Add to alert component possibility to call any service

Feature Requests
1

Alert component is very useful because it has a unique possibility to execute action multiple times until the end of a certain condition. This is not easy to achieve in other ways.
Strangely, as far as I understand, alert components can call only notification service, and can’t call other services. Because notification is one of the many useful services, it is hard to understand why to limit the alert component so much.
For example, I want to make repeated announcements via TTS if a door is open until the door is closed. TTS currently can’t be used via notification service, and alert component not allows to call TTS service. So the mission is impossible.
Please change the alert component so it will be able to call any service like automation.
Thank you in advance!

2

Good point.

In the meantime, you can create an empty Notify Group. Then create an automation that triggers on that notification.

notify:
  - platform: group
    name: xxx
    services: []
automation:
  - trigger:
      platform: event
      event_type: call_service
      event_data:
        domain: notify
        service: xxx
    action:
      - service: ...

In the alert use xxx as the notifier. Kind of a hack, but it should work.

6 Likes
3

@pnbruckner Interesting solution. Thank you. The question is how can I pass the message from notification to service
For example, I have

alert:
  alarm1:
    name: My alarm
    message: My alarm message
    done_message: My done message
    entity_id: sensor.washing_machine_state
    state: 'full'
    repeat: 40
    can_acknowledge: true
    skip_first: true
    notifiers:
      - xxx

I suppose I should use something like:

  - trigger:
      platform: event
      event_type: call_service
      event_data:
        domain: notify
        service: xxx
    action:
      - service: tts.google_translate_say
        data_template:
          message: "{{ ??? }}"

So what I need to put inside {{}} to get the message from the alert?

4

message: "{{ trigger.event.data.message }}"

5

ha how cool that would be. thanks for the hack (a true hack indeed, since the list is not optional… never new an empty list would be accepted as a valid list :wink: )

anyways, I tried it like this:

  - alias: Notify to service alert Kist
    trigger:
      platform: event
      event_type: call_service
      event_data:
        domain: notify
        service: notify_service
    action:
      - service: tts.google_say
        data_template:
          message: >
            {{trigger.event.data.message }}

alert:
  test_notify_service:
    name: Notify to service
    message: Light Kist is on until you acknowledge
    done_message: Light Kist turned off
    entity_id: light.kist
    state: 'on'
    repeat: 1
    can_acknowledge: true
    skip_first: true
    notifiers:
      - notify_service

but receive an error about the tts being empty:

Error on init TTS: No TTS from google_translate for ''

11

the alert works alright:

28

36

6

@pnbruckner @Mariusthvdb
I checked. And it should be

{{ trigger.event.data.service_data.message }}
1 Like
7

Oops, sorry about that. I actually captured a notify event on the EVENTS page, but forgot the details before I answered that last question. Glad you figured it out.

8

yes!
Now I would love to have the done-message spoken to me too, so guess we need a service template for that also based on the trigger.event.data.service_data.to_state?

would

{% if trigger.event.data.service_data.to_state == 'on' %} {{ trigger.event.data.service_data.message }}
{% else %} {{ trigger.event.data.service_data.done_message }}
{% endif %}

do it?

well, it won’t for now… must be the incorrect service_data.

But, and that’s the good news, the template isn’t necessary in the first place. The alert chooses the appropriate message, and when the alert is turned off, fires the event for the automation along with the done_message :+1: