Native support for notifications to person entities

[iouribecq]

Describe your core improvement

We would like Home Assistant to support sending notifications directly to person entities (e.g., person.fred).

Instead of manually targeting each individual notify.mobile_app_* service, Home Assistant should automatically deliver notifications to all devices associated with that person. This should also cover new devices automatically when the person logs in, without requiring manual configuration.

Current limitations

At the moment, sending notifications requires:

Manually listing every notify.mobile_app_* service for each device.

Updating automations every time a client changes their phone or adds a new device.

Maintaining static notify.group_* definitions that don’t update dynamically.

For professional integrators, this creates serious issues:

High maintenance overhead in multi-user, multi-site installations.

Risk of missed or delayed critical alerts (e.g., security, alarms, presence).

Non-technical end clients cannot edit YAML or automations themselves, so this breaks the “turnkey” promise.

Technical benefits

This improvement would:

Provide a native notify.person.X service.

Ensure automatic routing to all devices associated with the person.

Optionally allow filtering by device class (e.g., send only to mobile phones, not tablets or desktops).

Improve reliability by removing manual updates.

Reduce human error and simplify long-term maintenance for professional integrators.

Offer a plug-and-play, scalable solution aligned with how people think (“send to Fred”) instead of how devices are registered.

Additional context

Many professional environments (like ours) manage multiple installations and users. Automatic person-level notifications would dramatically improve reliability and reduce support costs.

Current workarounds (Node-RED, templates, scripts) are brittle and not scalable.

As professional integrators (ActivHome), we’d be happy to help test or draft specifications for this feature.

[joostthehost]

Duplicate of discussion #793.