Notifications & Alerts¶
All notifications go to both iPhones unless noted otherwise. Here's every alert you might receive, what it means, and what to do.
Emergency Alerts¶
These bypass silent mode and Do Not Disturb — they will sound no matter what.
Water Leak Detected¶
"Water detected — [Room name]"
A leak sensor found water. Go check immediately.
- The room name in the alert tells you exactly where to look
- Turn off the water supply to that fixture if there's an active leak
- The alert clears once the sensor dries out
See Leak Detection for sensor locations.
Ring Alarm Triggered¶
"🚨 ALARM TRIGGERED — [zone]. Ring is dispatching."
The Ring Alarm went off. Ring's monitoring center is already handling dispatch — this is just so your phones and the house know too.
- Critical push to both phones (bypasses silent mode/DND), with a front-door camera snapshot and a deep link to the Security dashboard
- All 7 house Echoes announce it out loud, repeating every ~12 seconds until the alarm clears — see Whole-House Alarm Audio below for the full spoken lifecycle (arming, entry delay, armed/disarmed, failed-to-arm)
- The [zone] names any Ring contact/motion sensor that was open (e.g. Personnel Door, Foyer Motion Sensor); if it can't tell, it says "check the Ring app"
- Home Assistant does not arm, disarm, or dispatch — that's all the Ring app / Ring monitoring
See Security & Alarm.
Whole-House Alarm Audio (Spoken, Not Push)¶
These six are spoken out loud on the house's Echo speakers — they are not phone push notifications. They cover the alarm's full lifecycle, not just triggering, and each one can be muted or have its volume tuned from the Alarm Audio dashboard (see Security & Alarm).
| Event | Speaks on | When it fires | What it says |
|---|---|---|---|
| Triggered | All 7 Echoes (kitchen, family room, front room, garage, master bathroom, master bedroom, office) | The alarm goes to triggered; repeats every ~12 seconds (tunable) until it clears | "Security alert. The Ring alarm has been triggered. [zone]." |
| Exit delay | Front room Echo only | Arming starts (exit countdown begins) | "Arming to home/away. You have [N] seconds to exit." — plus a "Ten seconds." warning near the end |
| Entry delay | All 7 Echoes | A door opens while armed (entry countdown begins) | "Entry delay. Disarm now." |
| Armed | Master bedroom + office Echo | Arming finishes successfully | "Alarm armed to home/away." |
| Disarmed | Master bedroom + office Echo | The alarm is disarmed (from armed or during entry delay) | "Alarm disarmed." — all 7 Echoes are also quietly reset to a lower default volume |
| Failed to arm | Master bedroom + office Echo | The exit-delay countdown aborts back to disarmed instead of reaching armed | "The alarm could not arm. Check doors and windows." |
Tuning these
Each announcement has its own enable switch and volume slider on the Alarm Audio dashboard, plus a test button to preview it without setting off the real alarm. See Security & Alarm → Whole-house alarm audio.
Condensate Safety Alerts¶
Covers the three HVAC zones with air-handler/furnace condensate pan sensors: Office (attic air handler), Master Bedroom (3rd floor furnace), Dining Room (crawl space furnace). These are normal pushes to both phones, not critical alerts — the sensors are also in the leak-sensor group, so you'll get the regular Water Leak Detected critical alert for the water itself; these are the extra HVAC-safety layer on top.
{Zone} AC Turned Off¶
"🌡️ [Zone] AC turned off"
That zone's condensate pan went wet, so its Ecobee was turned off to stop it making more water. It'll auto-restore once the pan is dry (at least 2 hours between restarts, so a persistent drip can't cycle it on and off). Worth checking the drain line for that zone.
{Zone} AC Restored¶
"✅ [Zone] AC restored"
That zone's pan is dry again — the Ecobee is back on (heat/cool).
{Zone} AC Back On¶
"[Zone] AC back on"
You (or someone) turned that zone's Ecobee back on manually while it was being held off — the pending auto-restore is cancelled. If the pan's still wet, keep an eye on it.
Garage Door Alerts¶
Door Opened or Closed¶
"Garage — Left door opened" / "Garage — Right door closed"
Normal notification whenever either door changes state. No action needed unless unexpected.
Garage Open While Away¶
"Garage door is open and you're both away"
Action button: Close It
Sent when a door is open and both phones are away from home. Tap Close It to close the door remotely.
Garage Left Open Too Long¶
"Garage door has been open for 30 minutes"
Action button: Close It
Sent if either door stays open for 30 continuous minutes. Tap Close It or check manually.
Food Temperature Alerts¶
Monitoring for the three garage appliances (fridge, fridge freezer, deep freezer). The alerts are two-tier and debounced — a brief warm spike from opening the door or loading groceries won't trigger anything, because the temperature has to stay too warm for a sustained period before an alert fires.
Warm (heads-up)¶
"🌡️ Refrigerator warm — 46°F for 45 min. Check the door."
A unit has been above its safe line continuously for a while (45 min for the fridge, 60 min for the freezers). Sent to Louis only. Likely a door left ajar or something blocking it from closing.
FAILING (critical)¶
"⚠️ Refrigerator FAILING — 58°F, food at risk. Check it now."
A unit is well above safe and staying there — a sign of a real failure (door wide open, power loss, dead compressor). This is a critical alert: it bypasses silent mode and Do Not Disturb, and goes to both phones. Go check it.
Sensor offline / battery low¶
"🔋 Refrigerator sensor offline — the fridge isn't being monitored."
The temperature sensor stopped reporting for 30 minutes, or its battery dropped below 15%. Sent to Louis only — a dead sensor can't warn you about a failing fridge, so this makes sure a silent sensor doesn't hide a problem.
Back to normal (all-clear)¶
"✅ Refrigerator back to normal — 38°F."
Sent once a unit returns to its safe range after an alert. It goes to whoever got the original alert (both phones if it was a critical FAILING alert).
Tunable thresholds
The temperature limits and the wait times are set per appliance and can be adjusted in automations.yaml once you've seen how each unit behaves in real life. See the tiles on the Climate tab.
System Alerts¶
Low Battery¶
"[Device name] battery is low"
One of the ~15 Zigbee sensors (leak detectors, SmartSensors, etc.) needs a battery. Replace when convenient — the device will still work until the battery is fully depleted.
Internet Degraded / Recovered¶
"⚠️ Internet Degraded" / "✅ Internet Recovered"
The internet download speed dropped below 100 Mbit/s for 90+ minutes (usually the Eero gateway stuck in "100mb mode") — or recovered above 150. Informational; if degraded persists, reboot/check the Eero's WAN link.
Speedtest Auto-Recovered¶
"🔄 Speedtest auto-recovered"
Nothing you need to do — this is the system fixing itself. The Speedtest integration had silently stopped reporting (a known quirk) and was leaving the Grafana Internet graphs blank; it stayed stuck for 3+ hours, so the system automatically reloaded it. A fresh speed reading should appear within a minute or two.
Office Lamp / Corner Lamp Offline¶
"Office Lamp heads offline" / "Corner Lamp offline" — a dashboard notification (the HA notification bell, not a phone push)
One of the Govee ambiance lamps couldn't be reached in the Govee cloud when a scene/vibe was applied, so that light kept its previous scene. For the Office Lamp it names which head(s) — 1, 2, and/or 3 — are offline; the reachable heads still update. The system retries automatically on the next render and the notice clears itself once every head applies.
The lamp often still turns on/off and shows a color (that path is local Wi-Fi) — it's specifically the cloud scene that failed. If the notice sticks around, the bulb's Wi-Fi link to Govee is weak or dropped: power-cycle it, improve signal at that spot, or re-add it in the Govee app. See Lighting.
Good Night Bedtime Report¶
"🌙 Good Night" — to Louis
A quiet, non-urgent summary sent when Good Night runs (it won't override Do-Not-Disturb). If everything's buttoned up it reads "All secure — garage closed, lights out." Otherwise it names anything notable still on, e.g. "Heads up — left garage still OPEN, front room plug on."
If a garage door didn't close, you'll also see the bedroom night light turn red (see Lighting) — go close it and the light clears itself. This report is informational only; it's never a critical/alarm notification.
Laundry Alerts¶
Wash Scheduled to Super-Off-Peak¶
"🧺 Wash → super-off-peak" — to both phones
Confirmation after you tap Wash → Cheap (or the Alexa phrase). Reads "Wash scheduled — starts ~midnight (super-off-peak), in Xh." — or "Wash starting now — super-off-peak." if you tapped it during the cheap overnight window. See Energy.
Washer Not Ready¶
"🧺 Washer not ready" — to both phones
Sent if you tap the button before the washer is ready to be started remotely. Reads "Load the washer, pick a cycle, and press Remote Start on the unit — then tap again." Nothing starts until you do.
Garden Alerts¶
Plant Needs Water¶
"🪴 Your plants are thirsty" — to Lindsay
An indoor plant's soil moisture dropped below the threshold you set for it on the Plants dashboard (each plant's own "water below" setpoint — not a one-size cutoff). The message opens with a random charming/funny quip (one of 50 — "It's giving Sahara in here.", "Your plants left you on read.", "The Monstera is monstering about being thirsty."…) followed by the actual thirsty plant(s), the reading, and the threshold it dropped under, e.g. "🪴 … 💧 Monstera 2 (2%, below 25), Fiddle Leaf 1 (20%, below 30)". It fires on a fresh drop (30-minute debounce so watering swings don't trip it) and re-sends each morning at 9am while any plant stays below its setpoint. Want fewer/more alerts for a plant? Adjust its slider on the Plants dashboard. Water the named plant — it stops once moisture climbs back above that plant's threshold.
Energy Alerts¶
High-Cost Appliance During Peak¶
"⚡ Oven/Stove running during peak" (or "⚡ Peak pricing just started") — to both Louis and Lindsay
Electricity is roughly twice as expensive during the TOU peak window (summer weekdays 3–6 PM; winter weekdays 6–9 AM and 5–8 PM). This alert nudges you when a schedulable, high-cost appliance runs during that window, so you can defer it to the cheaper hours and save. Two ways it fires:
- You start one during peak — "Dryer kicked on during peak pricing — electricity is ~2.1× the off-peak rate right now ($0.30/kWh) until 6 PM. Worth pausing until then if you can."
- Peak begins while one is already running — "Peak rates just kicked in (~2.1× off-peak … until 6 PM) and these are still running: Dishwasher, Washer. Pause or defer to save."
Appliances watched: oven/stove, dryer, dishwasher, washer, and the whirlpool tub heater. The message always shows the live rate and how many times more it costs than off-peak. There's a 1-minute debounce so a brief blip doesn't alert.
Why not the microwave, fridge, or HVAC?
The microwave runs too briefly to bother deferring; the fridge/freezers can't be shifted; and heating/cooling is managed entirely by the Ecobee thermostats (Eco+ already handles peak pricing). The alert only covers loads you can actually choose to run later.
Camera Alerts¶
Cat Camera — Cat & Motion (Laundry Room)¶
"🐱 Cat Detected" / "👁️ Motion — Cat Camera" — to both phones, with a live snapshot
The Frigate add-on runs object detection on the Cat Camera (the Wyze/Thingino feed in the Laundry Room). Two discriminated alerts, both critical — they bypass silent mode and Do Not Disturb (so they sound even overnight), both to both phones with a live snapshot:
- 🐱 Cat Detected — Frigate recognizes a cat in view.
- 👁️ Motion — Cat Camera — Frigate detects a person (any other motion).
A cat gets only the cat alert and a person gets only the motion alert — never both. Each type has a 5-minute cooldown, so a lingering subject won't wake your phone repeatedly. Both stay quiet whenever Cat Camera Privacy Mode is on. This is real object recognition — it won't fire on a swaying curtain the way plain motion would.
Physical Chimes (Not Phone Notifications)¶
Motion at Garage or Personnel Door Camera¶
When either Ring camera detects motion, Ring rings the chimes directly. This is handled natively by Ring — not by Home Assistant. Cooldown and frequency are configured per-device in the Ring app.
Notification Deep Links¶
Most notifications include a link that opens directly to the relevant dashboard tab when tapped. Garage and security alerts open the Security tab; climate-related alerts open the Climate tab.