Notifications via Feeds and Web Monitors

Hermit can notify you whenever a site is updated, using Atom or RSS feeds.

Get started using Notifications

First, you’ll need to first locate an Atom or RSS feed for the site you are interested in.

Locating Feed URLs

Many sites have a prominent link on their home page, or have a separate page labeled “RSS” or “Feeds” that contains the addresses of many different feeds.

• One way to locate a Feed URL for a site is to conduct a Google search for the site name followed by “rss”. E.g. reddit rss, or instagram rss. By following instructions on those pages, you’ll be able to obtain a URL that points to an RSS feed. E.g. the Twitter RSS search takes you to TwitRSS.com, which offers a link like this for user @hermitapp: https://twitrss.me/twitter_user_to_rss/?user=hermitapp. Copy that URL to use in Hermit.

• Another way is to install the RSS Subscription Chrome extension on your computer. It will automatically detect feeds on any site that you are on, and gives you a way to copy the actual URL. Tap on the new orange feed button in your Chrome toolbar to get started.

Using Feed URLs in Hermit

1. Copy that Feed URL to use in Hermit.

   • Launch the Lite App you just created,
   • Open the ☰ drawer menu at the top left,
   • Tap on “Customize”,
   • Then tap on “Integrations”
   • Then tap the (+) icon next to the “Notifications” section.

2. On the screen that comes up,

   • Paste the URL from the previous step,
   • Tap the “Test” button, which tries to access the feed and confirms that it’s valid,
   • And then tap “Save”.

Turning off Notifications

1. Launch your Hermit Lite App.
2. Swipe in from the right edge to reveal the “Quick Settings” sidebar.
3. In the Quick Settings list, tap on the “More Settings” button.
4. Tap on the “Notifications” tab at the top.
5. Whichever notifications you do not want to see, simply tap on the check-mark next to it, and it will be disabled.

Changing the Sync Frequency

Many users ask us why Hermit syncs all Lite Apps at the same Sync Frequency. This is intentional.

The reason there is only a single setting to change the frequency is to save battery. Let’s imagine you were able to set different frequencies for different Lite Apps. Every time Hermit checks any Feed or Web Monitor, it has to wake up your phone. Once your phone has woken up, it does not take much more battery to check 5 or 10 Feeds or Web Monitors instead of 1.

So, by checking all the Feeds and Web Monitors at the same frequency, Hermit wakes up your phone as few times as possible. And that every time it wakes up, it does as much work as possible at one go before going back to sleep.

It is also intentional to limit the minimum time to 5 minutes, to save battery, as well as to prevent undue load on remote servers.

Missing Notifications?

Web Monitors are based on web-scraped data, not an actual stream of notifications sent by the server directly. Whenever the web site changes, Hermit looks at the differences, and sends you a notification if a lot of text has changed.

Sometimes this means that if only a little bit of text has changed, Hermit won’t notify you. This is intentional, so that, for example, if you were already notified about “Hey, let’s meet up — 5 minutes ago”, you won’t be notified again for the same message one minute later, “Hey, let’s meet up — 6 minutes ago”.

It’s likely that some messages might be short enough that this de-duplication logic trips it up.

If this is happening too often, sadly, our best recommendation would be to use the corresponding native app. Those are controlled by the app publisher themselves, and only they have the power to send you push notifications instantly.