Notifications. Phone event to house alert. [Solved for Android].

Community Playground Getting Started & Initial Setup
#1

Conceptually a notification is some way to draw your attention to an event.

In the Vera world “Notifications” are house events that give rise to application alerts. By “application alert” I mean

  • An SMS or email. This is set up via the Vera Web UI, as explained in the micasaverde FAQ “(VeraLite) Setting Notifications”. For example, a motion detector could send (via Vera) an SMS; or
  • A phone alert. For example, the Android App Vera Alerts could be setup to send an Android notification in response to a bedroom switch being set; or
  • Other more exotic applications. For example the Wake-on-LAN plugin can turn your computer on in response to the front door being opened.

But conceptually notifications can go in the other direction. That is, application events could give rise to house alerts. For example, a missed call on your mobile could turn a RGB LED bulb red.

Setting up this notification direction is relatively easy. As I understand it any application can send a http message to fire up a scene, as explained in Writing an external application that talks to the Luup engine. This is what phone apps already do when a user presses on a scene button in the phone app (so I understand).

Thinking specifically of phones apps (and I’m interested in Android in particular) are there any that also allow you to notify: from phone event to house alert. For example by allowing you to associate a scene with a phone event like a: phone call, missed call, new sms, etc.?

Edit: A summary of the solution is as follows:

[ul][li]Use Tasker to capture events such as “Missed Call, Phone Idle/Offhook/Ringing, Received Text”.[/li]

[li]From Tasker raise scenes in AutHomationHD via the “Custom Intents” that AutHomationHD exposes. See Topic: Tasker / Llama / NFC Integration (integration into AutHomation) for documentation. [/li]

[li]Optionally use AutoShortcut plugin for Tasker to make some of this easier (as a bridge between Tasier and AutHomationHD). Some Custom Intents exposed by AutoHomationHD are not available to AutoShortcut.[/li][/ul]

#2

Have you looked at Tasker?

#3

Thanks Richard.

From Tasker there are many events including “Missed Call, Phone Idle/Offhook/Ringing, Received Text”.

From AutHomationHD we have “Custom Intents for 3rd party apps like Tasker, Llama, and NFC Tags”

So do you know if AutHomationHD exposes scenes to Tasker (via Custom Intents)? (I don’t have a vera unit yet, so I can’t test this myself).

Edit: “that” to “if”.

#4

Have a look here which tells you how:

http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php?topic=12401

  • Garrett
#5

Whoops. I should have searched for that.

Thanks Garrett, that solves the issue perfectly.

I knew Intents existed but not Custom Intents. That’s the power of Android right there. Thanks for coding an awesome App!

#6

For completeness the AutoShortcut plugin for Tasker is said to help …

#7

You have to understand that it is using the homescreen shortcut portion of my code which may not have all of the custom intents available from the app if you were to enter it manually.

  • Garrett
#8

Thanks Garrett. Whatever limitations the AutoShortuct route has it looks easy enough to enter the URL manually. You’ve documented entering the urls manually, to invoke custom intents, quite clearly.

#9

If you’re using the newest version of AutHomationHD, you should have access to all of the customs intents available, plus a quick shortcut for VR.

Garrett,
Are there other intents outside what you have listed on the link you provided? Every item listed is actionable as a shortcut on the homescreen, therefore actionable within AutoShortcut and Tasker. I’d be interested to know if there were more, but I’m pretty sure you already have everything covered.

It should be trivial to add direct access to Tasker as a Plugin. Only a few lines of code are necessary, and I for one would gladly pay for a Tasker add-on, or a premium version. We Tasker users already pay for plugins, gladly, because they make automating easier. And given that Tasker is an automation app, its a perfect fit.

I know I’ve asked you before, but please give us a way to thank you for your work here?