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Smart home devices bring convenience into our homes, making it easier to control devices remotely and bringing a new level of automation. The easiest way to make devices work with each other is to ensure they come from the same manufacturer or ecosystem. The new Matter protocol also makes it easier for various products to communicate with each other, breaking boundaries across brands. Still, not all products are compatible with Matter or each other. However, they may support IFTTT, making it easy for devices from various manufacturers to work with each other.
IFTTT for Google Assistant has just become a shadow of its former self
IFTTT features like custom trigger phrases and variable inputs no longer work like they used to
IFTTT helps automate your life by linking online services and smart home devices together through user-created “Applets,” which perform individual tasks. Assistant support for IFTTT has been around for years, but it has now suffered a significant setback thanks to Google.
You can now automate your Zoom calls with IFTTT
Pause your music and change your lights when your call starts
With companies realizing that many in-person meetings can be easily replaced by remote calls, services like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet have soared in popularity. The geeks in us, though, want to integrate these new tools into our daily routine, and better yet, automate some actions related to them. IFTTT is solving this need for Zoom users first, thanks to a new integration.
IFTTT announces new features coming to Pro subscribers
Improved applet management, service enhancements, and more
IFTTT allows users to connect apps, services, and devices to each other with custom applets, enabling new levels of smart functionality and interactivity. The service launched a paid subscription last month that took applets to the next level, and now that it's got a new revenue stream coming from that IFTTT Pro plan, the company is has unveiled a roadmap of what to expect in the future.
Reddit accidentally banned hundreds of accounts connected to IFTTT
The bans are being reversed as Reddit searches for the root cause of the issue
IFTTT is a convenient service that connects devices, services, websites, and more, setting up routines that tell them if that happens, then do this. It's a great way to automate almost anything you can think of — including Reddit. One of the most popular use cases is having IFTTT email you when certain keywords are posted. But over the last 24 hours, many users with accounts connected to IFTTT received a shock: Reddit permanently banned them for no good reason.
IFTTT finally adds much-requested features, but you'll have to pay up
Multi-step applets are here, but free plans are more limited than ever
For years, IFTTT has been the easiest way to automate hundreds of smart home devices and software platforms, acting as a bridge between services that otherwise wouldn't work together. Now the service has released a Pro subscription with highly-requested features, but free accounts are also being limited more than before.
Scheduling Google Assistant actions is now possible, albeit very difficult to set up
It's a neat trick that's not worth the work
Assistant is one of the most convenient ways to control lights, plugs, and appliances around the house. The digital helper has gotten better over time, with the addition of routines, which can even be scheduled. Sadly, there's still no native option to program specific tasks, despite the fact that Google is working on adding this functionality soon. If you can't wait for official support, this third-party tool lets you schedule commands but it will require a lot of extra work.
IFTTT resumes support for Tuya Smart Life and Wink, gains 22 other new services
It also lost compatibility with Seagate, Digg, and others
IFTTT is one of the most convenient ways to automate tasks at home by linking smart home devices and platforms together. The service is regularly updated with new additions and removals, and we just got our fair share of changes for the summer.
IFTTT is the cloud-based service that links together hundreds of smart home and web platforms, enabling you to automate tasks across ecosystems. The service regularly adds new connections and removes non-working ones, and this time around, IFTTT has done some (late) spring cleaning and added a few more connections.
Get free Chamberlain MyQ Google Assistant integration through May 2022
Lock it in at the right price for two years
Chamberlain's myQ garage door openers can be controlled remotely for free, but if you want to access them with a third-party application like the Google Assistant or IFTTT, that'll cost you a nominal fee. Chamberlain is currently offering a number of such subscriptions free of charge for the next two years — no credit card required.
D-Link to drop IFTTT support for its smart home products
Smart plugs, sensors, sirens, and cameras won't be compatible with the popular platform after December
If you're using home automation devices from various brands, it can be hard to make them communicate with each other. Thankfully, IFTTT is an excellent way to automate tasks and create conditional triggers, regardless of your IoT products' brands. Unfortunately, D-Link is announcing its smart home products will no longer work with the platform this winter.
IFTTT now connects to TickTick task manager, drops support for six other services
14 new integrations have been added in total
If This Then That, or IFTTT for short, is the web that loosely connects dozens of smart home platforms and online services together. It can post a tweet when your laundry is done, make your lights blink when the International Space Station flies overhead, or send a notification when a game you want is on sale. Since the last time we covered IFTTT, 14 new services have been added, though there are a few removals as well.
Google's Tasker-like Rules are rolling out to more Pixel users on Android 10
They're super limited and not quite useful yet
Google increasingly focuses on security and makes it harder for third-party services like Tasker to switch on and off certain radios on Android 10. While the company still doesn't allow apps to automate this, it is at least working on a Rules feature that lets your phone's DND settings react to a limited set of conditions. We first saw this functionality on a few phones last year, but it looks like it's now rolling out wider.
If you're unfamiliar with If This Then That, more commonly known as IFTTT, it's one of the best ways to automatize tasks and connect online services and smart home devices with each other. Even though many products can already intercommunicate, IFTTT lets you customize this and integrate personal triggers, without going through complex integration processes. The platform is constantly updated to support new applets, but also removes a few ones. Since our coverage in October, there have been a few changes we've listed below:
CES 2020 gave the networking device market a solid head start for the rest of the year. We not only saw a more capable Wi-Fi standard come into being but also mainstream brands jumping in with a pile of new routers and mesh systems. Besides an expanded security camera lineup, D-Link’s CES announcement includes a long list of routers and range extenders that integrate the EasyMesh and Wi-Fi 6 standard.
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AutoVoice is a powerful tool developed by the maintainer of Tasker, João Dias. It lets you trigger Tasker and IFTTT recipes with your voice, so you can easily start complicated workflows involving multiple smart home devices with a simple phrase. Unfortunately, there seems to be some misunderstanding between Google and the developer. The AutoVoice Assistant action is currently not available because the company griped with the description of the service.
No one wants to go broke while upgrading their house to become a smart home, and that's a big part of what's made Wyze hardware so appealing: straightforward functionality at a just-can't-be-beat price. Following the launch of Wyze Sense security sensors and the Wyze Bulb earlier this year, the company's smart home offerings are now joined by a solution for controlling existing appliances: the Wyze Plug.
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- Our friends at XDA Developers took a deep dive into Rules on the recently released Android Q Beta 5. Apparently, the Tasker imitation is already fully functional there. The team was able to create and trigger rules on a Pixel 2 XL, although they're speculating that only the upcoming Pixel 4 might receive the feature at launch, since Google hasn't talked about the new functionality at all during the Q preview phase.
Android has always been known as a system open to deep integrations with third-party applications, allowing us to automate our devices through services like Tasker and IFTTT. However, Google intends to change that with Android Q and wants to make it harder for apps to hook into the OS as a security measure. To compensate this, the company now appears to be working on a Rules app similar to a very rudimentary Tasker that allows you to reproduce some of its abilities natively.
IFTTT helps you automate many repetitive tasks in your life by connecting online services and smart home devices. This allows you to easily create powerful tasks after you've taken the time to familiarize yourself with the process. As such, IFTTT lives and dies by the number of applets it supports, and we can report both the addition and removal of a vast amount of services since our last roundup in May.
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- Google started allowing Nest users to migrate their accounts and subscriptions to Google and its own Store. Following that, IFTTT immediately issued a warning to its existing users telling them that they should not migrate if they want their Nest applets and automations to keep working. If they do, there's no workaround that will bring the functionality back. Also, even if they don't migrate to a Google account, users shouldn't disconnect the Nest service from IFTTT as they won't be able to reconnect it again.
Google purchased smart home accessory-maker Nest back in 2014. It announced tighter integration of the brand into its hardware division at Google I/O this year, including the rebranding of the Google Home Hub as Google Nest Hub and the announcement of the new, larger Nest Hub Max. That newfound closeness is coming at a cost, though: Nest accounts are migrating to Google accounts, and the company is retiring the Works with Nest API, consequently breaking direct IFTTT integration with Nest products.