Welcome to the Push2Run setup page.
This page explains how to setup Push2Run and control your Windows computer.
These instructions, are broken into three parts:
The first is geared to setting up Push2Run to use a Google Assistant (Google Home, Google Mini, Google Max, or smart phone running Google Assistant), IFTTT, and one or more of the following: Dropbox, Pushbullet and or Pushover. With this setup, you can say something like "Ok Google, shutdown my computer" and have that happen right away.
The second is geared to setup Push2Run using MQTT to trigger processing. With this setup you can have Push2Run control your computer based on a MQTT messages you subscribe to.
The third, and simplest part, is geared to triggering Push2Run from the Windows command line.
To jump ahead,
Triggering with Dropbox, Pushbullet, and or Pushover
Triggering from the command line
Triggering with Dropbox, Pushbullet, and or Pushover
Prior to the set up process you will need to chose if you are going to use Dropbox, Pushbullet and or Pushover in conjunction with IFTTT and Push2Run to control you computer.
All products are great, quite reliable, and have many features going beyond those needed in support of Push2Run.
Having that said, here are some key differences as they relate to their use with Push2Run:
Dropbox
Pushbullet
Pushover
Free account limits
effectively unlimited in terms of using with Push2Run (only one very small file is temporarily created and used)
Free account limits
unlimited time; 500 pushes per month
Free account limits
30 days; 25,000 pushes
Paid account (*)
Not required for use with Push2Run but if you would like additional Dropbox space please see here
Paid account (*)
$4.99 US per month or
$39.99 US per year
Paid account (*)
one time license of $4.99 US per platform; Push2Run only needs the Desktop platform
Use with IFTTT and Push2Run
each IFTTT applet allows you to identify on exactly which computer(s) you want a particular IFTTT triggered command to run
Use with IFTTT and Push2Run
each IFTTT applet allows you to identify on exactly which computer(s) you want a particular IFTTT triggered command to run
Use with IFTTT and Push2Run
each IFTTT applet triggers one or all Pushover devices, so if you are running Push2Run on three or more computers you may not be able to tailor exactly which computers you want a particular IFTTT triggered command to run
Status reporting
There is no status at bottom of the main window or systray icon
Status reporting
Status at bottom of the main window and systray icon confirms when connection is active
Status reporting
Status at bottom of the main window and systray icon confirms when connection is active
Misc. notes
Requires at least 7 seconds between commands.
Push2Run only monitors the one Dropbox folder (which you specify) and only interacts with one file (which you specify) in that folder.
Misc. notes
If you are using the free Pushbullet service and if you go beyond a month not using either Push2Run with Pushbullet, or Pushbullet separately, then Pushbullet may deactivate your free account in which case you may need to set up a new one.
Misc. notes
Service may require re-authentication if you switch network services when Push2Run is running. For example, if you switch between using your regular network and a VPN the service may require re-authentication.
(*) Push2Run is funded solely by the donations of kind people such as yourself and advertisements on the Push2Run website (so if you're using an ad blocker please consider white-listing this site). IFTTT, Dropbox, Pushbullet, and Pushover do not provide commissions in support of Push2Run.
For further setup instructions please see:
Push2Run setup instructions using Dropbox
Push2Run setup instructions using Pushbullet
Push2Run setup instructions using Pushover
Using a combination of Dropbox, Pushbullet and Pushover:
As of September 2020 it's now possible to setup Push2Run to use one, two or three of the Dropbox, Pushbullet and Pushover services in conjunction with IFTTT. However, for this you will require a subscription to IFTTT's Pro service.
IFTTT's Pro service provides for several advantages, but in particular for use with Push2Run it allows the triggering of more than one action.
The reason you might want to do this is for redundancy. For example, if one of Dropbox, Pushbullet or Pushover was down or responding slowly, triggered actions would still flow through the other two.
Push2Run has built in logic to ignore multiple triggered actions for the same thing. So, in short, Push2Run works the same with or without redundant services, however it is more reliable with redundant services enabled.
To setup an IFTTT Pro applet just follow the instructions above for setting up a Dropbox, Pushbullet, or Pushover applet. Once done, add either one or two of the other services as additional actions. Please refer to the setup instructions above for the details on how to set up each service.
Triggering with MQTT
To trigger Push2Run with for use with MQTT, please see here:
Push2Run setup instructions using MQTT.
Notes
As Push2Run will process all incoming topics to which you subscribe, for performance reasons it is better to only subscribe to the topics you want Push2Run to action.
Having that said, when you are first getting started, you might want to subscribe to all topics using the pound sign, and look in the Push2Run Session log to see exactly how, and how often, they are coming in.
To view the Push2Run Session log, click on 'View - Session log' from the main window.
Push2Run requests Quality of Service - Exactly Once ( QOS 2 ) as described here when subscribing to your MQTT server.
For now, Push2Run's MQTT feature only works with normal MQTT messaging. That is to say MQTT with SSL, MQTT over WebSockets, and MQTT over WebSockets with SSL are currently unsupported.
Triggering from the command line
Push2Run does not need any configuration to allow it to trigger actions from the command line.
To open the Windows command line, just press the [Windows] and [R] keys together at the same time, and enter:
cmd
So for example, out of the box, from the Windows Command line you can simply type:
"C:\Program Files\Push2Run\Push2Run" open the calculator
and it will work.
For additional help
Please see the Push2Run Help webpage.
Update 08.02.2022