ifthisthenthat
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Google Assistant and IFTTT can close your garage door
We haven't gotten to the point of voice-activated vacuum cleaners yet, but closing your garage door with an "Ok Google" has arrived. Garage-door company Chamberlain has announced that its MyQ app will now work with Google Assistant in addition to your Nest camera. Handy! More than issuing a closing command, you can ask if the door is open or if it's closed, too.
Sphero's Force Band can now control your home over IFTTT
Sphero's motion-tracking Force Band can now control more than a tiny (and utterly adorable) BB-8 droid. The company has teamed up with If This Then That (IFTT) to integrate the "force" with countless apps and smart home devices. IFTTT, if you need a reminder, is a service that lets you automate pretty much anything with "triggers" and "actions." You can use it to turn on your Hue lights as soon as you walk through the front door, or tweet your Instagrams as native photos on Twitter. With the Force Band, you can now activate these same actions with a force push, pull or stop.
The future of IFTTT includes paid plans and hardware harmony
Several of us here at Engadget HQ employ If This Then That's (IFTTT) recipe-based automation chops to keep app-driven tasks in order. The software outfit has been keen on adding new functionality often, with channels opening up recently for Nike+, Eyefi, Square and more. So what's down the road for the handy add-on? Paid plans. The New York Times reports that the upcoming options will cater to users who want more than what the regular free version offers, and of course, generating some revenue to help pay the bills. The example given in the report is a social media manager linking various Twitter accounts to the service in order to automate tasks for each. What's more, the company is aims to create "an operating system" for the so-called Internet of Things that weaves together mounting pile of connected gadgets introduced on the regular. With a recently raised $30 million in funding, doubling staff to focus on both design and business development is the first step towards more automated living for us all.
IRL: Letting IFTTT automate my life
I've come to rely on different services to help power me through the day: Foursquare to find new coffee shops, Pocket for my reading habits and Instagram and Flickr for photo sharing. As great as these apps are, though, I find myself wishing they could do more -- especially when it comes to how they all talk to each other. Being programming-inclined, I've been turning to If This Then That (IFTTT) to connect these various services, as well as automate some of my more basic tasks.
IFTTT now lets iOS users automate their location
IFTTT (If This Then That) is a handy online service capable of connecting various apps and devices together and running automated tasks (or "recipes") that you'd normally find mundane and time-wasting. It's been around for a couple years and has built up a strong network of different services ranging from social networks like Instagram and Twitter to cloud services like Dropbox and Box.net, and plenty of stuff in between. One thing that's been missing, however, is the ability to automate your location; fortunately, IFTTT is introducing the iOS Location Channel to fill that void (well, for iOS devices anyway). The new channel leverages location information from your GPS, cellular, WiFi or iBeacon data and uses it as a "trigger" -- something that initiates an automated action. For example, you can instruct IFTTT to send a text message to your loved ones as you're arriving at your destination, or get an email when one of your Foursquare friends checks in somewhere near your apartment. If you use a Philips Hue, have it do a crazy light show to announce your upcoming arrival. There are plenty more ideas where those came from, but you'll have to go take a look at IFTTT's full listing of services and come up with a few clever recipes of your own as well.
