Automation

Automation rules watch your device data and trigger actions when conditions are met: sending you a notification, controlling another device, or both. Notification actions (email, Discord, Slack, Telegram, webhooks) are available on every plan. Multi-condition logic and device commands require the Business plan or higher.

Alerts and automation are the same system. If you’re looking for “alerts,” this is the page.

Creating a Rule

1. Go to Dashboard → Automation
2. Click Create Rule, or pick a starter template (auto-off after a delay, sustained-threshold alert, device-offline alert, daily check-in) to prefill sensible defaults
3. Fill in 1. When this happens (the trigger), 2. Do this (control a device and/or notify you), and optionally 3. Advanced settings
4. Check the live summary line at the top of the form (“When X, do Y”) to confirm the rule reads the way you intend
5. Click Create Rule

The builder can be expanded to fill the screen using the maximize icon in its header, the same control used on the Historical Plot chart.

Trigger Types

A rule fires one of three ways. Pick one per rule.

Condition

Fires when a device’s telemetry matches one or more conditions, e.g. “temperature above 38°C.”

Schedule

Fires daily at a fixed time, or on a repeating interval, independent of any sensor reading.

Device status

Fires when a device goes offline or comes back online, detected server-side from missed check-ins.

Condition-Based

Setting	Description
Device	The device to monitor
Field	The telemetry field to check (e.g., “temperature”)
Operator	Greater/less than, equals, between, or changed. See Operators for the full list
Value	The threshold value (two values for between)
Sustained for	Optional: the comparison must hold continuously for this many seconds before it counts, filtering out a brief spike
Hysteresis	Optional, numeric operators only: once triggered, stays triggered until the reading crosses back past the threshold by this much, instead of flipping on every small wobble around the exact line
Time window	Optional (in Advanced settings): only evaluate this rule during a daily UTC time range, e.g. motion detection that should only matter overnight

Operators:

Operator	Meaning	Example
Greater than / equal	> / >=	temperature > 38
Less than / equal	< / <=	battery < 20
Equals / not equals	= / !=	status = “error”
Between	Value falls within a range	humidity between 40 and 60
Changed	Fires on any change from the last reading	door_state changed

Example: “When temperature on Sensor A is greater than 38, sustained for 5 minutes”

Multi-Condition Rules (Business+)

Business and Scale plan users can add multiple conditions with AND/OR logic:

• All conditions (AND): rule fires only when every condition is true
• Any condition (OR): rule fires when at least one condition is true

Free and Starter users are limited to a single condition per rule.

Schedule-Based

Fires independent of any telemetry value:

Type	Description
Daily	Fires once at a fixed time (UTC) each day
Interval	Fires roughly every N minutes, paced by the Cooldown setting

Note

There’s no dedicated cron on this platform. Schedule and device-status checks run opportunistically whenever any of your devices sends telemetry, so timing can drift by a few minutes on an otherwise-idle account. For a device that reports frequently, this is rarely noticeable.

Device Status

Fires when a device transitions online ↔ offline. A device is considered offline once it’s gone silent for 3x its own reporting interval, with a 5-minute floor. Useful as a “did this sensor stop reporting” watchdog independent of any specific reading.

Action Types

Each rule can have multiple actions that execute when it triggers.

Notification Actions (All Plans)

Action	Description	Setup
Email	Sends alert to your account email	Automatic
Discord	Posts to a Discord channel	Webhook URL
Slack	Posts to a Slack channel	Webhook URL
Telegram	Sends message via Telegram bot	Bot token + chat ID
Custom Webhook	HTTP POST to any URL	Endpoint URL

See Alert Integrations for detailed setup guides for each channel.

SMS (Business+)

Sends an SMS to your verified phone number. Requires a Business plan or higher with SMS alerts enabled. Monthly limits: Business (100/mo), Scale (200/mo).

Send Command (Business+)

Sends a command to a device via MQTT, and controls another device (or the same one) rather than just notifying you. Configure:

• Target device: which device receives the command
• Command name: the command identifier (e.g., relay)
• Value: the command value (e.g., true), or leave blank on a toggle-type command to flip its current state instead of setting an absolute value
• Delay: optional, run this action N seconds after the rule fires rather than immediately (e.g., “turn the relay off 60 seconds after it turns on”)

A rule can carry more than one command action, each with its own target device and delay, so one rule can control several devices at once.

Tip

For “toggle relay 2 after 5 seconds,” pick a trigger (any condition, or a schedule), leave the command’s Value blank so it flips the current state, and set Delay to 5. A pure fixed-interval pulse without any external trigger (“run for 5 minutes every 6 hours”) is best built as a schedule-based rule whose command has no delay, paired with the Cooldown setting to pace re-firing.

The command is published to the device’s command topic (d/{device_id}/c).

Automation Webhook (Business+)

Makes an HTTP POST request to a URL with the full trigger data as JSON body. Useful for integrating with external automation platforms like n8n, Node-RED, or Zapier. See Alert Integrations for the exact payload shape.

Advanced Settings

Setting	Description
Severity	Info, Warning, or Critical, shown on the rule and in its history
Cooldown	Minimum time between fires. Default 5 minutes, range 10 seconds to 24 hours
Only notify when it changes (edge-triggered)	Fires once on the transition into the triggered state, not repeatedly while it stays true. Cooldown still applies on top. Turn off for repeated reminders while a condition persists
Time window	Condition-based rules only, restricts evaluation to a daily UTC time range

Safety Guardrails

Two protections apply automatically to every rule, no configuration needed:

• Self-loop prevention. You can’t save a rule whose own command action would undo the exact condition that triggers it (e.g., a rule that turns a relay off when triggered by that same relay being on, with no delay). Add a delay, or target a different device/command instead.
• Runaway-cascade limit. If your rules collectively fire 30+ times within 5 minutes (for example, rule A’s action satisfies rule B’s trigger, which satisfies rule A again), further fires are silently held back until the window clears. Per-rule cooldown alone can’t catch a cascade across multiple rules, so this is a backstop, not something you need to tune.

Managing Rules

Enable/Disable

Toggle the switch next to any rule to enable or disable it. Disabled rules are not evaluated.

Execution History

View the history tab to see when rules fired, which conditions matched, and which actions executed. Each entry shows success or failure status with timestamps. More than 3 fires in an hour are grouped into a single entry to avoid flooding the history.

Acknowledge Events

Mark triggered events as acknowledged to track which ones have been reviewed.

Edit & Delete

Use the edit and delete icons on each rule card.

Example Use Cases

Trigger	Action	Use Case
Temperature > 35°C, sustained 5 min	Email + Discord	Critical temperature alert without false alarms on a brief spike
Soil moisture < 30%	Send valve_open command	Irrigation control
Humidity between 40 and 60	Email	Keep a greenhouse or server room in range
Temperature > 80, hysteresis 2	Email	Thermostat-style alert that doesn’t flap right at the threshold
Motion detected, time window 22:00 to 06:00	SMS	Overnight-only motion alert
Relay on, delay 60s	Send relay command (blank value)	Auto-off a pump or light after a fixed run time
Every 30 minutes (schedule)	Send pump command (blank value)	Periodic toggle without a sensor trigger
Device offline	Email + SMS	Catch a sensor that’s stopped reporting, which the device itself can never signal
Vibration > threshold	Webhook to maintenance system	Predictive maintenance
Temperature > 40°C AND humidity < 20%	SMS + email + command	Multi-condition safety alert

Plans & Availability

Feature	Free/Starter	Business	Scale	Enterprise
Single condition rules	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Schedule and device-status triggers	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Between / sustained-for / hysteresis / time window	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Multi-condition (AND/OR)	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Email notifications	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Discord/Slack/Telegram	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Custom webhooks	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
SMS notifications	No	Yes (100/mo)	Yes (200/mo)	Yes
Device commands (including delayed and multi-device)	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
AI-suggested rules	No	No	Yes	Yes

Managing rules across many devices by hand doesn’t scale well past a handful. If you’re scripting rule creation from your own backend or provisioning system, see Alerts in the Public API reference for creating, updating, and deleting rules programmatically.

Next Steps

• Alert Integrations: setup guides for Discord, Slack, Telegram, webhooks
• Analytics & AI: anomaly detection and forecasting
• Device Sharing: share devices with your team
• Public API: Alerts: create and manage rules programmatically