IoT & Sensor Alerts

IoT devices and sensors generate events that need different response times — a temperature spike in a server room is urgent, a humidity reading is informational. Alphorn routes each alert to the right channel based on severity.

Temperature monitoring

import requests

WEBHOOK = "https://app.alphorn.dev/api/webhooks/wh_abc123"

def check_temperature(sensor_id, temp_celsius, location):
    if temp_celsius > 40:
        priority, status = 5, "CRITICAL"
    elif temp_celsius > 35:
        priority, status = 4, "WARNING"
    else:
        return  # Normal range, no notification

    requests.post(WEBHOOK, json={
        "title": f"Temperature {status}: {location}",
        "message": f"Sensor {sensor_id} reading: {temp_celsius}°C",
        "priority": priority,
        "tags": ["iot", "temperature", status.lower(), location],
    })

Device offline detection

def check_device_heartbeat(device_id, last_seen, threshold_minutes=10):
    from datetime import datetime, timedelta

    if datetime.utcnow() - last_seen > timedelta(minutes=threshold_minutes):
        requests.post(WEBHOOK, json={
            "title": f"Device offline: {device_id}",
            "message": f"Last seen: {last_seen.isoformat()}Z ({threshold_minutes}+ minutes ago)",
            "priority": 4,
            "tags": ["iot", "offline", device_id],
        })

ESP32 / Arduino (HTTP)

Lightweight devices can POST directly to Alphorn:

#include <WiFi.h>
#include <HTTPClient.h>

void sendAlert(float temperature) {
  HTTPClient http;
  http.begin("https://app.alphorn.dev/api/webhooks/wh_abc123");
  http.addHeader("Content-Type", "application/json");

  String body = "{\"title\":\"Sensor alert\",\"message\":\"Temperature: "
    + String(temperature, 1) + "°C\",\"priority\":4,\"tags\":[\"iot\",\"sensor\"]}";

  http.POST(body);
  http.end();
}

MQTT to Alphorn bridge

If your devices use MQTT, write a small bridge that subscribes to topics and forwards to Alphorn:

import paho.mqtt.client as mqtt
import requests
import json

WEBHOOK = "https://app.alphorn.dev/api/webhooks/wh_abc123"

def on_message(client, userdata, msg):
    data = json.loads(msg.payload)
    requests.post(WEBHOOK, json={
        "title": f"Sensor: {msg.topic}",
        "message": json.dumps(data, indent=2),
        "priority": data.get("priority", 3),
        "tags": ["iot", "mqtt", msg.topic.replace("/", "-")],
    })

client = mqtt.Client()
client.on_message = on_message
client.connect("mqtt-broker.local")
client.subscribe("sensors/#")
client.loop_forever()

Routing examples

Channel	Filter	Purpose
PagerDuty	`tags CONTAINS "critical"`	Immediate response for critical thresholds
Slack (#facilities)	`tags CONTAINS "temperature"`	Temperature events for facilities team
Slack (#devices)	`tags CONTAINS "offline"`	Device outage tracking
Email	`tags CONTAINS "iot"`	Full sensor event log