Home chat and Telegram

Every home on the Homer server has its own chat. It can be linked to a Telegram group: what's said in the home goes to the group, what's said in the group comes to the home. The home writes there too — alarms, camera events, the Homer journal.

Chat in the home

• In the walk, the feed hangs on the right as a semi-transparent column, like a stream chat: faces and colored names. The input line is under the feed.
• On the web, the feed takes the right column of the page; full screen and on a phone it lies as a layer over the scene.
• The place is added to each message by itself: the room or the name of the world.
• History is stored on the Homer server: someone who joins sees what was said before them.
• Anyone the home is open to can read and write. A message is up to 1000 characters.

Telegram bridge

The owner sets it up:

Where	Path
Android	Settings → Home → Telegram
Web	Settings → Notifications → Telegram

Connect

1. Create a bot with @BotFather and copy the token.
2. Paste the token into the “Bot token from @BotFather” field and save. The Homer server accepts it only if Telegram knows such a bot. The token is never shown back.
3. Add the bot to the group.
4. Next to the right home, tap “Link group”. A six-digit code appears, it lives for 10 minutes.
5. Send /link <code> in the group. The bot answers “The group is linked to home “…””.

In a private chat with the bot the code won't work: only a group can be linked.

The bot sees only commands

If “sees only commands” is written next to the bot, messages from the group won't get into the home chat — only commands will. Make the bot a group admin or turn off its privacy in @BotFather.

Shared bot and a home's own bot

One Homer server can hold homes that are strangers to each other, and one home's bot shouldn't show up in another home's group.

• Shared bot — the default, all homes without their own bot speak through it.
• Own bot — for a single home: “Own bot…” in the home's row, the token of that bot. “Remove own” — go back to the shared one.

If a home's bot changes, the group is unlinked: the new bot isn't in it, and messages would go nowhere. A reissued token of the same bot doesn't affect the group. The link code must be sent to exactly the bot the home speaks through; another bot will tell you which one is needed.

“Unlink” in the home's row disconnects the group. “Remove” on the shared bot turns off the bridge for all homes without their own bot.

From the home to the group: stickers

What's said in the home is sent to the group by the bot as a sticker: a white bubble with a round face, name, text and “place · time” on a transparent background. The picture is WebP, 512 px on the long side. The time is by the home's clock.

If the author isn't in the walk right now, the face is gray with a “not in game” badge. No avatar — the first letter of the name is in the circle.

“Decode”

A sticker is a picture, and reading a long message from it is inconvenient.

• Messages longer than three lines have a “Decode” button.
• Any sticker can be decoded by replying to it: /d or /decode. The /d command is in the group's command menu. The bot deletes the reply with the command itself.
• The full text is seen only by the one who asked. If Telegram can't do such messages, for the button the text is shown as a pop-up (up to 200 characters), and for the reply as a regular reply to the sticker.

Short messages don't get the button: they can be read from the sticker anyway, and a button under each one would clog the feed.

From the group to the home

Group messages arrive in the home chat with the name and profile photo from Telegram. The photo is updated at most once a day.

• Stickers, photos, videos, voice messages and files arrive as a marker line: “(photo)”, “(voice)”, “(sticker)”.
• Commands starting with / don't get into the chat.
• Messages from other bots are skipped.

What else the home writes to the group

This is plain text on behalf of the home, not a sticker, and it doesn't go into the chat history.

• Alarms: leak, smoke, gas, “All clear”, “Alarm acknowledged by …”, test alarms. See Alarms.
• Camera events: person, motion, noise — with a snapshot or a clip. If there is no group, the camera window warns: “messages will not be sent”.
• Homer journal: senior model tasks step by step. See Journal in Telegram.