r/homeassistant • u/DMO89- • 1d ago

Send Smart Home Notifications via WhatsApp, Signal, or Telegram with Home Assistant 🚀

Hey everyone,

I just uploaded a new video on my YouTube channel where I show how to send smart home notifications with Home Assistant directly to WhatsApp, Signal, or Telegram.

👉 The video itself is in German, but YouTube’s auto-generated English subtitles are pretty solid and make it easy to follow along even if you don’t speak German.

If you’re interested in: https://youtu.be/19Z_sRItcNE?si=72D-SyVeERXtGlVK

Getting alerts when windows/doors are open

Notifications for alarms or events

Or just connecting your smart home directly to your favorite messenger app

…then this tutorial might be useful for you.

Here’s the link:

Would love to hear your feedback and if you’ve tried something similar with Home Assistant! 🙌

33 Upvotes

80% Upvoted

32 comments sorted by

View all comments

6

u/mousecatcher4 23h ago

The hugh problem here is that the integration you are using relies on Callmebot, and callmebot is not free -- it is pure switchbait pretending to be free. After using for a while callmebot starts adding adverts (for itself) to messages, and then it does a countdown, and about 30 messages later it does a countdown of messages, and then removes the content of the messages leaving the adverts only.

I would avoid callmebot and consequently this integration.

I don't understand German so I am not sure how you address this problem.

0

u/DMO89- 23h ago

Oh thanks for your comment, didn't know this fact about callmebot.. but otherwise I didn't had any problems with ads till now...

4

u/mousecatcher4 23h ago

After some months at maybe 1 message every day or two you start getting messages with a link to pages like this
https://www.callmebot.com/support_callmebot/?phone=351919370635
Then about 20 messages later the low tier here (which says it has adverts) start a countdown ... 20.. 19... 18 ... 0 and then all you get are the adverts. So definitely not worth investing time and evergy making this a key part of anything.

Pushover is a good alternative messaging system, albeit needing a phone app, but it has a one time modest payment - works great. Has a very good HA integration.