Custom Integration: New way to track Shipments with the Parcel App!

With the new API that was released with the Parcel App for pro license users, I built a HACS integration (GitHub - jmdevita/parcel-ha: Unofficial ParcelApp integration with Home Assistant) that currently leverages this new feature. I’ve used this product for years, and the $5/year plan is nice compared to many other expensive shipping integrations.

Currently, I have it poll the server for the most recent shipment activity and place that data into a sensor. I’d love to crowdsource any other ideas the community has too!

If it could create calendar entries for expected delivery dates, that would be super peachy keen. :slight_smile:

I’ll look into that! But in the meantime, there’s a feature in the parcel app that allows it to connect to a google calendar. I then link that calendar to home assistant and it works pretty well

There is an existing integration for parcels app. Easily track all your package/parcel!

I didn’t know about a $5 per year tier. I thought it was $5 per month.

Edit: is parcel app different to parcelsapp? Confusing!

That’s a different app.

Yeah, as I said, confusing.

There doesn’t seem to be a way to get this one without an apple device? It did I miss something?

Yeah, definitely confusing. This app is apple only, but there is a web version. But much cheaper than the alternative (which is now $10/mo compared to $5/yr).

Hooray!! Thank you sooo much for creating this integration. I’ve used the parcel app for over 10 years, but only today looked into the API. And to have it already pulled into HA is fantastic. Thank you.

My idea: show the parcel locations on a map within HA.

This is probably for V5 or V10 of this integration as I imagine it is quite involved. But over time maybe it can be worked towards. I live in the remoter parts of Australia, so most deliveries go at least half way around Australia before they get here. Even overseas parcels tend to go to Sydney or Melbourne first and then towards north Australia via multiple other locations. Hence, it would be great to see all my active parcels on a map, at the same time. The Parcel App is fantastic, but it only shows the location (and past locations) of an individual parcel, not all of them combined.

Also, many of my parcels don’t have an estimated arrival date, so I can’t sort by that. But by seeing them on a map I can immediately tell roughly how long it will take to get to me (from past experience, no AI required lol).

As a first step, it would be great to just have a marker for each parcel on a map. Maybe with a selectable attribute as its marker (eg days to delivery). And with the map to zoom to show all those parcels plus my home zone/location.

A second step could be to add a “trail” on the map, with smaller dots that show where the parcel has been. Maybe the attribute for these could be how many days before today the parcel was at that location? (that helps my brain’s “machine learning” process)

I realise that converting location names given in the Parcel App API to lat/lon isn’t all that straight forward. Maybe the use of another API (Google maps, OpenStreetMaps) can help with that? Some of the locations provided by some of the carriers aren’t all that detailed, so maybe there may be a need/option to manually intervene at times? I’m not sure, I haven’t thought this trough.

(In case this idea has been proposed somewhere else in HA I apologise for the duplication, I only did a quick search)

Anyway, like I said, this is just a long term idea. Thank you so much for making this start.

Is there a way to get an API key without the iOS app?

Yes. Go to web.parcelapp.net, click on API near the top and then you either see your existing API key or you can request one. But you have to be a paid up user.