I bought a cheap cell phone because that was in theory the easiest way to forward messages from Apps that won’t usually let you. I used the Home Assistant Companion App to read the messages and forward them where I need them to go. Discord it turns out has a trick up it’s sleeve though. If you have not read any of the last 3 messages from a server it stops sending them. As a work around I created an app that lets me automatically mark messages as read. Just thought I would share because it was very perplexing at first as to why Home Assistant wasn’t receiving new Discord messages. Hopefully that nugget helps others. In theory I could use a python server but I decided to go with the phone because now I can do this with any app. For no extra charge I’m also getting a lux sensor, video camera, and barometric pressure all for $25 which is less than a Raspberry PI Zero after you include accessories. (Straight talk moto g 2025 )
I’m sure I can find some other creative things to do with this phone as well.