Described herein are techniques and systems for controlling, from a mobile device, an environmental control system including at least one appliance for influencing one or more environmental parameters at a premises. The mobile device comprising a user-interactive application for sending commands to the environmental control system. The application having a foreground state for controlling the environmental control system based on user-adjustable parameters; and a background state, in which user notifications are generated. A method can comprise: when the application is in a background state: determining the mobile device has crossed a geolocation threshold; determining an environmental parameter of the premises satisfies a condition; displaying a notification to a user, comprising an option to initiate a command to control an appliance; detecting the user has selected an option; and sending a message to effect the command to the environmental control system.