mail-alerting

Receive a Pushnotification when someone opens your Mailbox (Postbox)

Special Thanks

• @a-mnich
• @crnnr

What you'll need

• ESP32
• Reed switch
• Resistor (300 Ohm - other resistances should work too though)
• Raspberry Pi (Zero)
• Mqtt Broker (can also be installed on the Raspberry Pi)

How to Setup

1. Replace the code as necessary and described below
2. Wire up the ESP
3. Upload MailAlertingClient.ino to ESP
4. Setup RapberryPi
5. OPTIONAL: Install Mosquitto MQTT Broker on RasberryPi)
6. Copy receiverService.py to /home/pi directory
7. Install pip dependencies
8. Copy MailboxReceiverService.service to /etc/systemd/system
9. Make script executable (chmod)
10. Reload systemd & enable service

Code

1. Clone the repo
2. Replace variable values:
   Client/MailAlertingClient.ino

Variable	Default Value	Description
wifiSSID		SSID of your Wifi where MQTT Broker is accessible
wifiPassword		Password of your Wifi
MQTT_BROKER_IP		IP of your MQTT Broker (If you run the MQTT Broker on the Raspberry Pi this will be the same IP as the Raspberry IP)
MQTT_BROKER_PORT	1883	Port of the MQTT broker.
MQTT_CLIENT_NAME	maclient	Client name which the ESP will use to publish
ReceiverService/receiverService.py

Variable	Default Value	Description
MQTT_BROKER_IP		IP of your MQTT Broker (If you run the MQTT Broker on the Raspberry Pi this will be the same IP as the Raspberry IP).
MQTT_BROKER_PORT	1883	Port of the MQTT broker.
DEVICES_FOR_NOTIFICATION	None	V2Ids of Devices, which should receive a notification on Mailbox open. You can target specific devices by setting this to a arry of ids e.g. ['AB12']. The default setting will publish to all Devices.
DEVICES_FOR_IMPLICIT_NOTIFICATION	None	V2Ids of Devices, which should receive a notification on a implicit Mailbox open. This is send when the receiver Service receives two closed states without an open state in between. You can target specific devices by setting this to a arry of ids e.g. ['AB12']. The default setting will publish to all Devices.
MAILBOX_OPEN_TEXT	Mailbox was opened	Text which should get pushed to the devices on Mailbox open.
MAILBOX_STATE_MISSED_TEXT	Mailbox was opened (explicit open state missed)	Text which should get pushed to the devices on implicit Mailbox open. This is send when the receiver Service receives two closed states without an open state in between.
PUSH_NOTIFIER_USER_NAME		UserName of your PushNotifier Account
PUSH_NOTIFIER_PASSWORD		Password of your PushNotifier Account
PUSH_NOTIFIER_PACKAGE_NAME		Packagename of your PushNotifier App
PUSH_NOTIFIER_API_KEY		APIKey of your PushNotifier Account

ESP Setup

Dependencies

• https://docs.espressif.com/projects/arduino-esp32/en/latest/installing.html
• https://github.com/knolleary/pubsubclient
• Optional: If using a third party ESP board you might have to install drivers for the board manually

Wiring

1. Connect a reed switch to the 3V3 PIN and the G13 (GPIO 13) pin.
2. Connect the G13 switch with the resistor to any GND (ground) pin.

Raspberry Pi Setup

Dependencies

• https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/projects/raspberry-pi-setting-up
• python 3 (Usualy included with the OS)
• https://pypi.org/project/paho-mqtt/
• https://pypi.org/project/pushnotifier/
• Optional: If you want to host the MQTT broker on the Raspberry Pi https://mosquitto.org/download/

Raspberry Pi Setup

Install Python dependencies

> pip install paho-mqtt
> pip install pushnotifier

Setup systemd to automatically start the receiverService.py

> sudo chmod 744 MailboxReceiverService.service
> sudo chmod +x MailboxReceiverService.service
> sudo systemctl daemon-reload
> sudo systemctl enable MailboxReceiverService.service
> sudo systemctl start MailboxReceiverService.service

NOTE: To Debug the systemd setup you can use sudo systemctl status MailboxReceiverService.service for the general status and journalctl -e -u MailboxReceiverService for more detailed logs