Blink(1) USB LED Notification Light

Overview

• Source: https://blink1.thingm.com/
• Image Support: No
• Attachment Support: No
• Message Character Limits:
  • Body: 32768
• Build Your Apprise URL

Account Setup

Blink(1) is a small USB RGB LED notification light made by ThingM. Plug it into any USB port and Apprise can flash it in a color that reflects the notification type:

Notification Type	Color
Info	Blue
Success	Green
Warning	Yellow
Failure	Red

The plugin talks to the device directly over USB HID using the hidapi Python package. There is no cloud service, no API key, and no network connection required.

Note

Install the hidapi package before using this plugin:

pip install hidapi

Syntax

blink1://
blink1://{serial}/
blink1://{serial}/?duration={ms}&fade={ms}&ledn={n}

Use blink1:// (or blink1://_/) to target the first connected device. Supply the device serial number in the host position to address a specific unit when more than one Blink(1) is attached.

Parameter Breakdown

Variable	Required	Description
serial	No	USB serial number of the target device. Omit (or use _) to use the first available device.
duration	No	How long in milliseconds to hold the notification color before switching the LED off. Default: 5000. Range: 0-300000.
fade	No	Fade transition time in milliseconds. 0 = instant. Default: 0. Range: 0-10000.
ledn	No	Which LED to address: 0 = all (default), 1 = first LED only, 2 = second LED only (mk2 devices).

Global Parameters

Variable	Description
overflow	This parameter can be set to either split, truncate, or upstream. This determines how Apprise delivers the message you pass it. By default this is set to upstream 👉 upstream: Do nothing at all; pass the message exactly as you received it to the service. 👉 truncate: Ensure that the message will fit within the service’s documented upstream message limit. If more information was passed then the defined limit, the overhead information is truncated. 👉 split: similar to truncate except if the message doesn’t fit within the service’s documented upstream message limit, it is split into smaller chunks and they are all delivered sequentially there-after.
format	This parameter can be set to either text, html, or markdown. Some services support the ability to post content by several different means. The default of this varies (it can be one of the 3 mentioned at any time depending on which service you choose). You can optionally force this setting to stray from the defaults if you wish. If the service doesn’t support different types of transmission formats, then this field is ignored.
verify	External requests made to secure locations (such as through the use of https) will have certificates associated with them. By default, Apprise will verify that these certificates are valid; if they are not then no notification will be sent to the source. In some occasions, a user might not have a certificate authority to verify the key against or they trust the source; in this case you will want to set this flag to no. By default it is set to yes.
cto	This stands for Socket Connect Timeout. This is the number of seconds Requests will wait for your client to establish a connection to a remote machine (corresponding to the connect()) call on the socket. The default value is 4.0 seconds.
rto	This stands for Socket Read Timeout. This is the number of seconds the client will wait for the server to send a response. The default value is 4.0 seconds.
emojis	Enable Emoji support (such as providing :+1: would translate to 👍). By default this is set to no. Note: Depending on server side settings, the administrator has the power to disable emoji support at a global level; but default this is not the case.
tz	Identify the IANA Time Zone Database you wish to operate as. By default this is detected based on the configuration the server hosting Apprise is running on. You can set this to things like America/Toronto, or any other properly formated Timezone describing your area.

Examples

Flash the first connected Blink(1) with all defaults (blue, instant, 5 s):

apprise -vv -t "Deploy finished" -b "All checks passed." \
   blink1://

Address a specific device and use a 250 ms fade with a 2-second hold:

apprise -vv -n warning -b "Disk almost full." \
   "blink1://ABCD1234/?fade=250&duration=2000"

Light only the second LED on a mk2 device:

apprise -vv -n failure -b "Build failed." \
   "blink1://?ledn=2"