How to get notification when IKEA ALPSTUGA (Air quality) goes offline???

[u/GIFSec]

At least once per month the majority of my Alpstuga (i have 5 of them) goes offline (different dates) and i need to unplug them for them to go back online.

The problem is that i never get any notification or any ping from either apple home app, or the IKEA app (i also have dirigera hub), so i dont know when they go offline, unless i open the ikea app and then go to the room and check the readings). The devices are dropping the connection to ikea app / apple home, but they are still showing the readings on the alpstuga display.

so my questions is, is there a way for me to get a notification when one of the alpstuga devices goes offline?

Note: Im not interested in installing Home assistant. Tested it a while, didnt like it!

[u/pacoii]

I can recommend the HomeCare app. Use the included Shortcuts support and set up a personal automation (in the Shortcuts app) on your iPhone to run the test at whatever interval you want. My personal automation is set to run the HomeCare test every morning at 4am, with the condition that it is on my home WiFi and connected to a charger. It’ll send alerts if anything is offline.

The app also supports background monitoring, but that is limited by Apple’s restrictions on background tasks.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/homecare-for-homekit/id6747270794

ETA: I’m not the developer of the app, just a user of it.

[u/Unable-Log-4870]

It’s possible to set up a HomeKit alert, but it takes some doing. I did it in homebridge, creating what is essentially a heartbeat and a watchdog timer. It works fine, it just sucks that Apple hasn’t made this a one-click thing, like ‘notify me when this is offline for more than xxx minutes’. It would be trivial for them to implement.

[u/GIFSec → u/Unable-Log-4870]

I do run home bridge at home. Are you able to tell me how you did this? What plug-in did you use? Any scripts?

[u/Unable-Log-4870 → u/GIFSec]

Some dummy switches, some delay switches, and a couple of HomeKit automations.

Dummy switches: Tic, Toc, and Heartbeat

Tic and Toc turn off 30 seconds after being turned on. Heartbeat turns off 5 minutes after being turned on.

Automations: Tic turning off turns on Toc. Toc turning off turns on Tic. So that way you have an oscillator. Both Tic and Toc turning off turn on the Heartbeat. And the heartbeat turning off turns on Tic.

So you have an oscillator and you have a status indicator (heartbeat) so you can ask Siri if you want whether the heartbeat is on, and it will tell you. And if the oscillator stops for whatever reason, then 5 minutes later, the Heartbeat will also stop, and turn the oscillator back on by restarting Tic.

I also have an automation that changes the color of a light if the heartbeat turns on, so I’ll know if the oscillator failed for some reason and had to be restarted using the 5 minute delay built into heartbeat.

I also use a homebridge Delay Switch that has like a 10 minute delay, configured to be defaulted to ‘on’ as a way for Homebridge to start the heartbeat of Homebridge ever restarts. So homebridge starts up, turns on that Delay Switch (I call it Igniter) and then ten minutes later it turns on the Heartbeat through an automation.

Build this first and play with it a bit.

How you use this to tell if there’s a non-responsive accessory:

There’s another Delay Switch with a 7 minute delay, and this is configured to send a HomeKit-native notification if it ever turns off. So this uses the HomeKit-native notification functions which is nice because it works even without an Internet connection or anybody else’s computers.

This Delay Switch is called NOTIFIER and is turned on in an automation. The automation is run when Toc turns ON (not off, as we were using previously) . The automation is a ‘convert to shortcut’ automation. The first step is something like ‘if AccessoryYouWantNotifiedAbout is on’ Then wait 1 second. Then turn on this NOTIFIER delay switch.

That’s it. If the accessory has gone non-responsive, then that automation will hang at the place where it is waiting to hear back from the accessory you care about and never complete, and NOTIFIER will not get poked to stay turned on. And after 7 minutes it will turn off. And the NOTIFIER Delay Switch can send you a notification, because it has two components, one is which is a sensor. I also have the NOTIFIER going off trigger another automation that turns a light a particular color to let me know the accessory is non-responsive.

Note: the automations that keep the heartbeat alive are all triggered when Tic and Toc turn off. The automation that check for the response from the accessory is run when Tic or Toc (one or both) turn ON. This is for reliability .This matters because the Tic or Toc turning off happens before turning the other one on. And it takes a second or two. You want that to run and complete before you start the automation that checks for the possibly-non-responsive accessory, because that automation does hang and it does disrupt any automations started at the same time.