Why PushOver?

It is often very useful to be able to receive instant notifications upon certain events happening in your observatory — or just at your computer. PushOver supports a wide range of devices, works great, and, while not totally free, the price is really reasonable (at the time of writing, just $5 for a lifetime license). A free trial is available so you can test it before committing.

Do Not Disturb: PushOver supports configurable quiet hours, so you won't be woken up by routine status messages in the middle of the night. High-priority messages can still break through when it matters.

What you will need

  • A PushOver account — free trial available
  • Your User token (shown on your PushOver homepage after login)
  • An Application token — create one inside the PushOver interface for each application or observatory you want to notify from
  • curl for Windows — the command-line HTTP tool used to send the notification
  • Optionally: a PNG image to personalise your messages
PushOver — creating an application token in the dashboard
curl — command-line HTTP tool

Step 1 — Install curl for Windows

Download curl from the official site. The 32-bit version is recommended for universal compatibility, including older Windows versions (XP and later).

A suggested folder to keep things tidy:

C:\Users\[YourUsername]\scripts

Place the curl executable and the curl-ca-bundle.crt certificate file in that folder together.

Step 2 — Write your notification script

Create a new text file with the .bat extension (for example notify.bat) and add the following, substituting your own tokens and message text:

rem Change directory to where curl is installed
cd \Users\MyUser\scripts

curl -s --cacert curl-ca-bundle.crt ^
  --form-string "token=APPLICATION_TOKEN_HERE" ^
  --form-string "user=YOUR_PUSHOVER_USER_TOKEN_HERE" ^
  --form-string "message=Hello there!" ^
  https://api.pushover.net/1/messages.json

Four things to change before running it:

  1. The folder path in the cd command
  2. Your Application token (created in the PushOver dashboard)
  3. Your User token (from the PushOver homepage)
  4. The message text — anything you like

Working example

Once you replace the placeholder tokens with your real ones, a working script looks like this:

cd \Users\Jaime\scripts

curl -s --cacert curl-ca-bundle.crt ^
  --form-string "token=laksdfasdfasdfasdfasdfasdf" ^
  --form-string "user=ththsethsethsqrwt" ^
  --form-string "message=Hello there!" ^
  https://api.pushover.net/1/messages.json
PushOver Windows .bat notification script

Optional — High-priority notifications

For critical alerts (for example, an unsafe weather event), you can add priority flags so the notification repeats until you acknowledge it:

--form-string "priority=2" --form-string "retry=30" --form-string "expire=600"

This retries the alert every 30 seconds until it is acknowledged or 600 seconds (10 minutes) have passed.

The complete high-priority command:

cd \Users\Jaime\scripts

curl -s --cacert curl-ca-bundle.crt ^
  --form-string "token=laksdfasdfasdfasdfasdfasdf" ^
  --form-string "user=ththsethsethsqrwt" ^
  --form-string "priority=2" ^
  --form-string "retry=30" ^
  --form-string "expire=600" ^
  --form-string "message=Hello there!" ^
  https://api.pushover.net/1/messages.json
PushOver high-priority notification script with retry

Note: Priority 2 (emergency) requires the user to explicitly acknowledge the notification in the PushOver app. Use it for genuinely urgent alerts — unsafe weather, dome failure, etc. — rather than routine status updates.

Integrating with CloudWatcher

CloudWatcher can execute a script automatically when weather conditions change. Go to Setup → Script to configure this.

Recommended script file names:

  • weatherSafe.bat — runs when conditions become safe
  • weatherUnsafe.bat — runs when conditions become unsafe

To configure each one:

  1. Click Path to browse to your scripts folder
  2. Enter the script file name
  3. Repeat for the other condition if needed

Each script can send a tailored PushOver message — for example: "Observatory weather UNSAFE — closing dome" or "Weather clear — ready to observe."

Using this with Dragonfly

The same technique works perfectly inside Dragonfly scripts. Call the .bat file from any Dragonfly automation rule or sequence, and notifications will fire exactly as they would from a standalone script.

Going further with curl

Curl is a remarkably versatile tool. Beyond PushOver notifications, you can use it to query the Dragonfly relays and sensors directly over HTTP — opening up a wide range of monitoring and automation possibilities from a simple batch file.

For a more robust, integrated notification solution, also consider the Good Night System, which handles end-of-session alerts and safety monitoring at a higher level.