[Beta] PushStaq Node - Send Push Notifications to your devices

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Hello everyone.

Today I am happy to share with you the official node of PushStaq - node-red-contrib-pushstaq (node) - Node-RED

PushStaq is like a group chat for your devices (mobile and desktop), Integrations and notifications all in one place, accessible from anywhere.
To learn more you can checkout our introductory Blog post.

With PushStaq node, You send messages from Node-Red to PushStaq web app. Devices that are subscribed to PushStaq will trigger Push Notifications.

I have written a walkthrough guide on how to use the PushStaq Node-Red Node together with PushStaq here

Currently PushStaq is in Beta and we would love to get your feedback.
For other inquiries regarding PushStaq service itself, You can come and discuss at PushStaq Subreddit.
(This thread is for PushStaq node)

Hope you will find PushStaq useful in your projects!

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As all too often the case, an announcement without any mention of security whatsoever?

What servers does this go through? Where are they? How are they secured? What territory does my data go through? Do you have access to the data?

Also, you appear to be using Google Analytics on your website but you don't include the mandatory GDPR privacy statements for EU use? Where is the privacy policy statement?

Sorry to be rather harsh but these kinds of service are an ongoing nightmare in my professional world where I constantly have to explain to irate users why they can't use the latest shiny cloud services.

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Hi,

Thank you for your comment and sorry for the late response.
I will try to answer your questions.

PushStaq is hosted on Heroku servers based in the US. I find it the fastest way to push my code and deploy quickly.

PushStaq communication is secured with HTTPS by default at all times, this ensures secure client server communication when using the web app.

Messages that are sent through the web app to the server are plain text and visible by default, to allow developers easy use of the API to trigger notifications or connect to third party services such as IFTTT.

If you wish to have another layer of security and privacy and encrypt the messages so the server saves the data encrypted, you can enable the End-to-end encryption feature.

I wrote a blog post about secure communication and private messaging here - Secure and private messaging with End-to-end encryption | PushStaq Blog

If you enable End-to-end encryption in your channel it will also apply to Push notifications (the message is sent encrypted as push message and decrypted at the client),

Unlike other existing services that do not support this (Are messages/notifications encrypted? | Pushover Support) or Pushbullet which supports it partially (they don't encrypt links for example)

I should add that the Node-Red PushStaq node latest update includes support for End-to-end encryption as well, here is the Node-Red tutorial - Node-Red Push notifications with PushStaq | PushStaq Blog

As for Privacy Policy and Terms of Use, Since PushStaq is very new and I am a developer, my focus was more towards development of the app itself.

It took time but I have added them to the website (which I am sure I will update from time to time), they also include GDPR and statements for EU/UK as well.

Privacy Policy - Privacy Policy

Term of use - Terms of use

I want to thank you for your constructive criticism.
It would be nice if you would like to contact me if you have more questions or suggestions that I can improve PushStaq.

BTW PushStaq didn't and currently don't use Google analytics.

Thank you!

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I'm trying your system out

image
image511Ă—673 95.1 KB

In the config - it asks for name so I put the the Channel Name and then pasted in the API key.

I'm not encrpyting

Then I saw Channel ID further down and went to repeat the Channel Name and then I scrolled down and saw it was optional and then I became a bit confused (easily done)

  1. Is Channel ID the same as Channel Name - if it is then don't have different name for same thing (can't see Channel ID mentioned anywhere else) - also, if its the same, then I'd make top box require the actual Channel Name and remove the Channel ID box altogether.

  2. Could I suggest that the node name defaults to the Channel Name (if no explicit node name entry)
    image

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Just connected an inject to the node and tried it for 1st time
image

and got this error message in the debug when I pressed inject button

image

I'll stop testing at this point and wait for you to come back :slight_smile:

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Thank you for trying it out!
In the screenshot you attached, the name can be any name you wish, it is the node name.
If it helps you naming the same as your channel name then great.
API Key you copy from the one you generated in the channels settings pane - I assume you did just that.

As for the Channel Password and Channel ID - these are optional and should be populated only if you set password in your channel to enable End-to-end encryption, then the channel (unique) ID will be visible like in this screen shot in bold letters (taken from the End-to-end encryption tutorial Secure and private messaging with End-to-end encryption | PushStaq Blog)

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Now to your issue,
In the screenshot you attached, everything looks great. the error mentioned is because PushStaq message in the app and API (includes Node-Red) supports no more then 2048 characters.

Because of you I found a bug in the node package, I have fixed it! and republish version 0.0.6 to NPM so please uninstall and install it again and it should work!
thanks for pointing it out :slight_smile:

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1 :slight_smile: All explained

Did you notice this?

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yes! I added this to the tasks list of the Node-Red PushStaq node future tasks.
Thank you for your feedback and suggestion, with users feedback I strive to make PushStaq better.
Let me know if you have more questions, feel free to DM me.

thanks!

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Works Now :slight_smile:

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If you want to be taken seriously in an enterprise context (which might not be your target audience but you may wish to clarify that in your marketing blurb) then you need to be clear about this. For my market, this would immediately rule you out of most of our work since US privacy laws are diametrically opposed to ours. Sometimes this can be worked around using EU standard clauses but this is far from perfect.

Of course, many people are more than happy with US based services.

I don't remember any of that being in your documentation so you may wish to correct that if you haven't already. It makes people like me a lot more comfortable about looking at your cloud service when these things are explained up front.

All good information that should be exposed to prospective users/buyers to give them confidence in your service and your organisation :wink:

I get that, but the law I'm afraid doesn't :scream:

Cool.

Not a problem, I hope you didn't find it too disheartening!

But your website certainly did when I checked it. Devil is in the detail I'm afraid.

No worries and I wish you all the best in your venture, thanks for responding positively.

I will check it out again when I have a chance.

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Thank you again for your comments.
regarding laws and EU vs US vs UK, It is just a side project I did out of love and I am looking for initial users.
I am sure the first pointers of your comments are towards me understanding requirements of big enterprise corps, that may be the case in the future, but for now I am just a simple developer who worked hard on a project I am proud of and I am looking for users that can benefit of my creation and receive initial feedback :slight_smile:

I will try to align my docs and tutorials with your suggestions in the future and hope you will test out and use PushStaq.

Thanks :smiley:

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