Reactor (Multi-System/Multi-Hub) Announcements

[Cadwizzard]

Maybe I'm missing something, but I cant see the way to set alerts to the HA app (android in this case) via Reactor.
I have configured Home assistant (2022.10.3) and am able to create automations there and successfully receive them on Android using the entities linked to my phone.

I'm using MSR latest-22274-24dfd72 and have configured Telegram and that is working fine for notifications.
Choosing notify/alerts as a reaction doesn't trigger the messages to the companion app.

Is there a way?
I cant find anything in the docs about this and i'd much prefer to setup all my notifications in MSR than in HA/Automations.
Hopefully I've given enough detail.

[Pabla]

@cadwizzard you’ve gotta create a service call for the ‘hass>system’ entity and the service will be notify.(whatever device or notification group). Similar to what I have screenshotted below.

[Cadwizzard]

Thanks!
I was mostly convinced I wasn't missing something in the ui/docs.
@toggledbits - is there any plan to add the ability to notify to HA companion apps into the notification options (please)?
For some, the telegram setup etc. is going to be difficult, and this seems like the most on platform way to send notifications

[toggledbits]

As you just saw from @Pabla , notifications using HA's native mechanisms are available through the use of actions on the entities (the system entity for a HassController in this case). This is how it's designed to work. I have no plans to implement a separate Notifier for HA, as it would be redundant (and trivial).

[Cadwizzard]

OK, understood.
It certainly wouldn't be redundant for people like me. I'm are not a specialist in code or expert in HA, much more a visual logic person. I use Reactor to avoid having to drop into functions and expressions. I'm trying to get my partner onboard with how HA/reactor works because you can step into it and just create logic. If I show her that's how you send messages, she'll lose interest immediately
I'm super grateful to @pabla - i'd never have been able figure that out myself...... after spending the time needed to get telegram working and it being less than ideal, I had already just started creating all my notifications in HASS directly and accepted i'd lose the logic I wanted to add to them in MSR. Notifications are such a huge part of the smart home
Do you think it might ever make sense or you find the time to attach the notifications into the "Alert" notifier in MSR? Just hoping.

[PerH]

One workaround would perhaps be to have a helper in HASS that MSR can trigger, which in HASS initiates a notification? Haven't gone in to this myself yet, still using telegram..

[therealdb]

@cadwizzard this should be possible with virtual devices. I'm not sure this is easier to setup, but then it should be like calling a normal action. I've never done it myself, but this is perfectly possible.

Another easier way is to create a global variable with no content, and write to this to send notifications. A ruleset watching for the variable and sending the message should be enough. It's probably less elegant, but it's easy to do and it'll work pretty well.

[Cadwizzard]

Thanks for the suggestions!
In absence of a notify option, I think setting a variable which has an action for notify.x triggered by it changing, and using using the content of the variable (and then clearing it) might work.
'other people' i'm trying to get the hang of how things work will be able to understand set variable "send_notification" and type what they want as well