Notifications with the page closed

Last updated: 30 September 2026

PAT Monitor can send the warnings its page shows (a baby crying, a dog barking, movement, a camera that stopped) to a phone or a computer whose page is closed, as ordinary system notifications. They are off until you turn them on, one device at a time.

They can arrive late, or not at all. Whether a notification reaches a phone that is asleep is decided by the phone’s settings, its battery saver and its network, and the monitor cannot see any of that. PAT Monitor is not a medical device or a safety system.

Before you start

• Access from outside must be working. Notifications need the monitor’s https://…ts.net address, the one the guided setup gives on its last screen for watching from outside. The home address (http://192.168…) cannot receive them, and on it the option does not appear.
• Always use the same address on a given device. To a browser, another address is another site, with its own permission.
• Tapping a notification opens the monitor, which works where that address works: from anywhere with access from outside on, or with the Tailscale app connected on the device.

Turning them on

1. Open the monitor’s https:// address on the device and sign in. On an iPhone or iPad, first follow the steps in the next section.
2. Press More, then Receive beside Notifications on this device.
3. Allow notifications when the browser asks.
4. Press Send a test. A notification should appear within a few seconds. If it does not, the device’s own settings below are where to look.

If the notifications card has no button, it says why: the page is not on the https:// address, or, on an iPhone, it is open in a Safari tab rather than from the Home Screen, or the browser cannot receive notifications, or the monitor cannot send them.

iPhone and iPad

iOS and iPadOS 16.4 or later. Safari sends notifications only to a web app added to the Home Screen, never to a page open in a tab.

1. Open the monitor’s address in Safari.
2. Tap the Share button (on iOS 26 and later it is in the ••• menu next to the address), then Add to Home Screen. On iOS 26 and later, check that Open as Web App is on. Then tap Add.
3. Open PAT Monitor from its icon on the Home Screen and sign in. The icon keeps a sign-in of its own, separate from Safari’s.
4. Turn notifications on as above, and tap Allow.
5. In Settings › Notifications › PAT Monitor, check that sounds and the Lock Screen are allowed.
6. If you use Focus or Do Not Disturb, add PAT Monitor to the apps each Focus allows: Settings › Focus, choose the Focus, then Apps. Otherwise the notifications arrive silently.

Removing the icon from the Home Screen ends its notifications. After adding it again, turn them on again.

If the Tailscale app is how the phone reaches the monitor, turning on its VPN On Demand keeps it connected, so that tapping a notification opens the picture.

Android

Chrome is the browser this was built with; Firefox, Edge and Samsung Internet receive notifications too.

1. Optionally, install the page as an app: Chrome’s menu (⋮), then Install and create shortcut, then Install (Add to Home screen or Install app in older versions). An installed app is not caught by the automatic removal of permissions Chrome applies to sites it considers unused.
2. Turn notifications on as above. On Android 13 and later the system asks too: allow it.
3. Make them loud: long-press a PAT Monitor notification (the test one will do), open its settings, and set it to make a sound and pop up on screen. If you want them through Do Not Disturb, allow that there too.
4. Let the browser run in the background: Settings › Apps › Chrome › Battery (on a Pixel, App battery usage › Allow background usage), and choose Unrestricted.
5. On Samsung phones, also check Settings › Battery › Background usage limits, and take the browser out of Sleeping apps and Deep sleeping apps. Updates sometimes put it back.

Windows

On a computer, a notification arrives only while the browser is running, even if no window of it is open.

• Edge: keep Continue running background extensions and apps when Edge is closed on, under Settings › System and performance. It is on by default.
• Chrome: turn on Continue running background apps when Google Chrome is closed, under Settings › System. Installing the page as an app (the install button in the address bar) also keeps its permission from being removed automatically.
• Firefox: it must stay open.
• Brave: notifications need Use Google services for push messaging, under brave://settings/privacy, and a restart of Brave. Without it, turning them on fails and the card says so.
• Windows itself: in Settings › System › Notifications the browser must be allowed, and with Do not disturb on it must be among the priority notifications.

What arrives

• The same warnings the page shows, in the language the page was using the last time it was opened on that device.
• When a fault clears (the camera sends images again, the microphone can be heard again), a notification says so and replaces the fault’s.
• Crying, barking and movement are not followed by a “stopped” notification, so that the one that matters stays in the list.
• A device that is off or out of reach gets a crying, barking or movement notification only within five minutes, and a fault within an hour. After that the message is dropped, because it would be old news.
• The detection switches on the page apply: a detection that is off sends nothing.

When nothing arrives

1. Press Send a test and read the line under it.
   • Sent. It should appear in a few seconds. But nothing appears: the notification service took the message, and either the device has not received it yet or something on it held it back. Check its Focus or Do Not Disturb, its battery settings, and on Windows whether the browser is running.
   • This device no longer receives notifications. Turn them on again. On an iPhone this follows removing the icon from the Home Screen.
   • The notification service refused the message. The monitor’s log says why: the line that contains test notification carries the service’s own reason.
2. If turning them on fails, open What the browser answered in the card: it lists what the browser has and what it said.
3. On an iPhone, remove the icon from the Home Screen, add it again, and turn notifications on again.
4. The monitor’s log has a line for each warning, with how many devices it went to and what the push services answered, and, when the device can reach the monitor, a line when it shows one, with how long it took. To open it, right-click the monitor’s icon next to the clock: in the panel, Log folder is the button with a page drawn on it, just above the one that quits.

Privacy

Each message goes through the push service the device’s browser uses (Apple, Google, Mozilla or Microsoft), encrypted so that only that device can read it. What those services see, and what the monitor keeps, is described in the privacy policy.