Uptime Robot is already integrated with the free and easy-to-use Boxcar app for sending iOS push messages.
Lately, the app has a new version, Boxcar 2, and the old version will be inactive in the next weeks.
Uptime Robot now supports Boxcar 2 and “any alert contacts for the older version will be deactivated on 11 April 2014 (7 days later)“.
In order to keep getting iOS push messages, please make sure that you:
- install the Boxcar 2 app (note that the user-pass in the old Boxcar app is no longer valid, a new account shall be created in Boxcar 2)
- define its “Access Token” as an alert contact
- attach this alert contact to the monitors preferred.
Friendly Names For Alert Contacts
With this update, we have added the ability to define friendly names for alert contacts so that it’ll become much easier to distinguish them from each other.
That’s all for now :).
19 Comments
Maybe I am being really daft, but these instructions suck. How do I get the alerts sending to Boxcar 2? How do I know they are installed properly
Once you add an alert contact with the Boxcar 2 access token, simply select this alert contact for the monitors you want (from the " edit monitor" dialogs).
To verify if it works or not, feel free to create a test account with a non existing url to trigger an alert.
P.S. We shall send a "Boxcar successfully added message to phones once it is added".
How does on "attache this alert to the monitors preferred"?
Dear Uptime Robot Team,
could you please add a hint that one needs to create a *new* / additional alert contact of typo "Boxcar2 iOS Push" in order to use Boxcar2?
Thanks!
kelsaka
Being able to drill in to an alert contact and select or deselect monitors for that contact would be massively helpful. Adding my new boxcar 2 alert to 48 monitors when we have two pages of alert contacts to choose from proved to be rather tedious...
If you want to use the Boxcar2 selection of sounds instead of just the default beep you get by using the "Access Token" route:
1. Add the Boxcar2 forwarding email to Gmail (found in the app)
2. Get the verification code in your Boxcar2 app's inbox and verify the forwarding with Gmail.
3. Create a GMail filter on the "Monitor is DOWN" email from Uptime Robot, and add forwarding to the Boxcar2 email.
4. Configure sounds for Mail in the Boxcar2 settings.
Or, you know, just add the Boxcar2 forwarding email to Uptime Robot as a contact instead... It's too early in the morning for this *facepalm*
Our main problem with this change is that Boxcar 2 is made only for IPhone screen size, while Boxcar supported iPhone and iPad screen size.
Totally understand. Sadly, the old Boxcar app (and its API) will no longer be available within few weeks. So, we had make this switch.
P.S. We will be releasing integrations for some other apps as well which may help regarding this issue.
These directions are a nightmare. It's like they were written in another language and badly translated into English. And they omit vital information... like that Boxcar 2 is NOT a "new version" of the existing app: it is a completely different app. I just lost about an hour trying to figure out why I couldn't get any of this to work before I realized that the latest version of Boxcar was not what was required, that I had to download a brand new, completely different app. And then I spent more time trying to log in to that new app with my existing Boxcar account only to eventually discover that existing Boxcar accounts DO NOT WORK with the new app: you have to create a brand new account. (The new app does not tell you this.)
Very, very frustrating, and completely unnecessary, had these instructions been properly and clearly written.
Sorry for the confusion. Once you are too inside, it gets harder to think and describe like you are just starting.
Edited the wording to make it more clear.
Hi all,
I still found the instructions confusing, but just about managed to work it out by cobbling together all of the comments. Step by step (hopefully clearer) instructions below:
1. Install Boxcar 2 on your phone/tablet and create a new account
2. Go to settings within the app and find the access token
3. Sign into the uptime robot site
4. Go to each of the monitors you have set up
5. Go to my settings
6. Scroll down to alert contacts
7. Click new alert contact
8. Select Boxcar 2 from the alert contact type
9. Add a friendly name and your boxcar access token from the app
10. Create Alert contact
I agree the instructions are confusing, but here's what I had to do to get the alerts working:
1) Download the new Boxcar 2 app.
2) Create a NEW account in the Boxcar 2 app. (same id and pwd as old boxcar app works)
3) Obtain the Access Token from the Boxcar 2 app (Settings > Access Token)
Then in uptimerobot.com
4) Delete the old Alert Contact for Boxcar.
5) Create a new Alert Contact for Boxcar 2 using the Access Token
6) Add the new Alert Contact to all of the monitors.
I then took down a test site and received the notification in the BoxCar app. I did NOT have to "Add" a feed in the Boxcar 2 app for Uptime Robot.
I followed all of the above instructions and believed that I had everything setup OK. However, I just got into work and found that our websites had been offline for the last 13 hours with no alerts in Boxcar 2!! Boxcar used to work perfectly, but Boxcar 2 apparently doesn't!
Just checked the account and seems like you didn't yet attach the new alert contact to any monitor.
The Boxcar2 alert contact can simply be attached to the monitors of your choice from the "edit monitor dialog" and things shall work as expected afterwards.
The sound settings do not work. It is always the same sound, but I have set it to another sound.
Is this a bug?
The sounds can not be customized through the app but defined/hardcoded on our side.
We got feedback from users to have a louder sound. Is this also the reason you want to change the sound?
You could leave the sound blank, so we could define one throught the settings!
I would live to set an alarm sound, as a broken website is big problem...
after all these steps please do not forget to update your monitors.
Go to my settings page, there are your monitors/websites at left site.
click settings icon at right, click edit and check boxcar 2 from there.
Otherwise it doesnt work.