Getting the current notification before notification snooze/pause/cooldown in automation

Cameras
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1

Hello,

I have an automation that

If

Family Room Camera detects motions

Do

Snooze notifications on Family Room Camera for 15 minutes

My goal is similar if not the same as the other posts on this topic. I want the initial notification that there is motion and then suppress subsequent notifications for 15 minutes.

I can see that the automation is indeed turning of the notification for 15 minutes. The issue is that I want to receive the first notification that caused the trigger effectively keeping the notifications to 1 every 15 minutes aka sign of life…

I’ve read through all the forums looking for a way to automate vs snooze bell or shortcut, etc.

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2

Yeah it must fire before triggering the notification, which sort of makes sense, but also sort of defeats the purpose.

I wonder if adding a step might allow it time to send the notification, like “upload a clip to the cloud” or some other step in between?

Maybe two automations, the first one does something other than disable notifications, the the second is basically the one you’ve already created (which will disable the 2nd and subsequent notifications for 15 mins).

@carverofchoice is the expert at daisy chaining automations to make them do what you want, maybe he has an idea.

Alternatively you can tell the family to remain perfectly still after entering the room and not need an automation :slight_smile:

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3

There are probably several workarounds that you could do. My favorite solution would only be applicable if you are using Android instead of iOS. Apple doesn’t allow notification parser apps to my knowledge. But Android does. Just get a notification parsing app.

Some of my favorites include

  • Buzzkill (one of the best and easiest to manage)
  • MacroDroid
  • Tasker
  • Home Assistant
  • There are also some completely open source options that I haven’t tried. And even other closed source ones that I haven’t tried. Basically, all that matters is that an app can be given permission to view notifications for specific apps.

Then, you just set up an automation that watch is the notifications for the Wyze app. You set the trigger to be whenever a notification for that app has text containing the camera name, or the camera name and the word motion, then you set the action to be Something like a cool down, or snooze, or automatic dismissal for x amount of time. I have done the cool down option with buzzkill. It’s very useful. You can also set it up to only happen during certain times of day or do different things during different times of day.

If you have Android, using a notification parsing app is absolutely the way to go. It’s extremely powerful because Android gives you administrator rights for customizations exactly like this. Apple treats people as users instead of administrators of their devices, so you won’t be able to do this with apple, but there may be other workarounds that you could leverage with apple.

If I had iOS, I would probably consider seeing if The Alexa app would allow me to do this. Basically, what you would do is go to Alexa routines, and have the trigger be when the camera detects motion assuming the camera modeling question has that as a trigger option in Alexa. Then set the action to send a notification to your phone. You can make it any custom wording you want, including motion detected on camera name. Then, you we’ll see an option called “Anytime” under the “when” section. Click to change that. You will see an option called " suppress for" and you can set how long you want it to suppress the notifications for after the first time it sends it to you.

Now, you can just turn off the Wyze notification for that camera, and just let Alexa notify you when that camera detects motion. And Alexa will respect your settings for whatever length of cooldown or suppression you want in between notifications. Problem solved. The only downside with this method is that clicking on the Alexa notification will not automatically pull up the Wyze event, nor will it show you a thumbnail image.

There are some other more complex options you could implement involving home assistant, or rtsp, and possibly even Google. But the above options are the best for 98% of people.

4

Would simply adding a step before the “disable notifications for x” allow it to work? Or a dual automation where the first one does something inconsequential but allows the alert through, then the second one shuts them off for 15 mins.

Obviously the notification manager apps are quite flexible but if OP is looking for a quick and simple way I’m thinking there must be some way to do it with automations alone?

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5

If I was desperate to find a solution using only the Wyze app, then this is what I would attempt (note that I have not actually verified this works, I’m just saying this is what I would test):

I would select a Wyze device that supports an automation action of “turn on for minutes” This could be a smart plug that is dedicated to this automation, it could be a smart bulb dedicated to this automation.

Now, what you do is you create multiple automations to make this work. We will use the example of the Smart plug, because it is the most frequently used automation workaround For integrations or lack of conditional operators in the Wyze app.

I would then set One automation to be when the Family room camera detects motion well has the trigger, and I would set the action to turn on the indoor plug for 15 minutes.

I would then set a second automation to have the trigger be when the smart plug turns on. And for the action, I would set it to be either snooze the notifications for x amount of time (which may not work the way I expect) or, I would also try turn off notifications for the family room. Camera.

I would then set a third automation to have the trigger be when the smart plug turns off. And the action to be turn on the notifications to the family room camera.

The above three automations, in theory, should work like this:

  • The camera detects motion
  • This immediately executes all triggers for that motion detected status at the same time. In theory, it should send the notification to your phone that motion was detected on the camera, and also send a separate instruction to the plug to turn on.
  • once the plug turns on, it should send a request back to the wyze server that it turned on, and then a new request should be sent back to the family room camera to turn off notifications. In theory, you should have received the motion notification to your phone already before this extra action back to the server and back to the camera or app tells it to turn off notifications. Basically, I’m banking on the idea that if everything is either a simultaneous blast or sequential that the notification will come in and then shortly after that the notifications will be turned off after you receive the notification.
  • now, in theory, 15 minutes later, the smart plug should turn off.
  • once the plug turns off, it will trigger the third automation, which turns the camera notifications back on.
  • If all goes well, then overall this should mean that you get a motion notification then no notifications are possible for 15 minutes, and then notifications are turned back on to start getting notifications again after 15 minutes elapse.

I think there is a flaw though. I don’t think it will actually turn on the camera notifications after 15 minutes every time. I think what the above will do is it will send a notification, and then turn off notifications until there is no motion detected on the camera for at least 15 minutes. That means that if a person remains in the family room for 3 hours straight and motion is detected at least once every 15 minutes or more often, then the smart plug timer will continue to reset and stay on for another 15 minutes until no motion is detected for at least 15 minutes straight, then it will finally turn the plug off and turn motion notifications back on. That’s how I think the above automations are likely to work. And, I actually think that is a superior method to making it send a new notification every 15 minutes if somebody’s still in the room. I would personally prefer to only be notified once when a person enters the room and then not have it restore notifications again until the person is left the room for at least x amount of time, and then only notify me again when there is a new presence in the family room that is not a continuous presence from the last time I got a notification.

Still, if a person is insistent on being able to get a notification every 15 minutes, then instead of turning the notifications off and back on, they could change the action in the above automations turn motion detection off and then turn motion detection back on after 15 minutes. If motion detection is off, then it cannot reset the timer on the plug to last longer than 15 minutes, because motion detection was disabled. The camera will still record to the SD card, just won’t upload anything to the cloud and it won’t send a notification either. This is a great worker round. Then, after the 15 minutes expires exactly, the plug will definitely turn off after 15 minutes and then motion detection will be turned back on for that camera. If there is still motion in the room, it will immediately send another notification and restart the automation sequence.

This is what I would attempt to do if I absolutely needed to keep everything within the Wyze app.

I can’t absolutely guarantee that it would work as expected, because it’s quite possible that may be motion would be detected. Turn on the plug and shut off notifications all before the actual motion notification gets to the phone, stopping you from getting the original notification. I don’t think that issue is the way it will work, but there is a possibility. However, I think that if instead of shutting off the notifications, you shut off motion detection, then there is no way it would impede the notification getting to you Because the trigger is all about whether motion is detected. So if motion is detected and it turns on the plug which then turns off motion detection, that doesn’t interfere with the initial detected motion and motion notification. It should absolutely still send the notification for the motion that turned off the plug.

So yeah, the more I think about it, the way to go is to just turn off motion detection for 15 minutes, and then turn it back on after the 15 minutes expires. This ensures the first notification for sure comes through and that the plug being turned on for x amount of minutes is impossible to reset the timer because motion is totally disabled during that full 15 minutes. Yeah, that’s definitely the way to go. I just had to talk through it lol

Anyway, @dave27 I think you were right that there is a way to keep it 100% within the Wyze app. The problem with that workaround is you have to waste money on a dedicated smart plug in order to make it work. And that is just poor design on Wyze’s part. I continue to criticize them for their terribly implemented automation engine. They need to add conditional operators (if, and, or, not, etc), as well as time conditions (wait x minutes), along with multiple actions that can run sequentially instead of blasted all at the same time. And also actions to turn automations on or off, along with a lot of other triggers and actions. This is all pretty basic standard requirements for routines and automations nowadays. They really need to upgrade to support these kind of settings. Then people could do all of these things without having to go to other platforms or crazy. Workarounds like paying extra money for a dedicated plug to do something that should be able to be done digitally only.

(Sorry if I misspelled anything or used the wrong word, I was just dictating through voice to text, and did not screen what it transcribed, so it could have made mistakes)

6

If one goal is to keep function within the Wyze ecosystem and a suitable device is available for use as a logical switch (e.g., Plug, Bulb Color), then what about this as an alternative scheme?

Device & Service Trigger Automation 1 (Initiate)

  • IF
    • Cam v4
      • Detects motion
  • DO
    • Bulb Color
      • Turn on
      • Set brightness to 50%
      • Set color selection ff0000
      • Color blink 00ff00

Device & Service Trigger Automation 2 (Snooze)

  • IF
    • Bulb Color
      • Turns on
  • DO
    • Cam v4
      • Upload a short video to the cloud
      • Turn off notifications

Device & Service Trigger Automation 3 (Reset)

  • IF
    • Bulb Color
      • Has been on for 00:15:00
  • DO
    • Bulb Color
      • Turn off
    • Cam v4
      • Turn on notifications

I have not tested this, but if it works then it would seem to have the advantage of not resetting the snooze timer while snoozing and also not turning off motion detection so that events can still be sent to the cloud (for a subscriber). That way if the user wants a video record in the cloud of activity that takes place while notifications aren’t being generated, then those events should still be captured and saved even if continuous microSD recording isn’t being used.

A Plug or an unoccupied outlet in a Plug Outdoor could be used as the logical switch, but I’m using a Bulb Color for illustrative purposes because it can do something like blink green at the beginning of the 15-minute period and then turn solid red as a visual indicator that notifications are off. Both Plug and Bulb Color support the “Has been on for” Action, so this scheme wouldn’t be crippled by the simple “Turns On” or “Turns Off” Actions that could essentially result in timer reset if those were used. This also moves the reset function to the third Automation instead of leaving it in the first (the one that starts the whole sequence), so this scheme shouldn’t be prone to ongoing motion conditions in the room that could otherwise postpone the sequence reset.

Additionally, in the #2 (Snooze) Automation example above, the Bulb Color “Turns on” trigger is causing an extra Action for the Cam v4 to upload a short video to the cloud. My understanding is that this can work even for non-subscribers, or at least that used to be the case. That could be a bonus way of capturing whatever event initiates this Automation sequence.

That’s the idea, anyway. Like I said, I haven’t tried it, but I wanted to make sure that the “Has been on for” Action isn’t overlooked, because I think that’s a useful tool. Without more detail about @japrice79’s use case and goal for something like this, though, I’m really just speculating.

:100: on all counts. :+1:

Welcome to the Forum, @japrice79! :wave:

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7

First off, thanks for the quick an thorough responses. The use case is “sign of life” using cameras at a different location than my home. My original intent is to use Alexa. So, indeed I already have a routine that,

WHEN

Family Room Cam: Person Detected

ONLY IF Every Day

6AM-10PM, Suppress routine when events happen for 1 hour

ALEXA WILL

Announce “Person detected in family room” on several echo devices in my home

Show Family Room Camera - Brings up the camera on Echo Show 8 for 30 seconds

This works well at home but wasn’t sure how to make it work on the phone if I’m not at home. My paradigm was trying to suppress the notifications from the Wyze app vs just adding a push notification to the Alexa routine. I’ve since tested it on one camera and working. What I’m not sure of is who gets the push notification besides the account owner (me). I think that’s configurable. I have 2 other users, one with Android and one with Apple. Both would need the Alexa app.

I’ll continue to test but keeping it within Alexa was my initial goal and went a little off track as I went down the Wyze camera rabbit hole….

I work in industrial automation and pretty quickly figured out this was a timing issue. I run into it all the time. I completely agree with @carverofchoice that they need to add conditional operators, time conditions (delays), and the ability to run multiple actions concurrently or sequentially.

Thanks for everyone’s help!

2 Likes
8

Thanks for the update and for including additional information about your Alexa use. I think knowing that this is part of your system creates more options, and I’m glad you got that bit working for yourself. I’ll be interested to know what you learn from further testing.

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9

Crease,

So it’s been a few days and the routines I’ve implemented in Alexa are working well. I added the push notification as an additional action to the two I already had. The only issue I have is that the Alexa push notification does not come through when my Android phone locks and is asleep. I’ve been through all the Alexa app’s permissions, notifications, and lock screen setting replicating what other apps (like Messages) are able to do when the phone is locked and screen is off. I’ve also looked at the Alexa app settings and haven’t found anything there. It’s a small point but relevant that when I’m mobile, just the audible notification when the phone is in my pocket would be beneficial. Regardless, this is not a Wyze issue but an Alexa or Android issue. Thought I would update based on my testing.

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10

I don’t have this problem with my Alexa notifications using Android, so something on your phone is interfering through battery optimization settings.

It kind of depends who your manufacturer is and what other battery saving apps you may have implemented. You need to find a way to exempt the Alexa app from battery optimization, More adaptive battery, battery saver, oem power management, etc. Explicitively allow it to run in the background.

Also, check the notification channels and ensure they are all enabled just in case.

I’ve heard other people with similar issues have been able to resolve it by clearing all the data and cash from the app that wasn’t working right, uninstalling and then reinstalling it and then the total refresh allows the notifications to start coming through correctly (still making sure to remove all battery optimizations and allow it to run in the background after reinstalling). For some reason it seems like some apps get something stuck. Weird in the Android memory to not work unless you reinstall.

I actually had Something similar happened very recently on my pixel tablet. It would not let me run Plex. No matter what I did, I couldn’t run Plex at all. I ran some searches online and discovered many other people who had the same issue. Apparently Android had somehow locked it up to not allow it And it was totally impossible for anybody to get it to work without rooting the tablet to change the permissions… The only solution anybody could find to resolve the weird error Android had locking up. The permissions of the Plex app was to totally reformat the tablet and set it up from scratch (using a backup was okay though). So I did that, and suddenly Plex had permissions again and could work.

Hopefully your issue isn’t as complicated as my Plex app issue was, requiring formatting and resetting up my phone with a backup. I’m guessing it wouldn’t be worth trying that. But, other people have found notification fixes for apps by just deleting the cash and storage data, uninstalling the app and reinstalling it and suddenly the notifications worked normal again. It’s kind of a related process for a weird memory or permission Lockup. I would consider trying that and then checking the battery optimization and background permission settings again. I can tell you the notifications for Alexa should still come through because they do for me on my phone.

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11

I suspect that this might be the key:

I don’t really know if that’s the case, though, and I still consider myself to be a relative newbie when it comes to Alexa use. (I do most smart home consolidation inside Google Home and have integrated Alexa just within the past couple of years.) I don’t have any experience trying to use Alexa routines to generate push notifications and haven’t tested that, so I don’t know which notification channel that uses. If you haven’t already done this, then I’d try tapping into each channel to see what you can enable. As I look at my Android App info ➜ Notifications settings for Alexa right now, my guess is that these might come through the Message Notifications channel, so I’d want to tap on that and see if I’d need to enable anything. I’d really need to try to test what you’re attempting to have a better sense of what’s going on, though, and I haven’t actually done that.

IIRC, there’s also something peculiar about the options Samsung’s Android variant presents to users, too, but it’s been years since I’ve had my hands on a Galaxy device, so I wouldn’t know how to direct you there. I could search the Forum for info about where I saw that, but you might already know if you’re a Galaxy user. (I’m currently still using a Google Pixel 4a.)

I think the ideas about looking into battery use are good, too. :+1:

Since you seemed to direct your reply to me and included my username in your reply, I wanted to provide a couple of notes about Forum use:

  1. In a given topic, the Forum will present you with two different  Reply buttons: One is at the bottom of a previous post/reply, and one is at the bottom of the topic/page. If you click the one at the bottom of another user’s post, then you’re replying directly to that user; if you click the one at the bottom of the topic, then you’re replying to the topic as a whole. You replied directly to me, which is great, because that’s one way to get my attention.
  2. A more direct way to get my attention is to mention my username like @Crease (typing @Crease anywhere in your post). I’m more likely to see and respond to that in my notifications list because I know that something has been specifically directed “at” me. Please feel free to use that any time you specifically want my attention or input.

I hope you find that helpful. Thank you for taking the time to provide some follow-up!

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