[Support]: Weird behaviour with Apple Watch and AirPods w/ Notification blueprint

[aaronjrodrigues]

Describe the problem you are having

I've currently have this blueprint set up for the past year or so, however as of the past month I've noticed the following behaviour:

When I'm listening to music on my AirPods and I get a notification from home assistant on my watch. It causes a blank thumbnail to show up on the notification, and that causes it to pause my music (possible because the watch is trying to take over audio from my iPhone to my watch?).

It's such an odd issue and I'm not exactly sure what could be causing it, I've tried to provide as much information as possible in the hopes I could narrow down the culprit. This issue only happens to notifications coming from this blueprint.

I'm currently using the Home Assistant notification blueprint and have already submitted an issue on the GitHub page for that, however I do have a suspicion on Frigate as the only variable that changed that caused this was upgrading Frigate to the latest version. When downgrading this issue does not happen.

Version

0.16.0-c2f8de9

What browser(s) are you using?

No response

Frigate config file

N/A

Relevant Frigate log output

N/A

Relevant go2rtc log output

N/A

FFprobe output from your camera

N/A

Frigate stats

No response

Install method

Docker Compose

docker-compose file or Docker CLI command

N/A

Object Detector

Coral

Network connection

Wired

Camera make and model

Hikvision

Screenshots of the Frigate UI's System metrics pages

No response

Any other information that may be helpful

No response

[inkeep-ai-assistant[bot]]

Based on the available information, Frigate notifications sent through Home Assistant can include images (thumbnails or snapshots) in the notification payload, which are referenced using URLs like:

https://your.public.hass.address.com/api/frigate/notifications/{{trigger.payload_json["after"]["id"]}}/thumbnail.jpg

or

https://HA_URL/api/frigate/notifications/<event-id>/thumbnail.jpg

for thumbnails tied to specific events(1)(2).

On iOS devices, notifications can include a camera entity for live previews, but image support and behavior may differ depending on the platform. The documentation also notes that only Chrome supports images in notifications for native Frigate WebPush notifications, while Safari (and thus Apple Watch) may only show a title and message, not an image(3). Blank thumbnails or incompatible formats could result in unexpected notification behavior.

If you are using the notification blueprint and experiencing blank thumbnails, it is possible the image URL provided does not resolve to a compatible or valid image format for the Apple Watch, or the notification is being sent with an empty or inaccessible image reference(1)(2)(3). This could potentially trigger odd behavior on iOS/watchOS, such as media playback interruptions.

No Frigate documentation directly addresses this specific interaction with Apple Watch and AirPods. For further troubleshooting, you may want to:

• Temporarily remove the image: field from your notification automation to see if the issue persists.
• Ensure the thumbnail URL is accessible and returns a valid image (not a blank or missing file).
• Consider that iOS/watchOS notification handling may have changed in recent updates, and Home Assistant or the companion app may also be factors.

📚 Sources:

1. Home Assistant notifications
2. Home Assistant Integration
3. Notifications

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Have another question? Just tag @inkeep.

[NickM-27]

This is more of a question for home assistant. We don't maintain the blueprint