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SmartThings Hub: Connecting your home, phone and you
At Macworld/iWorld 2014, I delivered a talk about Siri and connected devices titled "Siri's Arms and Legs: Giving Apple's Intelligent Assistant the Power to Control Your World." My original idea for the presentation was based on some work I'd done last year for YouTube's Geek Week, in which I used a combination of Siri, IFTTT, and Belkin WeMo switches to make some videos that I called "Stupid WeMo Tricks". But as I got into my research for the presentation it occurred to me that the world of app-centered home automation has gone well beyond just the WeMo products and into the realm of making most items in your home either controllable or able to be monitored. One company that kept coming up on my radar during my research was SmartThings, a Washington, DC-based company that is building a solid foundation for an app-controlled smart home with the US$99 SmartThings Hub. The Hub works with a free iPhone app and a growing number of connected switches and sensors that operate with either the Z-Wave or ZigBee home automation protocols. Many people that I talked to before and after my Macworld presentation said almost the same thing, variations on a theme of "I'd love to control my home but it's too hard to do, too expensive, and I don't want to have to search through a pile of apps to do one thing or another." Well, that's the reason SmartThings and some other companies are coming up with intelligent hubs. The idea is that a single hub can control a number of devices through one app. Setting up the SmartThings Hub and a variety of the switches and sensors is a piece of cake. The hub simply needs to be plugged into a power source and then have an Ethernet cable run over to your Internet router. Once you've done a first-time setup with the SmartThings app, adding devices to your home automation network is easy. Some of the devices, such as a motion sensor, door and windows switches, and a moisture sensor, are battery powered. These devices usually just required that a plastic tab be pulled out to allow the device to start up -- in some cases, however, I had to open the device up and press a reset button to get the app to recognize it. Still, setup took no time at all. Other devices such as light and appliance modules plug into a wall socket and start up immediately. It should be noted that many of the plugged-in Z-Wave modules, like the Jasco Fluorescent Light and Appliance Module (at left, below, seen with a motion detector), work to extend your home automation network by creating a mesh network. SmartThings does a good job of adding new devices to their online shop, and also provides a good blog that gets into details on how to do certain things. As an example, I really thought it would be great to automate my garage door opener so that I could tell via the SmartThings app if it was open or closed, then control it remotely. But my garage door opener is at least 20 years old, so I figured I was out of luck. Sure enough, the SmartThings blog had an article on using a Z-Wave Relay Switch in parallel with an existing "dumb" garage door opener to add it to the Internet of Things. My credit card was out of my wallet to buy the Z-Wave Relay Switch... and now I have a fun weekend project to do. One of my other favorite "pieces" of SmartThings gear is the SmartSense Presence key fob (below). When registered with your app, this little proximity sensor knows when you've left the house -- and if everyone in the house has one, it knows when the house is empty. That means that you can set one of the SmartThings SmartApps to react appropriately to that "state". The SmartApps might best be described as presets that do something for you without needing an intermediary like IFTTT. As an example, let's say that I want to be alerted if my washing machine starts flooding the laundry room. I have a moisture sensor set on the floor right next to the washer (image below) that will tell me when things are getting a bit wet. I can be informed of an impending flood one of two ways -- either I can connect my SmartThings hub and the moisture sensor to IFTTT using the SmartThings channel, and then create a quick recipe to have IFTTT call my phone and say "I have detected water underneath the washing machine", or use the pre-defined Flood Alert! SmartApp to send me a text. Since I'm a geeky guy and like getting robotic phone calls warning me of impending catastrophes, I chose to use IFTTT -- but for many people the SmartApp would make the job even easier. SmartThings has created tons of SmartApps that can be discovered by device (outlet, moisture sensor, door sensor), by convenience (turn off all of the lights in the house when everybody is gone), by family (monitor motion sensors in an elderly person's home and then contact someone if they don't return from the bathroom after a specified amount of time), by "fun" (send a text when motion is detected), by "green living" (send a text notification to a carpooling buddy when they are not with you and you arrive to pick them up), by safety and security (lock a door automatically when I leave), and more. The great thing about the SmartThings world is that they've created an easy-to-use ecosystem that is growing everyday, and they've built plenty of flexibility into both the hub and the app. The company's online store sells both devices and full-fledged solutions, the latter being helpful for people who want a particular solution but have no clue as to how to implement it. At this point in time, the world of connected devices and home automation is still a bit on the pricy side, which is why I have to commend SmartThings for at least making the Hub affordable. As more and more connected devices become available, prices should eventually drop. Right now, you can expect to spend prices similar to these -- $49 for a door/window multi-sensor, $54 for a moisture sensor, $55 for a motion sensor, $31 for one of those key fob proximity sensors, $49 for a ZigBee-based lamp switch, $58 for that relay switch I'm going to use for my garage door opener, $60 for a multi-sensor that can monitor motion, temperature, brightness and humidity, and so on. Things like connected deadbolt locks cost in the range of $200 each. So what do you get out of connecting all of these devices to your house and your body (the key fob or your phone)? The ability to do some pretty magical things. I love how the SmartThings app lets me see all of my connected devices on one screen, although you'll want to take a picture of each device's location to be able to tell them apart. Having one app to control many things in my house must be how Frodo Baggins felt having the "one ring to rule them all"! I've already posted a few articles on TUAW about the Internet of Things and these connected devices, and I'll be writing about some of the solutions I've implemented as I build my home automation network. I have to say that in all of my testing, I have been impressed with the stability of the SmartThings Hub -- it hasn't failed me despite having been challenged by power and Internet outages. It's comforting to know that the home automation network quickly comes back online by itself in those cases. In the near future I'll also be providing a review of a similar hub from Revolv, as well as a Z-Wave compatible sensor and security camera from BlackSumac called Piper. Conclusion SmartThings has brought an affordable intelligent home automation hub to market with a smart iOS app to control it, then provided even more flexibility by providing an IFTTT channel for creating custom solutions. If you're thinking about dabbling with home automation, SmartThings has a complete ecosystem built around solutions or individual devices. Rating: 4 stars out of 4 stars possible
IFTTT update outfits iPads, tacks on push notifications
IFTTT's (If This Then That) recipes automate your apps and other tech tasks to make things a breeze, and the latest update allows the software to play nice on more than just that iPhone. Version 2.0.0 of the application tacks on full support for the iPad. There's also the ability to assign an IFTTT recipe to beam a push notification to your device, so you'll know when David Ortiz hits a home run or if you'll need to pack a raincoat in the morning. Of course, you'll want to check those application settings so that you're not duplicating efforts here. What's more, new recipe collections and a location-specific Photos Trigger have been throw in as well. If your trusty iOS device hasn't alerted you to the update just yet, venture over to the source link and nab it up.
Automatic brings the Internet of Things to your car
If there's one topic that absolutely fascinates me these days, it's the "Internet of Things" -- connected devices that talk to our smartphones and tablets that can provide us with information. Now that information can be as simple as telling us what the temperature is, whether a door is opened or closed, or if somebody has entered or left a room, or it can be as complex as telling us how we're driving. That latter use case is exactly where Automatic (US$99.95) comes into play. Usable in practically every car manufactured in the US since 1996, Automatic consists of a dongle called the Link that plugs into the data port of your car -- otherwise known as the OBD (on board diagnostics) port -- and an application that runs on your iPhone. The two communicate via Bluetooth 4.0, so that at the end of every drive you have an idea of how far you drove, how much gas you used (works for gasoline and hybrid vehicles), how much it cost to drive that distance, and what your average gas mileage was during that drive. But that's not all Automatic does. By watching how you drive, it provides a 0 to 100 score (with 100 being the best) on how efficient your driving is. That is determined by looking at how many times you accelerate too quickly, jam on your brakes, or drive at speeds over 70 miles per hour. There's a new beta feature that can notify emergency personnel and loved ones if your car is in an accident, and the combination of the app and the Link always remembers where you parked your car -- even if you don't remember. If you ever get one of those "Check Engine" lights on your car, Automatic will tell you what's happening and in some cases will even let you turn the light off. I'm currently testing one of the Automatic dongles and so far have found it and the app to be a surprisingly powerful combo. I have a 2007 Honda CR-V and found the OBD port without difficulty under the steering wheel of the car. The Automatic app takes you step by step through entering a specific code that identifies the Link, setting up a free account, initializing the link between Link and phone, and then acquiring the vehicle identification number (VIN) and doing an initial conversation with your car's computer. The setup process is fast and easy, taking me about two minutes to complete. All you need to do after you've set up the Link is drive. The device and your iPhone will notify you if you're stomping on the gas pedal or brakes too hard, or if you happen to get into that inefficient driving zone above 70 mph. After a drive, your stats are immediately viewable in the app. I was happy to see that I'm a very efficient driver, scoring a 100 (top score!) so far. Yesterday I went to our local grocery store and was confronted with bad traffic due to an accident. Sure enough, looking at the Automatic results after the fact, it's obvious that it not only took longer to drive the 3.4 miles to the store than it did to return from there, but that sitting in a traffic jam while the police cleaned up the accident cost me an additional 22 cents of fuel. What initially got me interested in Automatic was noticing that the device has its own IFTTT (IF This Then That) channel. Automatic triggers include New Trip Completed, Ignition Turned On, Ignition Turned On In Area, Ignition Turned Off, Ignition Turned Off In Area, Check Engine Light Turned On, and Check Engine Light Turned Off. The IFTTT integration is amazing, because it means that you can create recipes that do things like automatically log all of your trips to a Google Drive spreadsheet, have an email sent to your mechanic automatically if the Check Engine light goes on, upload or email a map of your road trip, and more. While I will wait to do an official review of Automatic until I've had some time to use it and test out the IFTTT integration, I'm already very impressed with what appears to be a solid and very useful tool for anyone who drives.
Automatic Link driving assistant can now auto-post to Facebook, other apps
One of the greatest benefits of Automatic's Link driving assistant dongle is that it finally made it possible to hook your car's metadata to the web. You could then use your smartphone to do things like track your trips, note your parking spot and even figure out your Check Engine light problem without going to a mechanic. Well today, it's about to go one step further thanks to a partnership with IFTTT. IFTTT, if you're unaware, is a service that hooks up a variety of apps and services together with a series of "If This, Then That" formulas. Now with Automatic, you can create recipes that'll prompt an action once it detects certain information from your car. For example, you can set it so that you get a text message every time the car starts up, or send a push notification to your spouse whenever you're running late. You can automatically post trip summaries to Facebook, tweet if you're ever in an accident or keep track of your mileage in a dedicated Google Spreadsheet. It even works with other Internet connected hardware -- a possible recipe is to turn on all your Philips Hue lights as soon as you get home. IFTTT's Automatic channel already has a pretty healthy set of triggers, but Ljuba Miljkovic, Automatic's chief product officer, tells us they're hoping to build more around activities like speeding or braking hard. "We see this as a step toward Automatic really being connected to the wider world," says Miljkovic. "For example, we announced that the Link now has iBeacon thanks to a software update. We really see third party integration as a big thing in our future [...] We're making it possible to add your car to the Internet of Things." If that sounds like an exciting proposition to you, head on over to the source to find out more about the Automatic Link, IFTTT and its plans for an even more connected car.
Netatmo's Weather Station scores customized climate alerts, helps you avoid frost bite
IFTTT, an internet service that lets you connect various devices and apps together using a set of triggers and actions, has long played nice with home products like the Philips Hue lights, the Belkin WeMo Light Switch and the WiThings WiFi Body Scale. Now it's added one more to the list, and that's the Netatmo Personal Weather Station. As a reminder, Netatmo's weather station is an aluminum cylinder tricked out with WiFi-linked sensors that can tell you all sorts of information about the surrounding air quality, humidity, pressure, temperature, noise levels and even CO2 levels via a mobile app. IFTTT's integration, however, adds the ability to create personalized alerts. For example, you can set it so that your Philips Hue light glows red if the Netatmo station detects extremely high CO2 levels. Or you can have IFTTT send you a text message to put on a sweater if the temperature drops below 40 degrees. There are plenty more trigger-action recipes you could come up with of course, or you could just head to IFTTT's Netatmo channel to see what others have created. Now you no longer have to rely on, like, your five senses to figure out what's going on around you.
5 fun and useful things you can do with IFTTT's iPhone location triggers
The glue that holds the Internet of Things together -- IFTTT.com -- gained a new feature last month. Now the service's free iPhone app has location awareness, which means that it can be used to do some pretty amazing things. The update on December 11, 2013, to version 1.30 added the ability to trigger actions when your phone enters or leaves a particular area. Since I'm a huge fan of "If This Then That," it didn't take long for me to figure out how to use that capability. Here are some examples of how I'm using iPhone location in some personal IFTTT recipes: 1) If I enter the house, then turn on a light. This is probably one of the easiest recipes to create if you have a Philips Hue light or two, or -- as in my specific case -- a Belkin WeMo Switch, Insight Switch or Wall Switch. I used the iOS Location channel and the Belkin Insight Switch channel to set up a recipe to turn on a table lamp in the house and throw a little bit of light if it happens to be dark. 2) If I leave my house, send a message to my wife telling her I'm gone I like to let my wife know my whereabouts during the day while she's off at the office, just so she has an idea if I've gone off to run some errand or other. The problem is that I don't always remember to send her a quick message. This recipe uses the iOS Location channel and the Email channel. I would prefer it if IFTTT allowed me to just send her a text message, but the existing SMS channel doesn't work that way. 3) When I get back home, send another message to my wife informing her that I've returned. Same as No. 2, but I'm using the "enter a location" trigger rather than "exit a location." 4) Let the world know you're home from a trip OK, this one is rather fun. Since you can set a location with an address, it's not that difficult to put an airport into the iOS Location channel and once you arrive back at your home airport, use the Facebook channel to announce to the world that you're home. Just remember to turn this recipe off before you leave and turn it on again once you're out of town; that way it won't tell people you're back from your trip when you're just leaving on it... 5) Keep a log of when you are at a specific location This would have been so useful back in the days when I was a consultant and had clients who were occasionally picky about knowing exactly when I had arrived or left their location for billing purposes. To do this, I set the iOS Location channel to trigger when I enter or leave a specific address, and then have it add the time to a log file in Dropbox. Parse that text file with a script or load it into a spreadsheet, and you're ready to rumble. For my example recipe, I decided instead to keep a log of when my wife and I enter and leave our favorite pizza joint since I'm no longer consulting. We go there once a week, so this will be a way to find out exactly how much of our lifetimes are being spent playing with the iPads, snarfing pizza and drinking wine. Have you put IFTTT's iOS Location triggers to good use? Tell us about it in the comments.
Daily Update for December 12, 2013
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
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.
IFTTT adds a location channel to its iOS App
IFTTT updated its iOS app today, adding in a major new feature -- the ability to use location as a trigger in your recipes. Version 1.3 of IFTTT adds a new iOS location channel that you can use in any recipe. This location feature allows you to setup a geographic fence that'll trigger an action when you enter an area, exit an area or do both. Besides a standalone channel, Location is also pre-built into existing channels like Instagram, Facebook, Foursquare or Twitter. This allows you to send out a message when you take a new Instagram photo in a particular area, for example. The updated version of IFTTT is available now in the iOS App Store. I've already created a few location-based recipes, and love the feature.
Belkin adds WeMo Insight Switch to the home-automation tool family
The Belkin WeMo family of home-automation tools grew by one yesterday with the introduction of a new member -- the WeMo Insight Switch (US$59.99). The Insight Switch one-ups its older sibling, the WeMo Switch ($49.99), by being smarter and skinnier. While the WeMo Switch provided a way for iPhone users to turn lights and appliances on or off from anywhere they were on a network by using the WeMo app, the Insight Switch adds a new trick -- being able to monitor power usage. Like its older sibling, the Insight Switch has its own IFTTT.com channel to provide even more intelligence to the seemingly simple task of turning something on or off. For example, you can set up the WeMo Insight Switch to monitor a plugged-in device -- let's say an electric space heater. If that power-hungry appliance has been on for a certain amount of time, you can tell the switch to shut it off. Likewise, if the daily cost of using the space heater to keep your toes warm rises above a pre-set level, you can shut it off. You could also use the Insight Switch to tell you something like how long a window-mounted air conditioner has been running and send that info in a text message. I mentioned how the Insight Switch is smarter than the old WeMo Switch in being able to monitor energy usage, but I also said it was skinnier. The new switch is much smaller than its predecessor, making it much more likely for design-conscious homeowners to adopt the Insight Switch. The WeMo app also received a redesign yesterday, adding support for the new switch, getting a new iOS 7-friendly look and providing faster response than the old app. In addition, WeMo is now supported on the Android platform. TUAW will have a full review of the WeMo Insight Switch in the near future.
IFTTT adds actions for iOS photo albums and Reminders
The developers behind the uber-popular web service and app IFTTT have updated the iOS app to add new actions for iPhone photo albums and Reminders. IFTTT allows users to create connections between Channels and Recipes using the simple "if this, then that" formula. Channels include services like Facebook, Gmail and Twitter, plus devices like the Jawbone Up, the Philips Hue lighting system and the Belkin WeMo. Recipes are the connections between your channels. IFTTT has caught on among iOS power users who want to automate certain actions on their iPhones and the addition of new photo albums and Reminders actions will be no doubt welcome. Here's the complete rundown of all the new features in IFTTT version 1.2: iOS Recipes just got a lot more powerful. Now IFTTT can add photos directly to your iPhone albums and create new to-do's in Reminders! + Introducing Actions for iOS Photos and Reminders + New Feedback button in your Settings + Vastly improved background sync for iOS 7 + Beautified your feed just a touch + Added swipe gestures for iOS 7 + Kicking bugs and taking names IFTTT is a free download.
IFTTT makes nice with Twitter, brings back tweet triggers and actions
When Twitter placed user caps on third-party clients last year, IFTTT was one of a few services that decided to halt tweet integration, lest it run up against that cap and have to figure out an alternate solution. According to TechCrunch, however, it seems that the Twitter integration is back after extensive talks between the two companies. IFTTT, if you aren't aware, is a handy internet service that lets you create custom actions between different apps and services with a set of triggers and actions -- an example would be to send a picture to Picasa any time you upload it to Instagram. So as you might expect, there are now new tweet triggers and actions. Examples of triggers include "New tweet by you" and "New tweet by you with hashtag" while actions could be "Post a tweet" or "Post a tweet with image" among others. Some interesting IFTTT Twitter recipes include the ability to automatically tweet a link once you post it to Facebook, a way to hook up G+ posts to Twitter and even a recipe that'll bypass Instagram's turning off Twitter cards. And since IFTTT works well with connected hardware like the Belkin WeMo and the Philips Hue, you could also send a tweet to turn those devices on or off. So if you're hooked into Twitter and would love some automation in your life, head over to the IFTTT link below to get started on a recipe or just create your own.
Philips expands iOS-controlled Hue line
Still love it when the lights in your house flash a rainbow of colors every time you're mentioned in a tweet? According to The Verge, Philips has announced two new additions to the Hue line of internet-controlled lighting; the US$89.95 LightStrips and the $79.95 Bloom. LightStrips are flexible, sticky-backed two-meter lengths of small LEDs made for accent lighting and things like frames. The Bloom (seen below, from the German Philips website) is a portable lamp that can be used to highlight an entire wall with its 120-lumen LED bulb. Both lights require the Philips Hue wireless bridge, which is part of the $199.95 starter kit available at Apple Stores and other retail locations. That kit includes the bridge and three controllable LED bulbs. All of the Hue lighting products are energy-efficient and can be controlled through the Hue app or IFTTT recipes to display any of more than 16 million colors in a number of intensity levels. A source for The Verge explained that the new lights are supposed to appear in Apple Stores and on Apple's online store soon, although the publication was not able to get a response from either Apple or Philips.
Belkin ships WeMo Light Switch for $50, launches matching Android app
Belkin promised a simple approach to connected lighting when it unveiled the WeMo Light Switch back at CES, and the company is making good on its word by releasing the switch today. The WiFi-based controller is now available both online and at retail shops for $50. It isn't arriving alone, either -- Belkin is simultaneously launching the finished version of its free WeMo app for Android to complement the existing iOS release. If you'd rather have smart switches than smart light bulbs, the new WeMo hardware awaits at the source link; the companion Android app should be available shortly.
Friday Favorite: Using Zapier to automate my workflow (Updated)
Recently, the TUAW staff talked about their workflow, and the tools they use to keep their day moving smoothly. One detail that didn't come out in my contribution is my growing usage of automation tools to help me get things done. I'm an avid IFTTT user, using the web service to send tasks to my children's iPad or mood updates to my Jawbone Up. Recently, though, I found myself needing to do a complex task that fell outside the capability of IFTT. That's when I discovered Zapier, a web-automation service very similar to IFTTT. Zapier is an online tool that taps into the APIs of over 200 different web services. It includes major services like Evernote and Dropbox as well as niche ones like Campfire, Freshbooks and Github. You can create a "zap" that pulls data from one service and then performs a task based on that data. These zaps run automatically every 15 minutes and can be turned on or off as needed. In my case, I needed a quick and efficient way to take the contents of an email in Gmail and send it to a shared Google spreadsheet. For a while, I tried copy and paste to move the subject, body and other details into my Google spreadsheet one cell of data at a time, but that task was extremely tedious and time consuming. I looked to Google to see if it had some built-in tools that would let me easily and automatically send data between the two services, but I found none. It was only after hours of searching through other email task-management solutions that I stumbled upon Zapier. Zapier supports the major Google services, which means it can plumb data from Gmail and then send it to Google Docs. The granularity of control available to you in Zapier is fantastic. I was able to set up a zap that would scan my Gmail account for emails with the label "app review" and then add those emails as new rows to a Google spreadsheet. I could pick the timestamp as column one in the spreadsheet row, the subject as column two and the body as column three. All I have to do now is label an email and wait for my zap to run. It is such an elegant and easy solution to a problem that had been plaguing me for weeks. This only scratches the surface of what you can do with Zapier. Zapier is available for you to try for free for 14 days. Once your trial is over, you can choose a free plan, which provides you with five zaps that perform a task every 15 minutes. You get up to 100 tasks per month for free. You can purchase additional zaps and tasks starting at US$15 per month for the basic plan which includes 20 zaps and 3,000 tasks. If you want zaps to run faster than every 15 minutes, you can purchase a business plan for $49/month. This plan gives you 15,000 tasks and 50 zaps that run every five minutes. Update: As pointed out by Rohan Sharma, this same automation can be accomplished with a Google Apps scripting macro in the Google spreadsheet. The script uses Google's API to read your Gmail messages and enter that data in the spreadsheet. This is more or less what Zapier does for you when you set up your zaps, which is why I chose the service. I started down the path of scripting, but it was much more involved and time consuming than I wanted. As mentioned above, I wanted something easy to implement. It's worth mentioning the macro option as those with experience in this type of scripting may want to forgo Zapier and venture out with their own code. For the rest of us who prefer to let others do the heavy work of scripting, Zapier is an excellent tool.
The Daily Roundup for 07.11.2013
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
IFTTT app perfect for creating recipes on the go
A lot of the TUAW bloggers have a favorite website they love to visit for creating automated scripts (recipes) for linking dissimilar internet services. IFTTT stands for If This Then That, which is a perfect name for a service that watches for some action to occur before performing another action. While the website is perfectly usable from most iOS browsers, it's a bit difficult to use on the relatively small screen of an iPhone or iPod touch. Today, IFTTT is shipping a free iPhone app to make the creation of recipes while mobile a lot easier to accomplish. The service requires a free membership, after which you can go to town writing your recipes. The IFTTT team did an excellent job of taking the easy-to-use interface of the website and packaging it in an iPhone app. Launching IFTTT, you're asked to log into your existing account and also have the option of creating a new account. If you're an existing user of IFTTT, you have immediate access to all of your existing recipes. Want to create a new recipe? There's a "mortar and pestle" button to get into your list of recipes and add a new one -- you see the traditional If This Then That interface. Tapping "This" displays the list of channels you've activated, and then you choose the action to trigger your recipe. Tap "That" to select the recipient channel and choose an action. The app takes advantage of links to several of the built-in iOS apps (Photos, Reminders and Contacts) to create recipes that are triggered by certain actions on the device. For example, if you have Philips Hue lights in your home, you can create a recipe that waits for you to take a photo with the iPhone's camera, and then changes your lighting to match the dominant colors of the photo. That's probably not the most practical use of IFTTT, but it's sure fun! If you're currently an IFTTT user, definitely install the app. If you're unfamiliar with IFTTT, the app is a wonderful way to begin "putting the internet to work for you."
IFTTT's new iPhone app taps into Contacts, Photos and Reminders (hands-on)
IFTTT has been around for a couple of years now as an internet service that lets users customize connections between different apps and devices. The name stands for If This Then That, which encapsulates the idea behind it -- users can create automation Recipes that combine a Trigger (the "This") that'll result in an Action (the "That"). A popular example is to to have all your Instagram photos (the Trigger) automatically saved to your Dropbox folder (the Action). Services like Instagram and Dropbox are known as "Channels," and there are different Triggers and Actions associated with each. While it's a pretty neat concept, the only way to access IFTTT has been via the browser, and even then, Channels are limited to mostly web services. IFTTT hopes to end all that today with its first-ever mobile app headed for iOS, aptly called IFTTT for iPhone. Not only does it provide a much more streamlined interface for Recipe creation -- only five taps required -- it also signifies an all-important next step in IFTTT's evolution: the ability to hook into a device's native Channels, namely Photos, Contacts and Reminders. Just like with the web services mentioned earlier, you can use them to create Recipes that take advantage of the phone's capabilities. For example, you can have it so that all the photos you take with the front-facing camera will be sent to Flickr with the "selfie" tag, or you can automatically send new contacts an introductory "Nice to meet you" email. Join us after the break for more of the app's features along with our hands-on impressions and some thoughts from IFTTT's CEO and co-founder, Linden Tibbets. %Gallery-193546%
Feedly RSS reader launches cloud service
Feedly is a service that's risen in popularity recently for the most part because the much-loved RSS service Google Reader is coming to close on July 1, but the company is definitely doing its best to make a space for itself as something more than just an alternative. Today, Feedly released the Feedly Cloud, which not only creates a standalone web-based RSS reader app, but also hooks all of your feeds into the cloud, which developers can then hook their own APIs into for various purposes. Just like Google Reader's API, the idea is to allow Feedly's work to power other readers, and in fact the service is connecting into IFTTT right away at launch, and opening up other options for future apps and tools. This also means that Feedly is available right inside your web browser (previously, the app required a plugin or extension in your browser to work correctly), and can be pulled up from anywhere. Personally, Feedly has become my reader of choice, partly because it works so similarly to Google's service, and partly because it's so easy to migrate from one service to the other. If you use Google Reader and haven't yet chosen a new service, you're running out of time, as Google is finally shutting everything down on July 1. Feedly is the best alternative I've seen so far, and this move to the cloud shows that the company is very interested in not only grabbing Google's refugees, but keeping their patronage for as long as possible.
Belkin WeMo rolls out IFTTT multi-device control
TUAW readers know of my affinity for Belkin WeMo home automation tools, whether I'm using them to get Siri to turn on the Christmas tree or keep my cat cool in the summer. Today Belkin announced IFTTT multi-device control for WeMo switches. What does that mean? It means that you can now control more than just one WeMo switch in your house with IFTTT recipes. Previously, you could only control one of those devices at a time through IFTTT. Now it's simple to write recipes for multiple switches as seen in the image at the top of this post. Belkin announced that since the IFTTT.com WeMo Channels launched over 30,000 recipes have been created and over 400 shared recipes are available online. Now I just need to get one more WeMo switch so I can water my garden remotely through Siri...
