Marty the nodes are ESP8266's running nodeMCU software. Each WSP8266 have 8 input pins. What we want to do is send a push to a cell phone if any pin changes state. It is best if it is a "Notification" in iPhone land where you have to notice and disposition it. Like you get with a text, or like I get with the pushbullet app installed on my iPhone described below. Basically this is to inform researcher(s) that something serious is out of kilter in the laboratory.
I have written a python script to test the pushbullet service, and it works as described on their web site. I don't yet have my WSP8266 boards from China, should arrive this week.
Since my original post, my research and testing with python shows that:
Pushbullet can push an alert to it's own app
Pushbullet *may* be able to send a native SMS without IFTTT
Pushbullet likely does not send texts. Would need a second source like IFTTT
What I always find hard when moving into new software/hardware areas are the very fundamentals are taken for granted and are not obvious to the first timer. For example, thankfully I had a friend who was a python grand master. With 3 texts she dropped my learning curve from 5 days to about 3 hours. Went from first install of python to operational pushbullet API using script that worked.
For example pushbullet does not succinctly say what they do and don't do ...specifically.
They give an API and some input/output but never say what language all that is in
Pushbullet does not give example code in any language on their site...
Once you are "up to speed" things get much easier. It is the first steps, like getting a compiler to work just once that are so hard when starting...