Whatsapp Messages from Apple Home App or HomeKit

It is very simple to send a WhatsApp Notification from any Home App Automation. Just follow these step by step instructions:

1) In the Home App, createa new Automation (Click + and then "Create Home Automation")

2) Select and configure the trigger for the automation. In this example, the trigger will be when "People Arrive", but Callmebot works with any trigger. For example, you can configure it to trigger when someone rings the doorbell, a sensor detects something, then a light turns on, or when your kid gets home from school.

3) After configuring the Trigger, Click "Next" to go to the Scenes and Accessories list. Select "Convert to Shortcut" (under Advanced at the bottom of the screen)

 

4) Now you can call the Callmebot API using Home App’s native shortcut Web actions:

1. If you don’t want this Automation to control or do anything else, remove the default “Set scenes and Accessories” action by tapping the “x” button next to it.
2. Tap “Add Action” or use the Search box at the bottom.
3. Select “Web” Category, and scroll down and select “Get Contents of URL”.
4. Now paste your Callmebot API URL in the “URL” field of the action (see details and screenshot below).

  

CallMeBot API URL details:

https://api.callmebot.com/whatsapp.php?source=homeapp&phone=[PhoneNumber]&apikey=[ApiKey]&text=[Text Message]

Where the blue parameters are:

[PhoneNumber]: Your phone number (used to get the apikey) including the country code (Ex.: +49123123132)
[ApiKey]: The apikey that you received during the activation process (step 4-5 above)
[Text Message]: Message that you want to send to your WhatsApp number when the trigger is activated. It has to be urlencoded. You can use this online converter to encode the message. (i.e. %20 for space, %0A for new lines). WhatsApp formatting characters are allowed (i.e "*" for bold, etc.). Check here how to include emoticons in the message 👍.

CallMeBot API URL Example:

https://api.callmebot.com/whatsapp.php?source=homeapp&phone=+49123123123&apikey=1234567&text=This+is+a+test+message+from+Home+App+Automation

5) If you want to Test your WhatsApp HomeKit Automation, see the "Testing your Automation" section below, before exiting the Action screen.

6) if you are done Testing (or do not want to test) you can tap Next and Done.

Note: You will see your new automation in your automation list. Note there is no icon as this runs a Shortcut (I think this is a Home bug and will be resolved, as it looks empty) but the automation works. Also, note that you could add the Callmebot action to an existing automation, but if you are not using a Shortcut already, you need to convert it into a shortcut first (and at the moment, this seems to remove all your Scenes or Actions from the automation).

Testing your Automation

To test your WhatsApp Action:

On the Shortcut Action screen, you can test the action by tapping on the “play” button in the bottom right corner of the screen. This will test the Action and show you the result. If the preview doesn’t show any errors, you should get your WhatsApp message in a few seconds.

How to include dynamic fields in the Text Message