Besides being the developers of Uptime Robot, as website owners, we know that getting notified of downtimes instantly is so important.
Uptime Robot already has a wide range of notification methods: e-mail, text message, Twitter DMs, RSS and API.
Today, we are introducing a new notification method: push notifications for İOS -iPhone, iPad And iPod– through the popular and free iOS notification application Boxcar.
Usage is pretty simple:
- Sign-up for a free Boxcar account
- Install the free Boxcar app to your iOS device
- Add your Boxcar e-mail as an alert contact in Uptime Robot’s “My Settings>Add Alert Contacts>iOS Push” screen
- And that’s it.
Also, Boxcar has a Mac Desktop application which can also display the same notifications in your computer.
Does this mean Uptime Robot won’t have an iOS app?
No, it doesn’t. An iOS app for Uptime Robot is planned however we are currently focused on several other “most requested” features like reporting, website widgets and response time analysis.
Once, such core features are ready, we would love to launch a full-featured iOS app. But thought getting push notifications right now would be awesome.
28 Comments
Cool! I think that this is great!
There should be such a feature for Android.
@Luciano,
Boxcar will soon be available for Android too.
This is great. I should give this a try. Awesome.
More awesome news from Uptime Robot this week! First, it was API, now it is push notifications. Keep right on rocking.
What's the benefit? My ipad/ iphone get email now so why not just get the uptimerobot emails? Why is getting an alert from boxcar better than getting an email alert? Seems like its just adding another layer or conduit (plus one more online account to have). The concept sounds good but I need someone to draw me a picture of why this is an improvement over the current notification.
Very cool! Thanks!
Sounds great.
Also if you have an iPhone you can get push email using Google Mobile Sync ( http://www.google.com/mobile/sync/ ) setting up a gmail account as an exchange server. With the new iOS5 notification system it is easy to see when you get alerts. Hotmail also supports push email (ActiveSync) on iPhone ( http://www.sirslur.com/2010/09/01/hotmail-has-imap-and-works-on-iphone/ ).
Regarding the instructions above, I can't complete the 3rd step:
'Add your Boxcar e-mail as an alert contact in Uptime Robot's "My Settings>Add Alert Contacts>iOS Push" screen'
Can't find a way to setup the uptime robot account after adding it, it doesn't ask for any UptimeRobot account settings.
Any help please?
(iOS5, iPhone 4)
The official site for setting up hotmail/windows live on iphone is here: http://windowslivehelp.com/solution.aspx?solutionid=6ae4b9c2-1c01-4e9c-bdc5-12da8728f4c2
Nice addition, but you could just use a push system like Gmail, my notifications are pushed to my Android phone, free & easier to set up, no apps required as all mobiles can use Gmail, even old mobiles can use imap on Gmail which is push.
Great feature, but how to I activate the account after I add in the Boxcar email in Uptimerobot as the guide? I receive an email activation in my Boxcar email with just line of message : "Uptime Robot - Alert Contact Activation" without any link to activate it.
@Matt,
There are definitely many ways to getting push notifications using many different e-mail, RSS and even Twitter apps.
However, getting them via Boxcar is a more focused one with the ability to see each (past) notification with their date-time and up/down icon for easier analyzing.
And, Boxcar will soon be available for Android which makes things easier for Uptime Robot to offer push notifications on multiple devices using a single platform.
On the other side, I agree that the best way to get notifications differ for each user and this is just another option.
@KW Foo,
Yes, seems like an issue exists with the Boxcar e-mails. Will be fixing it and updating you back.
I hope for Android soon!
@admin
How are we getting on is it working yet? I can't seem to get a personal boxcar email address like @KW Foo above.
@Simon,
Boxcar has an "e-mail account" app here: http://boxcar.io/provider_list which gives you a temp e-mail.
But, the issue is not resolved yet and discussing it with the support here: http://help.boxcar.io/discussions/developers/74-checking-the-existence-of-pushboxcario-users
Seems like we'll be asking Uptime Robot users to not use @push.boxcar.io e-mails as alert contacts (which seems to be the best solution).
I'll keep on using Twitter for getting notified of downtimes instantly because I have no reason to install/manage a new app (and account).
Off topic
I tested Boxcar. Great app Push stuff, even if it miss 50% of RSS Feedburner notifications.
Boxcar receive a email below
“Uptime Robot – Alert Contact Activation” without any link to activate it.
Hi,
I found that the boxcar mail only have title. i can't find the body.
So how does this now work? The instructions still say
"Add your Boxcar e-mail as an alert contact in Uptime Robot's "My Settings>Add Alert Contacts>iOS Push" screen"
But there is no boxcar email address. I've read the bug report to boxcar but that doesn't make it any clearer. I don't understand how the boxcar provider works?
I have added the boxcar email app and have received that email address however I can't activate it from uptime robot as the confirmation email is never received!
Just looking for a little clarification or shall I forward my uptime notification emails to boxcar through gmail?
Thanks
@Anchi, @Simon,
The Boxcar e-mail stuff became a little confusing.
The e-mail to be mentioned in Uptime Robot’s “My Settings>Add Alert Contacts>iOS Push” screen” should be the e-mail used to sign-up with Boxcar but not the "@push.boxcar.io" e-mails
I have talked to Boxcar and confirmed that "@push.boxcar.io" e-mails are not good for this case.
To sum up: for using Boxcar, please mention the "e-mail used to sign-up with Boxcar" as an alert contact.
Doesn't seem to work, I get the following error: "Couldn't get a response from Boxcar, Please try again in a few minutes." So have to wait for Boxcar to be fixed?
@terrcin,
Just checked and it functions ok. Can you open a support ticket @ support@uptirmerobot.com so we can check further?
I created an separate twitter account and used that to get twitter notification on my Android twitter app which comes with push notification. Tested with one of my less important site and it works really fine. Thanks for this great service.
I standardized on Growl a while back. It's cross platform, open source and has clients for many smartphones. Please consider this as a feature request :)
Okay, I've done this twice. Uptime Robot shows in the Mac and iOS Boxcar app. My boxcar email shows up in Uptime Robot Alert contact settings.
Yet, I get email notifications when a site is down/back up, but no Boxcar notifications. Looking in Boxcar, it says I haven't gotten any messages.
@Fred,
Any chance that the Boxcar alert contact is not selected on monitors (can be found inside the "Edit Monitor" dialog of each monitor).
@Fred, I am experiencing the exact same issue right now.
@admin, I'm sure that Boxcart alert contact is selected in the "Edit Monitor" view of my site. Still, getting no notifications through Boxcar. Email is still working like normal though..