Windows Phone 8.1 Push Notification Without Azure Account (Not Silverlight)

Question

Is it possible to send notifications(toast, tiles, raw) from a server and receive it from Windows Phone 8.1 not using Azure Account(Notification Hub). I saw examples using 8.1 silverlight but I could not implement within WP 8.1.

If yes, can you explain simply how, or suggest a document?

Answer 1

Yes it is possible you can create your own web service desktop app to do this.

Here is an article from MSDN that explains how... https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/hh868252.aspx

There are quite a few things you need to setup such as WNS etc.

Answer 2

It is not necessary to using Azure. You can implement your own notifications server but you should understand how it works first, it's a little bit complicated :) - there is an overview for WP8.1 (Windows Runtime).

In short:

1. Your server must be authenticated with Windows Notification Service (WNS): How to here
2. Your WP8.1 app must obtain notification channel (Uri) from Windows Notification Service (WNS) and send it to your server.
3. Your server should send REST request (POST) with special xml content to channel (Uri) received from your app (WNS mediates in communication).
4. In last step WP app handles notification.

More info about communication with WNS on your server side: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh465435.aspx

It's your decision in which technology/platform you'll code it.

But there are several solutions provided by third-party push notifications providers. Eg. Parse - you can send some notifications for free. You'll avoid the problem of creating your own service.