With shared notifications it’s now possible to send your HomeKit notifications to your friends and family. That’s great to inform everyone without needing to create a notification multiple times. For example let everyone in your family know if your leak detection is triggered or if the temperature in a room drops extremely low.
Before you can start sending each other notifications you need to connect to each other in Controller for HomeKit. That ensures, that you only receive notifications from people that you trust.
Enabling Shared Notifications
To do this you must first open the ‘Devices & Secret’ settings. You can find them under ‘Notifications’ when you scroll to the bottom of the screen.
Here you’ll see a code, that you can share with other Controller for HomeKit users. The person you want to share notifications with, needs to scan this QR code or you can send them a link with the share button. They need to do this with a device that has Controller for HomeKit installed. It will open the app and allow them to send you a connection request. If they do this, they grant you permission to send them notifications.
When they send the request you’ll receive a notification from Controller for HomeKit. If you tap the notification you’ll see a similar screen where you can accept the request. If you do so, you’ll grant them the permission to send you notifications and the connection will be established.
Please note, that the code or link must be used within an hour or it will become invalid. If that happens you need to share it again.
A few things about the connection:
- The connection is always bidirectional. That means both of you can send notifications to each other.
- You can always undo the connection by removing the shared devices in the ‘Devices & Secret’ settings.
- While you can see the notifications that are shared with you, you can’t edit them. Only the person that created a notification is able to do that.
When the connection is established you should see a list of the others devices in the ‘Devices & Secrets’ settings.
Creating a Shared Notification
Once the connection is established, creating a shared notification is very similar to other notifications. Here’s an example how to create a critical warning when a leak is detected that is sent to you and to another person.
First create a new instant notification in Controller for HomeKit as you normally would do. In the section ‘Send to’ you will now see the devices of the people you are connected with. All devices of a person are grouped together. All you need to do to share the notification is to select one or more devices of another person. In this example the ‘iPhone X’ is a shared device.
Next you need to create a new Automation, that is triggered when the sensor detects a leak.
Finally, open the Shortcuts app and go to the automation you just created. Tap on ‘Select Accessories and Scenes…’ and scroll down. Tap ‘Convert To Shortcut’. Now add an action ‘Get contents of URL’ and copy the notification URL into the action. Save the shortcut and the shared notification is working.