HomeAssistant postponed / pending Notifications

automations_notifications.yaml

- id: send_pending_notifications
  alias: Send pending notifications when arriving home
  description: 'With 5 minute delay'
  trigger:
    - platform: state
      entity_id: binary_sensor.someone_at_home
      to: 'on'
      for: 00:05:00    
  condition: 
  # Don't repeat in the next 10 minutes
  - '{{ ( as_timestamp(now()) - as_timestamp(state_attr("automation.send_pending_notifications_when_arriving_home", "last_triggered")) |int(0) ) > 600 }}'
  # Only when there are pending notifications
  - condition: numeric_state
    entity_id: sensor.pending_notifications_when_away
    above: 0
  action:
  - alias: "Set variables"
    variables:
      notifications: "{{ state_attr('sensor.pending_notifications_when_away', 'list') | default([], true) }}"
  # 15s delay to allow more than one person to arrive home.
  - delay: 15
  - repeat:
      while: "{{ repeat.index <= notifications|length}}"
      sequence:
      - alias: "Set variables"
        variables:
          index: "{{ repeat.index -1 }}"
          notification: "{{ notifications[index] }}"
      # Use 'script.turn_on' to fire-and-forget, instead of waiting for the result!
      - service: script.turn_on
        target:
          entity_id: script.notify_those_at_home
        data:
          variables:
            title: "{{ notification.title }}"
            message: "{{ notification.message }}"
            data: "{{ notification.data }}"
            notify_when_away: false
  # Clear pending notifications
  - event: set_entity_value
    event_data:
      entity_id: "sensor.pending_notifications_when_away"
      state: "0"
      attr:
        list: ""

HomeAssistant pending Notifications.md

HomeAssistant postponed / pending Notifications

This is a set of scripts / automations / other snippets for your Home Assistant configuration that enable you to postpone notifications and then have them automatically pushed to your phone when e.g. arriving home.

Some possible use cases for this set of snippets include:

• Sending any user at home a notification when the laundry is done.
  • If no one is home, it does not make sense to send it out. But as soon as the first person arrives home, they can be notified about it.
• Sending any user at home a notification to empty the robot vacuum dustbin.
• A reminder to take out the thrash on pick up day.
• etc...

Snippet summary

The set of files below has 2 main snippets of interest:

• Send pending notifications
  • An automation that fires 5 minutes after someone arrives at home. This will fire all pending notifications and clear the queue.
• Append pending notification
  • A script that takes the same arguments as a notification, but instead of sending it, it stores is in the pending notifications queue.

These are then used by, in my case, a wrapper script:

• Notify people at home
  • A drop-in replacement for a notify_mobile_<device> service call that will notify any family member at home, or if none are at home, appends the notification to the queue.

Other files include the definition of the variable that stores the pending notifications queue, and a wrapper script for notifying a specific person (me / the wife). This just makes it all so much easier if one of us would get a new phone at some point.

Requirements

• Home Assistant (duh)
• At least some knowledge about configuration in YAML
• A phone to notify

pending_notification_sensor.yaml

template:
  - trigger:
    - platform: event
      event_type: set_entity_value
      event_data:
        entity_id: sensor.pending_notifications_when_away
    sensor:
    - name: Pending notifications when away
      unique_id: pending_notifications_when_away
      unit_of_measurement: ""
      icon: mdi:format-list-group
      state: "{{ trigger.event.data.state }}"
      attributes:
        list: "{{ trigger.event.data.attr.list }}"

scripts_append_pending_notification.yaml

# A wrapper script for handling storing of pending notifications
# Has the same interface as regular notification channels and can thus be used as a drop-in replacement!
append_pending_notification:
  alias: "Append pending notification"
  icon: mdi:notification-clear-all
  mode: parallel
  max: 10
  fields:
    title: 
      name: Title
      description: Notification title
      required: true
    message: 
      name: Message
      description: Notification message
      required: true
    data:
      name: Data
      description: Additional notification data
      required: false
      advanced: true
      default: {}
  sequence:
  - alias: "Set variables"
    variables:
      appending_notification: 
        title: "{{ title|default(None, true) }}" 
        message: "{{ message|default('', true) }}"
        data: "{{ data|default({}) }}"
        timestamp: "{{ now() }}"
      pending_notifications: "{{ (state_attr(pending_notification_entity, 'list') | default([], true)) + [appending_notification]}}"
  - event: set_entity_value
    event_data:
      entity_id: "sensor.pending_notifications_when_away"
      state: "{{ pending_notifications|length }}"
      attr:
        list: "{{ pending_notifications }}"

scripts_notify_me.yaml

# A wrapper notification script that is a drop-in replacement for 'notify.mobile_<device>'
# This makes it much easier to adjust the configuration when a family member gets a new phone!
#
notify_me:
  alias: "Notify Me"
  icon: mdi:notification-clear-all
  mode: parallel
  max: 10
  fields:
    title: 
      name: Title
      description: Notification title
      required: true
    message: 
      name: Message
      description: Notification message
      required: true
    data:
      name: Data
      description: Additional notification data
      required: false
      advanced: true
      default: {}
  sequence:
    - service: notify.mobile_app_s10
      data: 
        title: "{{ title }}"
        message: "{{ message }}"
        data: "{{ data |default({}) }}"
    # Keep track of how many notifications are sent to each device:
    # - service: counter.increment
    #   target:
    #     entity_id: counter.notification_counter_me

scripts_notify_those_at_home.yaml

notify_those_at_home:
  alias: "Notify people at home"
  icon: mdi:notification-clear-all
  mode: parallel # Multiple notifications can be sent at the same time!!
  max: 10
  fields:
    title: 
      name: Title
      description: Notification title
      required: true
    message: 
      name: Message
      description: Notification message
      required: true
    data:
      name: Data
      description: Additional notification data
      required: false
      advanced: true
      default: 
  sequence:
    - choose:
      # Send to ME if i'm at home
      - conditions: "{{ is_state('binary_sensor.me_at_home', 'on') }}"
        sequence:
        - service: script.notify_me
          data: 
            title: "{{ title }}"
            message: "{{ message }}"
            data: "{{ data |default({}) }}"
      # Notify wife if she's at home
      - conditions: "{{ is_state('binary_sensor.wife_at_home', 'on') }}"
        sequence:
        - service: script.notify_wife
          data: 
            title: "{{ title }}"
            message: "{{ message }}"
            data: "{{ data |default({}) }}"
      # Add similar blocks for each family member...
      # ...
      # When all from home, append to pending notifications:
      - conditions: "{{ is_state('binary_sensor.someone_at_home', 'off') }}"
        sequence:
        - service: script.append_pending_notification
          data:
            title: "{{ title }}"
            message: "{{ message }}"
            data: "{{ data |default({}) }}"
            
      default: []
    

This is exactly what I need but I have no idea where these go, would you be able to explain where these go please? I'm a fast learner, I think 🤔

I've got most of my config in different files split up and stored in their respective folders. I.e. all files starting with prefix scripts_ are located in the scripts directory, prefix automations_ in the automations directory, etc..
The structure that I use for template entities is a bit more complicated, so to get that included easily without too much explanation, I'd just copy / paste that snipet directly into your config.

So your with the yaml files located in their directories as described above, your config.yaml should have these lines added:

automation: !include_dir_merge_list automations

script: !include_dir_merge_named scripts

template:
  - trigger:
    - platform: event
      event_type: set_entity_value
      event_data:
        entity_id: sensor.pending_notifications_when_away
    sensor:
    - name: Pending notifications when away
      unique_id: pending_notifications_when_away
      unit_of_measurement: ""
      icon: mdi:format-list-group
      state: "{{ trigger.event.data.state }}"
      attributes:
        list: "{{ trigger.event.data.attr.list }}"

Hope this helps, if not just let me know 😉

Neat! This is perfect! I've been looking for this a long time...
This is a very smart design, and if I read the documentation correctly, the template sensor state should be restored on HA restart, so notifications should not be lost. What a must!

I noticed a small typo: (scripts_append_pending_notification.yaml:32), I think pending_notification_entity is in fact sensor.pending_notifications_when_away
I also had trouble with the sensor without the -, but that was my fault to think it was misaligned.
Thank you for your work.