🤖 Telegram Bot (example) v1.4

1. Automate Community
2. Tutorials & Examples

(68 blocks)
Example of the basic blocks you’d need to program your own Telegram Bot in Automate. Includes a detailed explanation of how to start.

When finished, it can run a certain sequence of blocks or a whole flow, and send the outcome back to you via Telegram.

𝗚𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗱
1. Create a bot in t.me/BotFather and obtain your bot token
2. Run the flow and paste your new bot token in the dialog
3. Send "/start" to your bot
4. The bot should reply with your Telegram ID

The row of ‘expression true’ blocks (starting from #76) are where you decide what the bot does, when a user sends a specific message, e.g. "hi", "random" or a sticker or photo. Try sending these things and see what happens.

Send /help or /explain to get a more detailed explanation of all the blocks and how to edit them according to your needs. Add your own blocks after #291 (label "/command"); right know that command doesn't do anything.

𝗡𝗼𝘁𝗲
A bot programmed in Automate might not pick up all your messages because of the flows structure. With good WiFi speed, I find it picks up about 90%.

𝗢𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗧𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗺 𝗯𝗼𝘁 𝗳𝗹𝗼𝘄𝘀
There are other ways to control your device from Telegram. Another flow of mine uses a dedicated bot that sends Google cloud messages to your device, which you can process in Automate: https://llamalab.com/automate/community/flows/41311.

𝗨𝗽𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀
• v1.0 (22 april 2020): release
• v1.1: improved set-up
• v1.2: added /explain command
• v1.3: fixed flow stopping when sending "/command"
• v1.4: added reply to a photo, other textual improvements