I am still a N00B (more or less) when it comes to BI, but have been reading extensively on this forum, and have successfully setup (bench testing only so far) three of the Dahua 5442 cameras. All is going amazingly smoothly, and I have really good luck so far with mobile phone connections via UI3 and a VPN connection (on my Asus router running back to my fiber home service). My question involves push notifications: is using the "real" BI app the only solution available to get these? Sure, I can open the UI3 interface and see alerts, but I know my wife would rather get true push notifications. Am I missing something here, or am I correct in thinking the only way that will happen is through the BI app?
You can setup to have BI send you emails or text messages. Unfortunately, depending on your mobile carrier, there may be a delay. Many here have it work fine and instantaneously and others will have delays.
Mine comes and goes. Sometimes I would get the push and the text at the same time and other times it would be delayed.
Another alternative is the Pushover app. Many people use that as well.