SMS / WhatsApp / email trigger of piston

#1

1) Give a description of the problem
Hi guys. We’re installing automated electric gates at home next month and I’m looking for a smart way to allow trusted visitors entry (gardeners, relatives, etc). I’m looking for a solution whereby they send me or my wife (our existing mobile phone numbers) a SMS message / WhatsApp message or they send either of us an email to our O365 mailboxes (any of these options would need to contain a specific text string to be allowed). Please note that we have iPhones so we can’t rely on Tasker.

I can already achieve this via email (Microsoft Power Automate) but flows only run once every minute so a visitor could be waiting up to 1 min (on a narrow country lane) for gates to open. Email would be fine if we could reduce this delay, maybe if a piston could be trigger by email (using an O365 mail forwarding rule).

The ideal solution is SMS as internet connectivity isn’t great in our area.

2) What is the expected behaviour?
One of the following, order of preference:

  1. Visitor sends SMS message to myself or my wife “#opengate1234” which (somehow) instantly triggers a piston that opens the gates.

  2. Visitor sends WhatsApp message to myself or my wife “#opengate1234” which (somehow) instantly triggers a piston that opens the gates.

  3. Visitor sends email to myself or my wife (O365 mailboxes) “#opengate1234” which (somehow) instantly triggers a piston that opens the gates.

3) What is happening/not happening?
I have been investigating / researching this for a while now but cannot find an adequate solution. Now turning to the pros (you guys) for guidance / recommendations please.

**4) Post a Green Snapshot of the piston!
N/A

5) Attach logs after turning logging level to Full
(PASTE YOUR LOGS HERE THEN HIGHLIGHT ALL OF THE LOGS AND CLICK ON THE </> ICON TO FORMAT THEM CORRECTLY)

REMOVE BELOW AFTER READING

#2

OK, OK, don’t laugh… but the easiest way to achieve Goal #1, is to buy a cheap (stay-at-home) Android, and install Tasker… Then your guests can send a normal SMS to that device, which can immediately trigger a piston. (Using a secret “codeword” is recommended)

My average round trip time is about one second…

It’s important to note that there’s no need to activate the Android, or pay a monthly fee, since it will be online using the home’s WiFi…

Pro Tip:

If you decide to go down this path, you are opening up a multitude of other Smart Home possibilities in the future…

This is also a great way to bypass the SmartThings’ daily limits on SMS…

#3

Thanks for the suggestion, and this approach did cross my mind previously. It if I were to go down this route and give trusted visitors another number to save in their phones and send an SMS to, then I may as well setup an online number with Twilio or alike.

To me this isn’t a truly ‘smart’ solution because I need to hand out an additional number to people, at which point I could even revert to an old-skill GSM gate intercom.

If I’ve misunderstood please let me know, I’m wondering now if you know of a way for the Android device to receive SMS messages which were originally sent to mine or my wife’s iPhones ?

Or (thinking out loud), could that Android device be signed into multiple WhatsApp accounts and use incoming WhatsApp messages as Tasker triggers ?

Please note that as an iPhone user since the original iPhone was released, buying an Android feels all sorts of wrong !! :wink:

#4

I understand, but it’s the iPhone that is your current obstacle… If you can find a macro tool that works on an iPhone, that can listen for events, and then issue external commands, then you are golden.

Side Note:

There are a few good threads here on WhatsApp if you search this forum.
(of course then, you are asking your guests to install an app)

#5

My main issue with the Android solution is the additional number that visitors will have to know & save in order for the message to arrive at the Android device.

Considering Option 3 for a moment: Do you know if there is a way to trigger a piston via email ? (I.e. auto-forwarding an applicable email to a webCoRE address).

Cheers

#6

What about IFTTT? Your guests would need to know the email address to send the message to and a hashtag you create and you could set it to activate your gate through Smartthings.

Send IFTTT an email at [email protected] with a hashtag in the subject (e.g. #IFTTT) and this Trigger fires.

#7

This was an idea at one time, but if memory serves me correctly, it was abandoned…

#8

Ah ok, so a solution for my Option 3 (email) might be as follows:

  1. Visitor emails mine or my wife’s O365 mailbox
  2. O365 mail forwarding rule runs and forwards ‘approved’ emails to [email protected]
  3. IFTTT runs a GET URL of the WebCore piston

Have just tested from a Gmail ‘visitor’ and it works beautifully (takes approx 10 secs from sending the mail to fire the piston). Lovely…thank you :slight_smile: EDIT: After further testing the piston takes anywhere up to 2 minutes to fire (from sending the email from the visitor account).

So we have a workable solution for Option 3, does anyone have any ideas for Options 1 or 2 by any chance ?

Many thanks

#9

Understood. I’m currently investigating the Android option to see if Tasker can monitor 2 WhatsApp instances simultaneously without a SIM card in an android device so I’ll report back when I have news. Many thanks

P.S. Any other suggestions welcomed :slight_smile:

#10

Just curious. Did you do any testing to see what is taking so long? e.g., try sending an email directly to [email protected] to see how long that process takes (taking out the O365 email forwarding).

#11

Good shout. It appears to be the O365 mail forwarding rule that’s slowing things down, and I don’t think I can do much about that. Sending direct from O365 to triggers@ results in around 15-20secs for the piston to fire.

#12

Hi guys,

Just reaching out again to see if there’s any other suggestions of ways to use SMS or WhatsApp messages as triggers ?

It looks like the above suggestion of obtaining a stay-at-home Android and using Tasker to monitor my WhatsApp account won’t work as WhatsApp doesn’t allow multiple simultaneous logins (so I wouldn’t be able to be logged in to WhatsApp on my iPhone at the same time).

So far the only workable solution we have is via email which can take a few minutes (due to the O365 mail forwarding rule) so isn’t ideal.

Any suggestions welcome.

Cheers

#13

I understand that the phone can use wifi, but doesn’t it need a number to receive SMS?

#14

Tasker can monitor any app that places a notification in the top tray…

I use Google Voice to get a free SMS number on my tablet with no SIM card…
But Tasker can also monitor email notifications, as well as chat apps…

If you do not want a dedicated SMS number, (or if you are outside the US, and are rejected by Google Voice), here is a thread I created showing how to get a notification on a device with no SIM card.