Other uses / Doorbells and notifications

Doorbells and notifications

A doorbell wakes a device when something is waiting for it. It carries no content: only "you have N things pending". The device then fetches and decrypts the real message itself.

On Android

The Stay reachable screen (the bell in the header) lets you choose how the phone wakes up for new captures while lwis is closed:

• UnifiedPush (recommended): an open alternative to Google's push service. With a distributor such as the ntfy app, lwis registers one doorbell per contact with it; the app can stay closed and the distributor wakes it.
• Built-in (no other app): lwis keeps its own connection open, with a permanent notification you can hide. It uses a little more battery.
• Only when I open the app: nothing runs in the background. Captures wait up to 12 hours on the server; after that they're lost.

Its Doorbell test section has a Ring this phone button. Notifications on the lock screen are private: they say "lwis · new activity", and the sender's name only appears once the phone is unlocked.

In a browser

The web app can be woken through the browser's own push service:

1. In /capture/, tap the bell (or Get notified in the Inbox of a linked browser), then Turn on notifications and allow them. The browser has to be paired with your machine first: the relay trusts it through that pairing.
2. Use Ring this browser to test it.

Browser doorbells go through a small relay on lookwhatisee.xyz, which learns which contact rang which browser, and when, but never what was sent. Notifications always show the generic "lwis · new activity".

On iPhone and iPad, web push only works once the web app is added to the home screen.

On your machine

lwis shows a desktop notification for each capture it delivers to an agent session (at most a few per minute). In Claude Code, lwis statusline adds a 📷 lwis segment with the number of captures waiting; see Claude Code.

What a doorbell reveals

Push providers (Google, Mozilla, Apple, or the UnifiedPush distributor) learn that your device received a doorbell, and when. The payload is encrypted and always the same size. See What the servers can see.