and flood the entire bathroom together with neighbors. At such moments, it is important to stay informed and not waste time if an immediate reaction is required.
Or maybe, just the opposite, it is crucial for you to know that everything went as it should and the automation worked well: the lights went out when everyone left the house, or the kettle turned on 5 minutes before you got back home. Instant notifications solve these tasks.
There are three options for receiving Home Assistant update notification: internal HA notifications (persistent notifications), the built-in notify component, and the Notify.Events integration. We compared them in the chart:
| Option | Ways to receive | How to set up |
|---|---|---|
| Persistent notifications | Home Assistant interface only. | Create and configure notifications through Developer Tools. |
| Built-in notify integration | Third party platforms (e.g. Slack, Telegram, Facebook Messenger). | Install and configure the component and each integration separately. In some cases, creating a chatbot via the API and/or adding custom code to the configuration file is required. |
| Notify.Events | 50+ recipient services: instant messengers, push, SMS, voice calls. | One-time service setup, simple subscription of an unlimited number of available recipients in one place. |
Home Assistant persistent notifications make it possible to receive messages only in the interface of the service itself. This is not convenient at all. It's much better when notifications are delivered somewhere you can immediately see and read them. For example, in the chatting app that you use every day or by SMS.
Therefore, sending notifications through the notify Home Assistant component may seem like a good solution at first. But in reality, the number of integrations is limited. And most of them require complex setup.
The Notify.Events service does a great job with these problems. Out-of-the-box integration with Home Assistant allows you to receive important alerts in a comfortable way. Recipients include Telegram, Microsoft Teams, Viber, Slack, SMS, iOS / Android app, and push notification services. The setup is simple and doesn't take long. The service is free when sending up to 50 notifications per month.
What kind of Home Assistant notifications are supported?
Notify.Events sends notifications about important events happening in your home or office. You can set up notifications for each Home Assistant automation. Here are some examples:
- Motion sensor triggered;
- Leaking pipe in the kitchen;
- Call to the video doorbell;
- Completion of cooking by the oven:
- Photo of strangers from the CCTV.
Notify.Events collects all the event messages you select and forwards them in real time to the specified recipient service. Thus, connecting Home Assistant to your favorite messenger will allow you to receive all notifications from the smart home in time.
What recipients of Home Assistant notifications are available?
Notify.Events offers 50+ ways to receive Home Assistant notifications: IM, push notifications, SMS, voice calls, and even TV screen notifications.
You can receive Home Assistant notifications on Android and iOS, Home Assistant text message to Telegram, Viber and Slack, Home Assistant push notifications, and Home Assistant notifications to the Notify.Events mobile app. Take a look at the complete list of recipients:
What is more, you can subscribe family members to the notification flow in no time and also let them control Home Assistant. They do not need to create their own account. Just share a personal link with them so that they can choose a convenient way to receive alert from Home Assistant. The number of subscribers is not limited.
Another way to give access to notifications to several people is to set up receiving Home Assistant actionable notifications in a messenger group chat. This is possible for apps that work through chatbots. For example, Telegram, Slack, Discord and others.
How to set up Home Assistant notifications?
In order to make Home Assistant send notifications to Telegram or other tool, follow these simple steps:
Set up Notify.Events
- Register or login to the Notify Events website.
- In the Control Panel, create a new channel (notification feed) or select an existing one.
- Add Home Assistant as a source to the channel via the Add Source button in the Sources section.
- Copy the received token.
- Add a notification recipient to the channel using the Subscribe button in the Recipients section. To add multiple recipients, repeat the step.
Set up a recipient service
Each recipient has individual settings. Follow the instructions given in the step of adding a recipient in the Notify.Events interface.
After you have successfully completed all the steps, the recipient will appear on the Channel screen in the Recipients section.
Set up Home Assistant
- Login to your Home Assistant account and open the configuration.yaml file.
- Paste the received token in the appropriate location in the configuration file:
The optional name parameter allows creating multiple notifiers. The notifier will be bound to notify.NOTIFIER_NAME.
To expand the functionality, additional attributes can be added to the data:
Service call example:
That's it. Now, as soon as some event happens in your home or office, you will instantly receive a message to the selected recipient. Assign events different levels and priorities, distribute notifications among family members, and let Home Assistant send notification with image and file attachments. No event will be left without attention!
