Have you ever wished you could keep track of all those important notifications in Home Assistant? I know I have! Notifications are great, but they tend to disappear after a short time, which can be frustrating if you need to reference them later.
I recently faced this challenge and decided to figure out a way to store notifications so they don’t get lost. After some research and experimentation, I found a solution that works beautifully using Home Assistant’s event listener and automation capabilities. Here’s how I did it:
- Listen for Notification Events: Home Assistant emits events when a notification is created. By listening for these events, we can capture the notification data before it disappears.
- Store Notifications in a Sensor: I created a custom sensor that stores the notification details. This sensor keeps a running list of all notifications, including their titles, messages, and timestamps.
- Automate the Process: Using Home Assistant’s automation feature, I set up a trigger that automatically updates the sensor whenever a new notification is created. This means you don’t have to do anything manually—everything happens in the background!
Here’s a quick look at the automation setup:
yaml
automation:
- alias: Store Persistent Notifications
trigger:
platform: event
event_type: call_service
event_data:
domain: persistent_notification
service: create
action:
service: sensor.update
data_template:
entity_id: sensor.persistent_notifications
state: >
{% if states.sensor.persistent_notifications.attributes.notifications is defined %}
{% set notifications = states.sensor.persistent_notifications.attributes.notifications %}
{% else %}
{% set notifications = %}
{% endif %}
{% set new_notification = {
‘title’: payload.notification.title,
‘message’: payload.notification.message,
‘timestamp’: now().strftime(‘%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S’)
} %}
{% set updated_notifications = notifications + [new_notification] %}
{{ updated_notifications }}
This setup creates a sensor called sensor.persistent_notifications that stores all your notifications in a list. You can access this list from the Home Assistant interface or even create a custom dashboard to view your notifications in a more user-friendly way.
I hope this solution helps you keep track of important notifications in Home Assistant. If you have any questions or suggestions for improvement, feel free to drop a comment below!
Happy automating! 