Rexabyte Posted August 22, 2017 Share Posted August 22, 2017 We're looking into creating an SMS (Text Message) driver, currently we have it functioning so you can send SMS messages but at the moment licensing is a potential problem and we'd like some feedback for what users/dealers would prefer. Currently in the US it's about $6.45 per 1,000 texts and generally goes up from there. On some networks it's 5 texts for $1 (Germany - E-Plus Mobilfunk). Canada (Bell) is $6.5 per 10,000 texts. The UK is similar to the US in cost. Current thoughts: Free driver + ongoing SMS support with the subscription we offer. No recurring costs as the dealer would be absorbing this through their subscription. This would benefit those with expensive SMS fees and just be simpler overall. Pay as you go solution that grants you a set amount of points that the texts use up based on the cost of the text. IE. Pay for some sort of license and get 10,000 points which may be a couple thousand texts. This would benefit those in North America as they could pay $10 and have several thousand texts if sending to Bell for example. You would have to pay for more sms messages if and when you run out of points. Potential white list for North America/United Kingdom for now as other countries are costly. How many people are interested in an SMS driver? What use cases would you most often use this for? Feedback appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
THEORY Posted August 22, 2017 Share Posted August 22, 2017 We were thinking this would be good for seeing system reboots, or when certain users opens a lock (cleaning staff)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dcovach Posted August 22, 2017 Share Posted August 22, 2017 What are the advantages of this over emailing a notification to an SMS number? This can be done if both the phone number and carrier's sms gateway are known. EG, I can email a Garage Door is Opened message to a bell cellular number using the Email Notification Agent by sending it to email address 1234567890@txt.bell.ca Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
THEORY Posted August 22, 2017 Share Posted August 22, 2017 33 minutes ago, dcovach said: What are the advantages of this over emailing a notification to an SMS number? This can be done if both the phone number and carrier's sms gateway are known. EG, I can email a Garage Door is Opened message to a bell cellular number using the Email Notification Agent by sending it to email address 1234567890@txt.bell.ca Doesn't need 4sight, which is the main way to send an email from Control4. It also doesn't require the txt to email service which some carriers charge extra for. They typically format nicer then most txt to email systems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dcovach Posted August 22, 2017 Share Posted August 22, 2017 4 minutes ago, THEORY said: Doesn't need 4sight, which is the main way to send an email from Control4 The other method(s)are with the Chowmain Notification Suite driver which includes email notifications. Which carriers charge extra? I know voice to text is an extra feature but I've never come across overages for receiving a text from an email address. But that's just my carrier. I can't speak for all carriers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
THEORY Posted August 22, 2017 Share Posted August 22, 2017 2 minutes ago, dcovach said: The other method(s)are with the Chowmain Notification Suite driver which includes email notifications. Which carriers charge extra? I know voice to text is an extra feature but I've never come across overages for receiving a text from an email address. But that's just my carrier. I can't speak for all carriers. Rogers is one that is a pain to do, and charge to have the full service. http://www.rogers.com/cms/html/addons/en/email_to_text.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rexabyte Posted August 22, 2017 Author Share Posted August 22, 2017 Fido: Quote With Email-to-Text, when an e-mail is sent to your MyFidoNumber@fido.ca address, you will receive a 'Message Alert' in your Fido inbox by SMS. There is no charge for receiving these notifications. From there, if you would like to receive the content of the email on your device, simply reply “Read” to the message alert. Regular text message charges will apply when you reply to a Message Alert at either $.25 per message or as per your text messaging plan. We also offer a Direct Delivery option as an add on for $5 per month. With this add on, you will receive the first 160 characters of each message automatically, instead of the message alerts. Quick googling reveals quite a few providers charge for receiving email to text messages. May be different in other countries. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dcovach Posted August 22, 2017 Share Posted August 22, 2017 13 minutes ago, THEORY said: Rogers is one that is a pain to do, and charge to have the full service. Yes and no.... it's free if you 're fine with having to first accept the message (R) to read (in case of spam) or it's $5/m for direct access without being notified first. 5 minutes ago, TheWizard said: Quick googling reveals quite a few providers charge for receiving email to text messages. May be different in other countries. .... anyways, interesting idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zaphod Posted August 23, 2017 Share Posted August 23, 2017 What about other messaging apps on a phone rather than pure SMS? Do some of these apps, like Whatsapp have APIs that you can use? I am using a C4 driver (Chowmain?) to send notifications to Prowl on my phone which works well and Pushbullet is another multi-platform app with an API similar to Prowl. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rexabyte Posted August 23, 2017 Author Share Posted August 23, 2017 The Amazon SNS (Simple Notification Service) primarily lets you create your own notify platform. We're just using it in order to send SMS text. Some of those other apps you mentioned do have API's and if there's enough interest it's something we can look at putting together. If the API's are straight forward you can expect Beta drivers in a couple days. We provide free licenses to those that beta and provide feedback. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zaphod Posted August 23, 2017 Share Posted August 23, 2017 The APIs for those are very straightforward and it should be easy for you guys to do this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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