Notifications for the Remote application

1. Capabilities #

We present the functionality of the DOMIQ system – notifications on mobile devices. Notifications have been designed to facilitate interaction between the DOMIQ system and the user. Thanks to them, you can be kept up to date on important events in the building automation system directly on your mobile devices.

Why?

Notifications play a key role in ensuring that users are immediately informed about important events in their home or office. These can include alerts about dangers, such as water leaks, as well as reminders about everyday activities, such as closing windows before rain. The DOMIQ system, through notifications, gives the user the ability to react quickly to various situations, which increases comfort and safety.

Types of notifications

Within the DOMIQ system, there are three basic options for sending notifications:

1. Sending a notification to all paired mobile devices

This is a type of global notification that reaches all devices associated with the system. It is an ideal solution for sending information about critical events that should be visible to all users.

2. Sending a notification to a selected device

This option allows sending a notification to a specific device or to several selected devices at the same time. It is particularly useful when the message is intended for a specific person or group of people.

3. Sending a notification to devices assigned to a selected user profile

This function allows easy grouping of notifications by user profiles. For example, in a home, you can create a profile for parents and a separate one for other household members. If you want to send a notification only to the parents, it will reach only the devices assigned to that profile. In a company, a similar division can be applied, sending notifications only to employees or only to the management staff, depending on the need.

Examples of use

• Home: Setting up the “Parents” and “Rest” profiles allows notifications to be sent only to a selected group – for example, information about the operation of critical home systems such as heating should not always reach children.
• Company: Sending a notification only to the technical department employees informing them about equipment maintenance or a failure.

2. Practice #

So far it was theory, now we will present how to implement it in practice. Notifications in the DOMIQ system are sent using identifiers from the REMOTE.notify group.

2.1. Notification to all paireddevices #

For the purpose of this example, let’s assume that the notification concerns smoke detection in the building and is reported by binary input no. 20 of the Satel alarm system integrated with the DOMIQ system.

The definition for such an event is as follows:

1. Channel: E.IDS.input.20

2. Data: 1

This should be understood as: when sensor no. 20 changes state from 0 to 1.

3. In the Actions section, add a new action by clicking the +Command button and fill out the new window as follows:

1. Name: C.REMOTE.notify

2. Value: Smoke detected!
3. Save the Events tab.

2.2. Notification to a singledevice #

Something for photovoltaics fans – imagine that one of the system users wants to receive a daily summary of energy production. For the example, let’s assume two conditions:

1. Integration of the PV system with DOMIQ is done using the MODBUS protocol – this is common practice and most inverter manufacturers allow integration this way.

2. The state of daily production is available under the identifier: MODBUS.tcp.pv.daily
To send the notification daily at a fixed time, the best solution is to use a timer. For the example, we assume sending the notification at 21:00.

• Tab: Timers > +Timer
• Hour: 21
• Minute: 0

Note: Entering 0 in the Minute field is necessary and will ensure that the timer runs at 21:00. Leaving the Minute field empty will cause the timer to execute every minute throughout the hour!

4. Before defining the notification sending action itself, it is necessary to determine the device identifier to which the notification should be sent. The list of paired devices available in the Settings > Authorizations tab for the application is helpful here. Then find the device you’re interested in and copy its identifier.
5. Actions > +Command

• Name: C.REMOTE.notify.<device_ide ntifier>, where <device_identifier >should of course be replaced with the copied identifier.
  
  
• Value: Daily energy production: {MODBUS.tcp.pv.daily} [kWh]

The notation {MODBUS.tcp.pv.daily} requires explanation – it is an example of variable binding, which is a DOMIQ system function. Enclosing the identifier name in curly braces is interpreted by the system as a request to replace the name with its current value in the system. Thanks to this, we can easily reference the MODBUS register value and include it in the notification content.

You can read more about variable binding in the documentation for the DOMIQ/Base module.

6. Save the Timers tab.

2.3. Notification for auser group #

This scenario assumes sending a notification to a previously created user profile. We won’t discuss creating user profiles here, as this has been described in a separate tutorial.

For the purpose of the example, we assume the existence of a profile named: service, to which the devices of the technical staff in the company are assigned. Our example assumes sending a notification about a failure, which is signaled by a relay state change in the LCN system to the value 1 (of course, the action trigger can be any other event in the system).

1. Events > +Event

2. Channel: E.LCN.relay.0.10.1

3. Data: 1

4. Actions > +Command

• Name: C.REMOTE.notify<profile_name> ., in our case: C.REMOTE.notify.service
  
  
• Value: Fan failure!

3. Summary #

Notifications play an important and very useful role in the interaction of the intelligent building system with users. Thanks to events, timers, user profiles, and variable binding, you can turn them into an advanced tool that keeps system users up to date with the most important system-related information.