Push notifications - how reliable are they in HA?

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Sorry if i wrote this topic in wrong section, i felt its best place, but of course i can be wrong.
I still dont have my HA (waiting for PI delivery), but already thinking about some features what i do need.

First of all what i want to do:
Pi3 will be used as hub only for home automation, with z-wave stick, and z-wave sensors. Pi wont run any other devices, only HA.io without any virtualization. For security reasons im planning to add also small UPS for Pi (and router) to prevent it from going down in case of power loss, and will not integrate any ā€œsmart locksā€ or other potentially ā€œhackableā€ devices having direct influence for safety.

I want also make a alarm system for home and garage - by using z-wave motion detection sensors, and battery powered sirens. Alarm will be armed and disarmed manually or (eventually) by some automation rule (presence detection). Alarm is of course most needed when im not in homeā€¦ i must be sure i will also get info at my iphone about danger (visitors) so fast as possible to, no matter where im. So reliable and 100% working notifications (or any other way of sending info about incursion) is just MUST HAVE for me. Situation when sirens are already making a lot of noise but nobody is around, and i have no idea that i do have some visitors in my home because something just crashed, or theres some bug in the soft, is something what just cannot happen.

So here comes question from title of the topic- how good are notification in HA ? Can i rely on them ?

Greg

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You wonā€™t receive any notifications if your phone doesnā€™t have a data connection (wifi, cellular).
Depending on where you live, this might be rare, but still a possibility to consider.
Also, notifications probably wonā€™t work if the responsible servers at Apple are down (happens).

Iā€™d definitely figure out some kind of fallback plan (you donā€™t want to return from vacation with your neighbors waiting for you wielding ptchforks only because your sirens went off without you noticing :wink:

Other than that - Iā€™m using iOS notifications to alert me of an open window and I donā€™t think it missed one so far.
So Iā€™d say itā€™s pretty reliable, but thereā€™s no 100% guarantee.

Sebastian

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I would consider using email notifications as a backup - they are less susceptible to a couple of the things mentioned above. Still not 100% but perhaps a little closer.

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I use pushover for notifications which seems very fast and reliable. But please understand HA is home automation, not home security. If security and reliability is such a high priority I would personally not use a diy solution, wireless sensors and software which is currently at version 0.5x.

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I used IFTTT initially and that was too sketchy so Iā€™ve been using SMS since. I havenā€™t tried the other push methods yet.

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Very good but as @sjee mentioned, HA is not an alarm system and may not be the ideal solution to meet your requirements.

If security and notification is of such high concern, what you need is an actual alarm system connected via Cellular Data Communicator.

These days Alarm Systems are integrated with Cameras and transmit via cellular networks.

FYI: All it takes, is for someone to cut the internet service to your home and there goes your notifications from HA.

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Further to @Coolie1101 commenting on your Internet going down - you could ā€˜backupā€™ your Internet connection by using a router with usb 3g/4g failsafe support. I use a Draytek for this at work, and a TPLink for this at home.
If reliability is priority no.1, then redundancy is key.

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