Is this the end of Gmail for Home Automation?

I just got an email from saying the following:

"On 30 May, you may lose access to apps that are using less secure sign-in technology. To help keep your account secure, Google will no longer support the use of third-party apps or devices which ask you to sign in to your Google Account using only your username and password. Instead, you’ll need to sign in using Sign in with Google or other more secure technologies, like OAuth 2.0."

https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/6010255

I am not too sure what that means. Reading the page above it's unclear if this affects App Specific passwords or not. I use App Specific Passwords to send emails from my devices via Gmail. App Specific Passwords means that I don't give my proper Gmail password to these devices/apps and only a limited permissions account, so I hope Google is not killing App Specific Passwords. Also I don't even use my main Gmail account on these devices/apps but a secondary account used only for email automation.

I have never recommended using GMail with BetterEmail (or Email+ now). It has a horrible IMAP implementation.

There are many alternatives out there.

I noticed this little tidbit of information recently as well.
I use eMail+ with a gmail account (only SMTP) to provide text messages about triggered events...

currently, unless you use the following setting, it doesn't work with the plugin (even if you use SSL or TLS)

Screen Shot 2022-03-17 at 3.06.10 PM.png (103.51 KiB) Viewed 2840 times

What is the recommended email system to use with indigo - if I can’t get emails I’m pretty much down to zero since I have never got any audio notifications to work 100% reliably. I don’t understand why the indigo IOS/IPAD app still does not allow any audio files to be played. My txt messages stopped working years ago - really starting to feel like this whole thing is more of a hassle than it is worth…..

Frustrated

I use Rackspace for all my email accounts, but it's a paid service. I've also had good luck with gmx.com for free email. iCloud is also working fine, at least for now.

Twilio works great for SMS notifications if you're willing to pay a couple bucks a month ($1 for the number, $0.007 per message).

Also, both pushover and pushsafer are supported push notification services.

Thanks Joe - always appreciate the help - just trying to understand the official Indigo plan for getting folks notified for critical events (like water leaks)- surely the system developers must consider a notification system that is 100% going to work part of the meat and potatoes of ANY home automation system.

I have to think about it but now wondering if I need to switch from gmail will I need to search endlessly to make sure I (try) to find everything within indigo I have set up to send an email over the last five years

[jay (support)]

I use iCloud email through Email+, Prowl (though moving to Slack), and Slack for notifications. All of these things have worked reliably for me for years (previously used Better Email, and reliability is exactly why we replaced our old email with it).

Gmail was always twitchy, even using our old email integration, because as @FlyingDiver has said in a variety of other places their IMAP implementation is quite non-standard.

We do think notifications are important, which is why we've encouraged (and assisted in several cases) the development of a variety of notification plugins.

Thanks Joe - always appreciate the help - just trying to understand the official Indigo plan for getting folks notified for critical events (like water leaks)- surely the system developers must consider a notification system that is 100% going to work part of the meat and potatoes of ANY home automation system.

The problem there is, it's unreasonable to expect one specific notification system to work for all users. So you have to have choices, and there are a bunch. Does seem odd that I seem to have developed or are maintaining most of them.

I have to think about it but now wondering if I need to switch from gmail will I need to search endlessly to make sure I (try) to find everything within indigo I have set up to send an email over the last five years

Now there's an interesting question - if you build many notifications into your triggers, action groups, or even scripts, and you want to change systems, how hard is that to accomplish? Seems like it could be quite difficult. I wonder if there would be a benefit to having a "meta" system, which acts as a dispatcher to whatever your preferred system is, or even multiple systems. Hmmm....

The problem with plug-in notifications is that things get buried in them - then if the plug-in stops working or the service they use changes they may not work - also — to change notifications from one plug in to another requires a huge amount of time. / work. The point of HA is to make my life easier not create more problems, headaches.

I really don’t understand why the indigo IOS/IPAD app has no way to push to a notification page and play a sound - that would solve 90% of the issues - no moving hundreds of things between plug-in or relaying on an outside service.

Why haven’t you guys added that simple capability?

Why haven’t you guys added that simple capability?

Maybe because there's more pressing issues to deal with?

meta" system - yes that would solve a huge indigo problem - The Idea of trying to dig stuff out and convert it, then test it is enough to make ill

Hmm. I will look into that when I get some time after dealing with all the Python3 ports.

In the mean time, if you find another email provider that works, you could edit the SMTP server device you're using now to send to the new provider, and you wan't have to change anything anywhere else.

I know the python thing is going on now but that has been coming so not sure why it is an emergency, at least so big an emergency - the IOS/IPAD app has not hand any capability added to it for years. And I don’t mind waiting but I do mind waiting for an unspecified amount of time for a capability that may or may not come.

PS. Maybe I’m the only one but I know I put IPAD/IOS sounds on the request list years and years ago - I guess the request container is a box with a slot on top (with no bottom sitting on a trash can)….

Joe, want to make sure you understand my frustration is not directed at you - if anything your work is the reason I’m still using indigo…