Why am I not receiving text messages every 5 minutes?

All MySpool devices are subject to notification throttling.  This is done for two reasons: one is to prevent flooding communications with unnecessary messages. And the second one is to save us some money: we have to pay for every text message!

Each device is allotted a number of text messages per month. In case of repeating alerts within a certain interval, that interval will be increased. When the issue has been resolved, the alert interval will be reset back to the original 5 minutes.

Here are the details on how the text interval is managed:

  • The first two messages are sent at 5 minute intervals

  • If there is an alert that comes within 5 minutes of the previous one, the alert interval is increased to 15 minutes

  • After that, if there is an alert that comes within 15 minutes of the previous one, the alert interval is increased to 30 minutes

  • After that, if there is an alert that comes within 30 minutes of the previous one, the alert interval is increased to 60 minutes

  • And the next alert that will indicate that no action has been taken will cause the alert interval to increase to 6 hours. It will stay there until the break between alerts is over 6 hours which will reset it back to 5 minutes.

This will limit the number of messages sent when someone leaves a water alert in a cup of water for testing and leaves it there for a few days - as has been known to happen!

There is one critical caveat to this formula:  we understand that an initial setup and testing period is important.  So this throttling takes effect 24 hours AFTER your device has been ADDED. This gives our users a day to configure and test their devices without imposing any throttling!

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