(I’m using what we now call Smartthings Classic, on iPhone)
One niggling little thing is that, for each of the customized actions I have configured, I have to individually configure whether I want push notifications and/or SMS notifications, and in the latter case the phone number. So, if for some reason I decide I want to use a different phone number (perhaps on a temporary basis), I have to change each one individually.
Bearing in mind the great David Wheeler’s fundamental theorem of software engineering, “all problems in computer science can be solved by another level of indirection”, It Sure Would Be Nice if the app let me define an object, I’ll call it a “Destination” – each smart-app would, in place of the current “alarm and notification” settings, allow me to give the name of an existing Destination.
The Destination would be configured with at least the “use push notification” flag and the phone number to use for SMS, and anything else that seems like it will likely be set the same way for many smart apps (sirens, lights, maybe).
Thanks for your consideration.
1 Like
tgauchat
(ActionTiles.com co-founder Terry @ActionTiles; GitHub: @cosmicpuppy)
2
Notifications have been handled wrong since the very first SmartThings SmartApp.
Users should be able to initiate Devices (Things) of Capability “Notification Handler” (or whatever it would be called) and SmartApps should allow selection of one or more of these Things like any other preference device list input.
The Capability would have a single method: sendNotification( message).
The configuration of each Notification Thing would be where you specify if it is a standard push notification, an SMS number or list of numbers, a Push Bullet, Twitter, Email… etc.
Absolutely trivial to implement using the existing SmartThings Capability paradigm.
Now all you need to do is get all SmartApp developers to use it.
Let’s not lose sight of my original issue - which is that every smart app presents its own instance of that dialogue, requiring me to fill in the same info repeatedly; and if I ever want to change it, I have to change it in numerous places.
1 Like
tgauchat
(ActionTiles.com co-founder Terry @ActionTiles; GitHub: @cosmicpuppy)
7
Exactly. This is not good; (but it’s not the worst fault in SmartThings either.).
But SmartThings is far too entrenched in this method to convert their own SmartApps to use Capability “Notification” (even though they, themselves, created this “new” Capabiltiy - a long time ago).
And it is impossible to force community developed SmartApps to update to use this Capability either.
Have a look at PushOver
You can setup a kind of “speaker” in ST and by telling it to “speak” a message it will send the message via a push to the pushover app installed on a phone etc.
That way… you set this up once then tell each app to “speak” through this one dth
If you need to change anything you only need to do it once.
1 Like
tgauchat
(ActionTiles.com co-founder Terry @ActionTiles; GitHub: @cosmicpuppy)
10
Does this Device Type claim Capability “notification”?
I’m too scared to look, cuz I’m afraid it probably doesn’t, and it should…
I’m actually using it on another platform with a ‘speak’ attribute so I can use it with any speaking app
(It also has the capability speech synthesis)
1 Like
tgauchat
(ActionTiles.com co-founder Terry @ActionTiles; GitHub: @cosmicpuppy)
13
Good job, Zipriddy!
Though I’d be extra happy if it did not have the 2 extra custom ad hoc Commands. They are redundant to the Capability, as far as I can tell… Well sendTestMessage() is a special case I’ll allow.
Everyone knows I’m a stickler for strict compliance with Capabilities.
