How do I start an iOS Live Activity with a push notification without the user opening the app (Push to Start)?

Yes, you can remotely start an iOS Live Activity using a push notification. This feature, known as 'Push to Start', is available for devices running iOS 17.2 and later.

The process involves two main steps:

Step 1: Register the pushToStartToken

Your application must first obtain a pushToStartToken from the device and send it to Pushwoosh. The Pushwoosh iOS SDK provides helper functions to manage this process.

You can listen for token updates and send the token to Pushwoosh using the following Swift code:

func getPushToStartToken() {
    if #available(iOS 17.2, *) {
        Task {
            for await data in Activity<LiveActivityAttributes>.pushToStartTokenUpdates {
                let token = data.map {String(format: "%02x", $0)}.joined()
                print("Activity PushToStart Token: \(token)")
                // Send `pushToStartTokenUpdates` token to Pushwoosh
                try await Pushwoosh.LiveActivities.sendPushToStartLiveActivity(token: token)
            }
        }
    }
}

The SDK provides these methods for sending the token: 

* static func sendPushToStartLiveActivity(token: String) 

* static func sendPushToStartLiveActivity(token: String, completion: @escaping (Error?) -> Void)

Step 2: Start the Live Activity via API

Once the token is registered with Pushwoosh, you can start the Live Activity by making a POST request to our /json/1.3/startLiveActivity API endpoint.

Here is an example of the request body:

{
  "request": {
    "application": "XXXXX-XXXXX",
    "auth": "YOUR_AUTH_API_TOKEN",
    "notifications": [
      {
        "content": "Message",
        "title": "Title",
        "live_activity": {
          "event": "start",
          "content-state": {
            "data": {
              "emoji": "dynamic data"
            }
          },
          "attributes-type": "DefaultLiveActivityAttributes",
          "attributes": {
            "data": {
              "name": "static data"
            }
          }
        },
        "devices": [
          "XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX"
        ],
        "live_activity_id": "your_activity_id"
      }
    ]
  }
}