Home Assistant

Add a rest_command to Home Assistant once, and any automation can send a notification: quiet for everyday events, Critical for a water leak or a smoke alarm.

This uses an API Source.

Set it up

1. In the Pocketbell app, create a Source named Home Assistant, choose API, and copy its key.

2. Add the key to secrets.yaml, with Bearer in front of it:

   pocketbell_auth: "Bearer pb_live_…"

3. Add this to configuration.yaml:

   rest_command:
     pocketbell:
       url: "https://api.pocketbell.dev/v1/messages"
       method: post
       headers:
         authorization: !secret pocketbell_auth
       content_type: "application/json"
       timeout: 15
       payload: >-
         {"title": {{ title | default('Home Assistant') | tojson }},
          "message": {{ message | tojson }},
          "priority": {{ priority | default('normal') | tojson }},
          "tags": {{ tags | default(['home-assistant']) | tojson }}
          {%- if replace is defined %}, "replace": {{ replace | tojson }}{% endif %}}

4. Restart Home Assistant. After that, a change to the command can be reloaded from Developer tools → YAML without a restart.

Use it in an automation

A leak sensor that sends a Critical notification, repeating until you acknowledge it:

alias: Water leak
triggers:
  - trigger: state
    entity_id: binary_sensor.kitchen_leak
    to: "on"
actions:
  - action: rest_command.pocketbell
    data:
      title: Water leak
      message: "{{ trigger.to_state.name }} is wet"
      priority: critical
      replace: kitchen-leak

A door left open, as Time Sensitive:

alias: Front door left open
triggers:
  - trigger: state
    entity_id: binary_sensor.front_door
    to: "on"
    for: "00:10:00"
actions:
  - action: rest_command.pocketbell
    data:
      message: The front door has been open for 10 minutes.
      priority: important

In the automation editor, choose Add action → RESTful Command: pocketbell and fill in the same fields.

How it behaves

• priority is one of silent, quiet, normal, important and critical. Leave it out for normal.
• replace names the event. Send a second automation with the same key when the leak sensor dries, such as message: Dry again and priority: normal, and it takes the alert’s place and stops the repeats.
• | tojson turns each value into a JSON string, so a sensor name with quotes in it still makes a valid request.

If nothing arrives

Home Assistant logs a failed request as a warning, but the automation carries on. To see Pocketbell’s answer, add response_variable: pb to the action, and look at pb.status and pb.content in the automation’s trace:

• 401 invalid_api_key: the key or its Bearer is missing from secrets.yaml.
• 400 invalid_request: details in the content names the field.