It’s really easy to set up Node-RED to send and receive alerts from Pushbullet. The node is available here, and can be installed with npm install node-red-node-pushbullet Configure
I recently set up a Node-RED node that can interact with IFTTT. The node interacts with the Maker Channel on IFTTT and allows you to either send or receive messages to IFTTT.
I’ve been trying out the NodeMCU DevKit boards and found that it’s a great choice for projects that need wifi access. The boards are based on the ESP8266