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Beyond Pushbullet: Building Your Own Notification Mirror

Okay, let’s be honest. We’ve all been there. That insistent buzz from your phone, pulling you away from whatever you’re doing. And then you realize you could have just, you know, ignored it. I’ve been wrestling with this exact problem lately, and it led me down a surprisingly interesting rabbit hole. I was using Pushbullet – great app, totally reliable – but my company’s security policies blocked the Chrome extension. So, I needed a way to get those notifications *on my computer*, without relying on a cloud service I couldn’t control.

I’d already set up ntfy, a fantastic open-source notification tool. It’s brilliant for sending notifications based on events—like, say, a new commit on a GitHub repo. But ntfy itself doesn’t *receive* notifications from my phone. I needed a bridge. And that’s where Home Assistant came into the picture. I’d heard about it, this open-source home automation platform, and it seemed like a potential solution.

The Home Assistant Route

The core idea is this: Home Assistant could listen for notifications from my phone (via a bridge), and then trigger a browser notification. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s a self-hosted one, which is the key for me. I’ve been tinkering with it for a few weeks, and it’s become surprisingly effective. It’s a really satisfying feeling to know that I built this myself, rather than just relying on some company’s servers. Plus, the cost was minimal – just the time and a little effort.

I started by looking at how to actually *receive* phone notifications within Home Assistant. There are a few different approaches, and honestly, it’s a bit of a journey. The biggest challenge is figuring out how to get the notification content—the message from my phone—into Home Assistant in a usable format.

Integrating Phone Notifications with Home Assistant

One method I experimented with involved using the Home Assistant Companion App on my phone. This app acts as a bridge, sending events to Home Assistant. It’s not the most elegant solution, but it’s the simplest to set up. You configure the Companion App to listen for specific events (like phone notifications), and then you can create automations in Home Assistant to trigger browser notifications based on those events.

Another method involved integrating a service like IFTTT (If This Then That) between my phone and Home Assistant. IFTTT can listen for phone notifications and then trigger actions in Home Assistant. This approach offers more flexibility than the Companion App, but it also adds another layer of complexity to the setup. I honestly found the Companion App the easiest to get running, even if it’s not the most robust.

Why Self-Hosting Matters to Me

Look, I’m a bit of a control freak when it comes to my data. I appreciate the idea of owning my tools and not relying on a third-party service. Pushbullet is great, but the thought of all my notification data stored on their servers…well, it just didn’t sit right with me. Self-hosting gives me that peace of mind. It also just feels good to have something running on my own hardware.

It’s a bit of a learning curve, definitely. Setting up Home Assistant and configuring the notifications took some time and troubleshooting. But honestly, I’ve learned a *ton* in the process. I’ve gotten more familiar with Home Assistant, automation, and the underlying principles of how these things work. And that’s worth more than just having a notification mirror.

Beyond the Basics

Once I had the basic notification mirroring working, I started to explore other possibilities. I wanted to customize the notifications—perhaps include the sender’s name or a preview of the message. I started looking into creating more complex automations within Home Assistant. It’s a really powerful platform, and the possibilities seem endless.

I’m also planning on exploring other notification sources. I’d like to connect ntfy directly to Home Assistant, so I can receive notifications based on events happening in my projects. It’s a long-term project, but it’s a really exciting one.

Resources and Further Exploration

If you’re interested in building your own notification mirror, here are a few resources that might be helpful:

• Home Assistant: The official website for Home Assistant.
• ntfy.sh: An open-source notification tool.
• IFTTT: A service for creating webhooks and integrations.

Let me know in the comments if you’ve tried anything similar, or if you have any questions! I’m always up for a discussion about self-hosting and notification systems.