Alexa Notify

Not to my knowledge.

Okay :disappointed:

More than a year later - is there some news about this feature?

Didn’t hear anything

Yeah, with the challenges getting media player to do TTS and music simultaneously, it would be better to let the echos do it and pause/resume the media player.

There is an Alexa skill (not developed by me) now called Notify Me which uses the preview Alexa push notifications API. This particular skill has a backend RESTful API, that you can post to in order to send notifications to your own devices. You enable the skill and link your account and you are sent an access code to use the API. I have got this configured now, using the rest notify platform, and it works well:

notify:
  - name: notify
    platform: rest
    message_param_name: notification
    resource: https://api.notifymyecho.com/v1/NotifyMe
    data:
      accessCode: access_code_here

The only disadvantage, which is a limitation of Alexa push notifications, is that when you get a notification the Echo will just ding and light up green. You need to say something like “Alexa, what are my notifications?” or “Alexa, what did I miss?” to play the notifications.

2 Likes

@Steven_Rollason

I added the notify rest platform to my config file as you have in your example however when I use the Services Tool to test it I am not getting the notification sent my echo dot. Should the accessCode include the “amzn1.ask.account.xxxxx…” or does the “amzn1.ask,account” part not included? I assume it should be included. I was able to get the “Hello World” url example that was sent in my initial email from Notify Me to work but unable to get HA to send it. Just wondering if I am missing anything in my setup.

NVM - turned out to be a typo, accessCode had a lower case c. Working now!

Yeah, super easy to set up. My question is: Is there a way to get the notification to say “from Home Assistant” (or anything else) or am I stuck with it saying “from Notify Me”? Probably Amazon requires the notification to say it’s from “Notify Me” so perhaps something the devs can add to the Home Assistant cloud skill in their <sarcasm>copious free time</sarcasm>.

Yeah, that announcement is put there by Amazon (not something the skill controls). It’s probably for the best so developers can’t spoof people by declaring “One new notification from the IRS: Your taxes are past due. Please send all your money to…”

1 Like

just use lannouncer notify put the alexa in bt mode and run it on a always on android device… tablet, tv or android box, works great and alexa still does her thing even when in bt mode constantly

Wouldn’t you have to have an Android device per Echo? That seems a bit overkill.

not if your android device has a2dp bluetooth can run more than one stream of sound to multiple bt speakers

@gazzaman2k looking for some help. I’ve set up Lannouncer and tested it with the developer tool. I can see the message on the lannouncer app on the android box, but no sound comming out. I’ve connected via BT to alexa, but also tried with headphones in the headphone jack just to test. Nothing
I noticed that in the settings>audio volume the “volume for text to speach” is not highlighted. Should this be available?
thank you

im pretty sure it should be lit up, are you sure you have installed language speech packs?

@gazzaman2k thank you. you mean speech packs on the android box?
I continued trying and installed this https://www.home-assistant.io/components/notify.llamalab_automate/
it works when the box is connected directly to a speaker. the Lannouncer didnt work at all.

Hello.
I was able to successfully load the notify.rest component, but I do not know how to enter an action in the automation that will trigger this notification. Could You please show an example how to send notification when the switch change the state?
image

Assuming you used notify as the name in the configuration as above, the action in your automation would look something like this:

action:
    service: notify.notify
    data:
      message: Whatever you wanted to happen has happened.

If you used a different name in your rest notify configuration other than notify you would replace notify.notify with notify.your name

If you want a dynamic message, you would need to use data_template instead of data - refer to the documentation on templating here.

I wrote something like this in my notify.yaml:

- platform: rest
  message_param_name: notification
  resource: https://api.notifymyecho.com/v1/NotifyMe
  data:
    accessCode: amzn1.ask.account

and then the test automation:

- alias: test
  trigger:
    platform: state
    entity_id: switch.microwave
    to: 'on'
  action:
  - service: notify.notify
    data:
      message: "Microwave ON"
      title: "Custom subject"

but when the switch.microwave is in ON state the notification goes to my iPhone not to my Alexa :frowning: What is wrong?

I think your problem is that, if you don’t specify a name, the default name for the rest notify platform is notify.notify, which is probably conflicting with another platform you have setup.
Try specifying a name like this (which would make it notify.alexa):

- name: alexa
  platform: rest
  message_param_name: notification
  resource: https://api.notifymyecho.com/v1/NotifyMe
    data:
      accessCode: my_code

Then you would be able to change the automation to use that name, like this:

- alias: test
  trigger:
    platform: state
    entity_id: switch.microwave
    to: 'on'
  action:
    - service: notify.alexa
      data:
        message: "Microwave ON"
        title: "Custom subject"

Works great! Thank you :slight_smile: