iOS Actionable Notifications to Open App

Mobile Apps Home Assistant Companion for Apple
1

According to this, I should be able to launch apps using actionable notifications in iOS. The provided examples are for using the Phone app to place a call and Safari to open a website. Is it possible to simply open a specific app? If so, what’s that syntax?

2

You can use the URI field in the notification to open an app if the app supports custom url scheme (eg a spotify:// style URI) or (newer) Universal Links, which since iOS 9 are web addresses the app can “take over” to open in-app. Basically if you’ve ever clicked a link in email or messages that opens the app, then it supports universal linking. You should also be able to open built-in iOS apps using their app bundle identifier in the uri scheme, e.g. com.apple.home://

3

Thanks. How do I open a non-built-in iOS app without a URL?

4

As I said, you should be able to open any app with a properly formed URI, but the style of the URI depends on what the app supports, since there are different methods. If you could clarify what app you’re trying to launch we might be able to help more.

5

It’s the Jandy pool app called iAquaLink.

6

Since they’re not on the custom schemes list, your options are Universal Links or Bundle Identifier.

It’s hard to know what, if any, Universal Links will open the app instead of just a webpage (it’s up to the developer to decide). If they have ever sent you a link that launches the app, use that. If not, try clicking these on your iOS device to see if any of them launch the app. https://iaqualink.com/ or https://www.iaqualink.com/

I used this procedure to extract the bundle id of your app, so the URI com.zodiac.iaqualink:// might work (edit: the forum doesn’t seem to link the URI as a link so might need to try it in a notification).

7

Both of the links opened in my default browser since that’s an actual website.

Here’s what I have for the attempt at using the URI you provided:

  data:
    actions:
      - action: "URI"
        title: "Open iAquaLink"
        uri: "com.zodiac.iaqualink://"

The action button appears, but when I click it, the Home Assistant companion app opens and a popup appears:

Open URL?

Always Open

Open

Cancel.

When I click Open, nothing happens.