Notification Suite

Overview

The Chowmain Notification Suite contains 5 seperate drivers designed to provide notification from Control4 to your mobile, tablet, computer or email device or service.

Pushover

Push Notifications are short, simple messages that can be sent to internet connected devices where the request is generated by a central server. Most people are familiar with receiving text messages on their phones. Push Notifications are very similar in appearance and behaviour. Since the request is generated by a server a phone or other device receives the message instantly and does not need to constantly "check-in" which saves battery life and money on other technology like SMS services.

The Chowmain Pushover driver for Control4 integrates the Pushover real time notification service into the Control4 home automation system. This provides near instantaneous notifications to your iOS or Android based devices with information about your Control4 enabled home.

Features

• Ability to attach an local webcam image to the notification
• Ability to send a message with the following parameters.
  • Message – This is the message to be sent out from Control4
  • Device – your user's device name to send the message directly to that device, rather than all of the user's devices
  • Title – your message's title, otherwise your app's name is used
  • URL – a supplementary URL to show with your message
  • URL TITLE – a title for your supplementary URL, otherwise just the URL is shown
  • Priority - This changes the notification/alert sounds and on emergency notification keeps notifying until the user acknowledges by clicking a link
  • Sound – the name of one of the sounds supported by device clients to override the user's default sound choice
  • Ability to insert Control4 variables into the message, title, url or url title.
  • Ability to upload a local camera snapshot
  • Ability to change the user key via the programming tab.
  • Ability to change the application token via the programming tab.
  • Ability to change the emergency priority retry interval and expiry time (in seconds) via the programming tab. Used for emergency priority intervals / expiries
  • Ability to see the last sent message via the properties page in Composer Pro.
  • Ability to send Group Notifications to multiple users.
• Feedback (via properties page and variables)
  • Maximum Number of Messages per Month
  • Messages Remaining per Month
  • Message Reset Date / Time 

FAQ

What can i use this driver for?

This driver can be used for several different scenarios. Some examples are as below but the limit is really your imagination.

• Notifying the owner upon door bell press. If you have a IP camera at the front door you can also send the camera snapshot if you know the URL.
• Notifying the owner upon security system alarm
• Notifying the owner when the garage door has been left open
• Reminding the owner of special events
• Advising the owner of the current temperature and power consumption/generation.
• Advise a owner when they have left the oven on
• Advising an owner of when a security system is armed or disarmed and by whom.
• Advising an owner on potential electrical faults when low or high consumption detected.

Is there any other cool things i can do?

Pushover supports URL Schemes and as such you can launch applications such as the Control4 application upon swiping the notification. The Control4 URL scheme is

control4v2://

Pushsafer

Push Notifications are short, simple messages that can be sent to internet connected devices where the request is generated by a central server. Most people are familiar with receiving text messages on their phones. Push Notifications are very similar in appearance and behaviour. Since the request is generated by a server a phone or other device receives the message instantly and does not need to constantly "check-in" which saves battery life and money on other technology like SMS services.

The Chowmain Pushsafer driver for Control4 integrates the Pushsafer real time notification service into the Control4 home automation system. This provides near instantaneous notifications to your iOS, Android or Windows 10 Mobile based devices with information about your Control4 enabled home.

Features

• Ability to send a message with the following parameters.
  • Device – your user's device name to send the message directly to that device, rather than all of the user's devices
  • Title – your message's title, otherwise your app's name is used
  • Message – This is the message to be sent out from Control4
  • Sound – the name of one of the sounds supported by device clients to override the user's default sound choice. Note values in brackets applies to Windows 10 (UWP)
  • Vibration – Level of vibration
  • Icon – Choose from upto 98 different icons to display in the app.
  • URL – a URL to show with your message.  Note other apps can be open through push notifications by using URL schemes.
  • URL TITLE – a title for your URL, otherwise just the URL is shown
  • Time to Live – The amount of time in minutes after which the message automatically gets purged.
  • Picture URL – URL of IP camera or other image to upload and send with push notification. (note supports Basic Authentication by typing in the username and password in the URL eg http://user:pass@192.168.1.50/snapshot.cgi)
• Ability to insert Control4 variables into the message, title, url or url title.
• Ability to upload a local camera snapshot directly to the push notification (no 3rd party service required).
• Ability to see the last sent message via the properties page in Composer Pro.
• Ability to send Group Notifications to multiple users.
• Feedback (via properties page)
  • Service Error Messages

FAQ

What can i use this driver for?

This driver can be used for several different scenarios. Some examples are as below but the limit is really your imagination.

• Notifying the owner upon door bell press. If you have a IP camera at the front door you can also send the camera snapshot if you know the URL.
• Notifying the owner upon security system alarm
• Notifying the owner when the garage door has been left open
• Reminding the owner of special events
• Advising the owner of the current temperature and power consumption/generation.
• Advise a owner when they have left the oven on
• Advising an owner of when a security system is armed or disarmed and by whom.
• Advising an owner on potential electrical faults when low or high consumption detected.

Is there any other cool things i can do?

Pushsafer supports URL Schemes and as such you can launch applications such as the Control4 application upon swiping the notification. The Control4 URL scheme is

control4v2://

SMTP

The SMTP driver enables you to utilise free SMTP services provided by internet service providers or other providers such as Google. The SMTP driver provides you with an email service that can be replied to, can be formatted with HTML and can attach files to without any ongoing yearly costs.

Features

• No 4sight subscription necessary
• Use your own SMTP service.
• Definable Port
• Support SSL
• Supports SMTP Authentication
• Definable Senders Name
• Definable Senders Email
• Last Email Recipient Feedback
• Last Email Subject Feedback
• Last Email Body Feedback
• Server Status Feedback
• Ability to send a message with the following parameters.
  • To – This is the email address you want to send to
  • Subject – The subject of the email
  • Recipient Name (optional) – The name of the recipient
  • Attachment – The HTTP URL of a local file on the network. This option will auto download the camera snapshot and attach it to the email to be sent. Great for Camera Snapshots, Chowmain Logs or anything stored on a webserver that you might want to upload!
  • Body – The body of the email. Can support HTML tags as well so you can format your email nicely. Can also support variable insertion.

FAQ

Can you give us some examples of how we could use this driver?
This driver is useful in the following situations and much more.

• Notifying the owner when a door bell is pressed. If you have a IP camera at the front door you can also send the camera snapshot as an attachment.
• Uploading log files (requires Chowmain event logger driver).
• Notifying the owner when the garage door has been left open
• Reminding the owner of special events
• Advising the owner of the current temperature and power consumption/generation.
• Advise an owner when they have left the oven on
• Advising an owner if they have a gas or water leak.
• Advising an owner of when a security system is armed or disarmed and by whom.

Deviantsart/Chunk.io

With the 4sight subscription service Control4 can send email notifications. It can’t however attach camera snapshots to these emails for viewing. Our Deviantsart & Chunk.io drivers for Control4 will download a snapshot from any IP camera with a built in webserver and upload it to the Deviantsart.com image hosting service. It will then return a URL in a Control4 variable for insertion into your 4sight email or 3rd party notification service.

Features

• Type in any URL (supports HTTPS, HTTP Auth, different port numbers)
• Gets the image and uploads it to deviantsart.com
• Returns the URL in the Driver’s properties page
• Returns the URL as a variable

FAQ

What can i use this driver for?

• Doorbell press sends a image link via 4sight email
• Doorbell press sends a image link via push notification
• Security system alarm sends a image link via 4sight email.
• Door open sends a photo of whoevers at the door to an email.

General FAQ

Why do you only support OS 2.6 and above?
OS 2.6 offers a superior security encryption algorithm and a new and improved driver format. We have decided to only utilise this new format to ensure that the integrity of this driver is not compromised and that we can provide the best dealer/user experience available.

Do you offer showroom discounts?
We offer dealers a free showroom licence for demonstration and educational purposes.  See link below for T&C's and signup procedure.

Chowmain Dealer Showroom FAQ

I want to try this driver out before buying it?
All Chowmain drivers for Control4 come with a 90 day trial.  Just add the driverCentral licencing driver and this driver and you're good to go.  No registration required.

Do you offer other drivers?

We have hundreds of drivers.  Many of which are manufacturer sponsored and free.  Please visit our website to view all available drivers including FREE drivers.

http://www.chowmainsoft.com