Recently, I've been putting together some home automation software for myself (to manage security cameras, todo lists, etc.).
One thing I'd like to do is send notifications to my phone. There seem to be many possibilities here, none of which are perfect. It would also be nice if the same system could be used to send commands back to the server, and ideally it would be distinct from other things I use frequently so that it stands out more. I'm on Android but happy to hear how iOS folks do this too.
Some of the options I've considered:
- IFTTT - solid for notifications, can't easily do responses though, and a little too much non-code configuration for my liking
- Email - works well but not distinct enough, emails could get drowned out
- Text messages - same as email, basically
- Discord bot - good, can process replies, though I personally use Discord for other things so it'd also be not very distinct
- LINE bot - quite nice - can add a shortcut to the specific chat on Android - and handles replies but apparently has some sending limits and more info on pricing beyond that is hard to find
I'm sure other people have done similar setups before where they can write a line of code to send some info to their phone. Would love to hear about other ways of doing this!