Frequently Asked Questions

Get answers to common questions about UnifiNotifi

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Common Questions

What is UnifiNotifi and how does it work? ▼

UnifiNotifi is a monitoring service designed to notify you when your UniFi site gateway has not been seen by the Site Manager service, suggesting the site may be offline.

The service polls the Unifi Site Manager API at configurable intervals and monitors the "last seen" status of your gateways. When a gateway hasn't been seen within the threshold you configure, you'll receive an email notification alerting you to the potential outage.

Under Application Configuration in your account page are several settings that can be configured to your preference:

  • Unifi Site Manager Polling Interval:
    • This is the time between API polls to the Unifi Site Manager service.
  • Polling Cycles Before Outage Initial Notification:
    • This is the number of Site Manager polls before an initial outage notification is sent.
  • Reminder Notification Interval:
    • This is the time between initial outage notifications and subsequent reminder notifications.
  • TimeZone:
    • This is the time zone used for the site status table and all notifications.

NOTE:

Unifi's Site Manager API updates in close to real-time when a site goes down.

There is a known issue with Unifi's Site Manager where when a site comes back online, the API results do not always immediately reflect that status update. UnifiNotifi will send a notification when the Site is back online, however it may be delayed due to the API update issue. We are working with Unifi on this issue.

How do I get my Unifi API key? ▼

To obtain your Unifi API key, reference this guide, or follow these steps:

  • Log into your Ubiquiti account at unifi.ui.com
  • Navigate to Settings (lower left corner)
  • Navigate to API Keys
  • Select "Create New API Key"
    • Add a Name
    • Select an Expiration, longer is better, but you will get a notification when we can no longer poll the API.
    • Optionally disable the "Unifi Applications". This is not used by UnifiNotifi at this time.
    • Select "Create".
    • Copy the provided API Key for use by UnifiNotifi.
  • Paste the API key into your UnifiNotifi configuration

Keep your API key secure and never share it publicly.

What do the different status indicators mean? ▼

Your dashboard displays three status indicators:

  • Green (Online): Your gateway has been seen recently and is operating normally.
  • Yellow (Offline - Recent): Your gateway hasn't been seen recently but hasn't reached the critical threshold yet. No email alert is sent at this stage.
  • Red (Offline - Critical): Your gateway has been offline long enough to trigger the alert threshold. An email notification has been sent.
What's the difference between Disabling and Suppressing a Site? ▼

Disabling a site can be used for longer-term maintenance periods or for sites that are no longer in use.

Suppressing a site can be used for temporarily disabling notifications during a known outage.

Disabled and Suppressed sites will continue to be monitored but won't trigger email notifications until re-enabled or unsuppressed.

How do I configure alert suppression? ▼

Alert suppression allows you to temporarily disable notifications for specific sites without removing them from monitoring.

To enable alert suppression:

  • Navigate to your Dashboard
  • Find the site you want to suppress alerts for
  • Click the "Actions" dropdown and select "Suppress Alerts"

Suppressed sites will continue to be monitored but won't trigger email notifications until you disable suppression.

What is the difference between Free and Premium tiers? ▼

The Free tier allows you to monitor one site at no cost, which is perfect for home users or small setups.

The Premium tier ($5/month or $50/year) unlocks:

  • Multiple, unlimited site monitoring
  • Custom SMTP support for sending notifications through your own email server
  • Per-site secondary contact emails
What data is collected as part of the service? ▼

UnifiNotifi uses the Unifi Site Manager API to poll all currently available devices and hosts. MAC addresses and device names are collected for accuracy, and no personal information is accessed, downloaded, or stored.

For more information on what is potentially exposed via the API, review the Unifi Site Manager API documentation.

Was this 'vibe coded'? ▼

Yes and no. The backend was hand-coded, but we are not exactly genius front-end developers. Claude Code was used heavily to develop and perfect the frontend.

The team invested significant time and energy into QA'ing every feature and ensuring 100% functionality and reliability. Naturally, as UnifiNotifi gains more users, things will pop up and be addressed rapidly.

How can I get support or talk to the team? ▼

Support and the team can be contacted via email at contact@unifinotifi.com.