Advanced notifications

Actions, sounds, channels, and notifications that stay put.

Beyond plain text, a notification from your home can carry buttons, a custom sound, an image, or refuse to be swiped away.

Actionable notifications

A notification can carry buttons that run an action without opening the app — unlock the door, acknowledge the alarm, turn the light back off. The buttons are defined by the automation that sends the notification.

Notification sounds

A notification can ask for a specific sound, or for no sound at all. On Android the sound is a property of the channel, so changing it means changing the channel — see below.

Notification channels

Android groups notifications into channels, and you — not the app — control the sound, vibration and importance of each one. That is how you silence one kind of notification without silencing the rest.

Open Settings → Notifications in the app and pick a channel to jump straight to its Android settings. A channel appears once the first notification using it has arrived.

Live Activities (iOS)

On iPhone, a notification can pin a live, updating view to the Lock Screen and Dynamic Island — useful for something in progress, such as a garage door moving or a wash cycle running. It clears itself when the activity ends.

Persistent notifications

A notification can be marked so it cannot be swiped away, for something that needs acknowledging. Dismiss it from the action it carries, or from the automation that sent it.