Push Notifications

Overview

Push Notifications delivers alarm alerts to a phone's lock screen using the standard Web Push mechanism built into modern browsers. There is no separate mobile app to install, and no ControlBird cloud service sits in the path: your node talks straight to the browser vendor's own push service, and the phone shows the alert even if the ControlBird tab is closed. It works on Android in Chrome and other Chromium browsers, and on iOS 16.4 and later once ControlBird is added to the home screen as a Progressive Web App.

Push Notifications ships as a separately installable extension. Install it from the Extension Marketplace before following the steps below; on a node where it is not installed, the notification toggle in the mobile UI is disabled and says so.

Key Concepts

• Per-phone subscription. Each phone that wants alarm alerts subscribes individually, from that phone, in that browser. Nothing needs to be configured server-side to add a new phone.
• Opt-in per alarm. Push notifications are off by default. Only alarms with the setting turned on ever page anyone; every other alarm behaves exactly as it did before.
• Active and unacknowledged. A push fires when an alarm becomes active while unacknowledged, and is withdrawn from the phone the moment the alarm is acknowledged, cleared, reset, or disabled, so a phone never carries a stale alert.
• Responsibility filtering. If an alarm has responsibilities assigned, only users who share one of those responsibilities receive its notifications. An alarm with no responsibilities reaches everyone who has notifications enabled.
• Tap to open. Tapping a notification opens ControlBird directly to the relevant app, the Active Alarms app for an alarm notification, so an operator goes from lock screen to the alarm in one tap.

Enabling Notifications on a Phone

Notifications are enabled per phone, from the phone itself. On iOS, add ControlBird to the home screen first: open the site in Safari, use the Share sheet's Add to Home Screen action, then open ControlBird from the home screen icon rather than the browser. iOS only delivers push notifications to a home-screen app, not to a Safari tab. Android does not need this step; Chrome and other Chromium browsers can subscribe directly from a regular tab.

1. Open ControlBird on the phone.
2. Tap your avatar to open the user sheet.
3. Turn on Alarm notifications on this phone. The browser asks for notification permission; allow it.
4. Use Send test notification to confirm delivery end to end before relying on it.

Turning the toggle off removes that phone's subscription, so it stops receiving alarm notifications immediately. Each phone is independent: enabling notifications on one phone does not affect any other device signed in as the same user.

Enabling Notifications on an Alarm

By default, no alarm sends push notifications. Turn it on in the Device Manager app: check the Push notifications box in the Add Alarm dialog when you create an alarm, or use the Push checkbox on an existing alarm's row in the point, endpoint or connection details. Only alarms with this set ever page anyone; leaving it off keeps an alarm exactly as quiet as it is on a node without the extension installed.

Set the alarm's responsibilities to control who is paged. A responsibility works the same way here as it does for filtering the Active Alarms table: a user is only notified for an alarm whose responsibilities overlap their own. Leave responsibilities empty to notify everyone who has enabled notifications on their phone.

Notification Lifecycle

A push notification for an alarm tracks the alarm's own state:

Notifications from Automations

Push Notifications is not limited to alarms. A script or a rule chain in Automation Rules can create its own notification with a title, a body, and an urgency. Give it a click target, an app and something for that app to open, and tapping the notification takes the recipient straight there, for example to a specific dashboard rather than the Alarms app. The author picks who receives it by choosing a responsibility on the node; leaving that choice empty sends the notification to everyone who has notifications enabled. This is the same delivery path alarms use, so it inherits per-phone opt-in without any extra setup.

Troubleshooting & Limitations

• Permission denied. If notification permission was denied in the browser, the toggle cannot re-request it. Re-enable notifications for the site in the browser's own site settings, then return to the user sheet and turn the toggle on again.
• iOS shows no prompt, or the toggle stays off. iOS only supports push notifications for a home-screen app, not a Safari tab. Add ControlBird to the home screen and open it from there.
• HTTPS required. A node reachable only over plain HTTP cannot deliver push notifications; browsers block the subscription request outright.
• A phone stopped receiving alerts. Push subscriptions can expire or be invalidated by the browser or OS over time. Turn the toggle off and back on to resubscribe.
• The toggle is disabled and tells you to install the extension. The Push Notifications extension is not installed on this node. Install it from the Extension Marketplace.
• The toggle is disabled and says push is disabled on this node. An administrator has turned off push delivery for the entire node. No notifications go out while it is off, and any alarm that tries to page records the attempt as a failed notification rather than silently doing nothing; ask an administrator to turn delivery back on.
• Nobody is notified for an alarm. Check that the alarm's Push notifications setting is on, and that at least one user with a matching responsibility (or no responsibility restriction at all) has notifications enabled on a phone.