Create simple, actionable notifications with Home Assistant using Node-RED and the Home Assistant Companion App

What are actionable notifications?

Actionable notifications are notifications that are sent to your device (in this case, Android or Apple IOS) that allow you to perform an action if a condition is met.

For example, maybe you and your family are away from the house for 10 minutes, and you want to be notified if a door is left open? Or perhaps you want to set your alarm system on when you leave your house?

Another example: I have a bedtime routine for my child that will turn off lights, turn on the fan, set the sound machine and humidifier to on, and after 10 minutes it will ask me if I want to turn the night light off or not.

Requirements to setup actionable notifications:

There are a few prerequisites, I assume that you have the following before starting:

• Home Assistant is installed and running the latest version
• Node-RED is installed through the addon store in Home Assistant
• Home Assistant companion app installed (Android or IOS) and it’s connected to your home assistant instance

We’re also going to assume that you’ve had some experience setting up automations in node-red, you may be able to complete this tutorial without any prior experience, but it might be best to watch this video if you haven’t used node-red before: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AR432bguOY

What are we going to do?

We will set up a simple actionable notification to turn off a light in the house; if the light successfully turns off, then we’re going to send a second notification to your phone to let you know that the light successfully turned off.

If you’d rather import the template instead of follow this tutorial, see the section labeled Import Flow

Let’s get started!

1. Open up the Node-RED WEB UI; as of this article (home assistant 2022.6), you would navigate to settings -> Add-ons -> Node-RED -> Open WEB UI. I’d recommend enabling Node-RED in the sidebar by clicking on “Show in the sidebar”
2. Create a new Flow in node-red by clicking the + button near the top right of the page. I named mine Actionable Notification Template.
3. Add the inject Node
4. Add the change Node
   1. Change the title of the change node to “Set Title and Message”
   2. Change msg.payload to msg.message
   3. Change “to the value” to “Turn off light?”
   4. On the bottom left in “Edit Change Node”, add an item
   5. Change msg.payload to msg.title
   6. Change “to the value” to “Turn off light test”
   7. Your change node should look like this:

5. Add a call service node
   1. Set the domain to “notify”
   2. Set the service to the entity for your mobile phone; in my case, it’s mobile_app_dan_samsung
   3. in the data dropdown, click JSON and add the below code:

{
    "message": "{{message}}",
    "title": "{{title}}",
    "data": {
        "actions": [
            {
                "action": "TURN_OFF_LIGHT",
                "title": "Set"
            },
            {
                "action": "IGNORE_LIGHT",
                "title": "Ignore"
            }
        ],
        "persistent": true,
        "tag": "persistent"
    }
}

Few notes on the above code: persistent notification means that at least on Android, you will not be able to swipe the notification away, and one of the two options needs to be selected.

The first title “Set” will be displayed as a way to set the device, the action should be changed for each actionable notification you create. You can add more options, but normally there is only enough room for 3 or 4 actions.

6. Wire the 3 nodes together so it looks like this

Now that we have a way of sending a notification to the phone, we need a way to listen for actions (IE the button you press on the mobile app notification)

7. Add the events.all Node
   1. Change the name to “All Mobile App Notification Actions”
   2. Set the Event Type to “mobile_app_notification_action
   3. Click the add button and set the message box to “event_type”, so it now says “msg.event_type”
   4. Select the dropdown and use “J: Expression”
   5. Set the field to “$outputData(“eventData”).event_type”

Your events: all Node should now look like this

8. Add a switch node
   1. Under Property, change msg.payload to msg.payload.event.action
   2. Using the options we created from step 5 (call service node), we’re going to listen for the following
      1. TURN_OFF_LIGHT
      2. IGNORE_LIGHT
   3. Wire the events.all Node to the switch node

Your switch node should look like this:

9. Add a Call Service Node
   1. Choose a light you would like to shut off, in this example I’m using an office light.
   2. In my case, I’d set the domain to light, the service to turn off, and then for the entity, I will select the office light. I want to use turn_off over toggle as I don’t want the light to toggle on.
   3. Wire the switch node to the call service node (use the top option on the switch node)
10. Add a Current State Node
    1. Wire the Call Service Node to the Current State Node
    2. Title: Is the light off
    3. For the entity, you want to check the light you set in step 9, in my case, it will be light.office_light
    4. You will want to check “If State” is off

11. Add a delay node with a fixed delay of 5 seconds. Note: Other devices such as locks may need more time
12. Set your flow so that if the current state node is false, then wire it to the delay node
    1. Wire the output of the delay node back to the start of the current state node, what this will do is check to see if the device status has changed after a set amount of time (in this case 5 seconds). Your output should look like this:

13. Create a Change Node
    1. Change “Set” to msg.message
    2. Change “to the value” to “light is turned off”
    3. Use the add button at the bottom of the change node
    4. Change the second “Set” to msg.title
    5. In my case, I’m going to change “to the value” to “Office Light”
    6. Wire the true value from the Current State Node to the Change Node

14. Create a Call services node
    1. Wire the Change Node to the Call Service Node
    2. Title: Set Title and Message
    3. Set the domain to notify
    4. Set the service to the entity for your mobile phone, in my case it’s mobile_app_dan_samsung
    5. Change the data to “{}JSON”
    6. Add the below code

{
    "message": "{{message}}",
    "title": "{{title}}",
    "data": {
        "channel": "Alarm",
        "priority": "high",
        "ttl": 0
    }
}

Your flow should look as follows:

Try the flow by clicking on the grey box next to the Inject Node, you should receive a notification, you may need to “drop down” the notification to see the “Set” or “Ignore” options.

After you click on “Set”, the light you setup in step 9 should turn off, and you should receive a second notification letting you know that the light is indeed off.

Just export the flow!

If you don’t want to follow the above tutorial, you can import the below code into node-red and modify it.

Things you will have to modify:

1. The call service node on the top right of the flow, so that the device points to your phone. You may also wish to change the title from “Notify Dan Phone”
2. The call service node in the middle of the flow will need to change the entity specifically
3. Current state node on the bottom right, you will need to change the device so it points to your phone, and may also wish to change the title.

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If you have any questions or issue with this tutorial, please leave a comment and I’ll try my best to reply to you!