Kevin Andersson has a lot to look forward to when he wakes up every morning. As soon as he puts his feet on the ground, all the lights in his home turn on. When he steps on to the weighing scale, the coffee maker activates itself to prepare a mug of steaming coffee.
Kevin has made all these events possible by installing a motion sensor in his bedroom and connecting it to the lighting arrangement with the help of an internet service known as IFTTT, which is the acronym for “If This, Then That”.
Since Kevin is a programmer by profession, you would naturally believe that he put his superior programming ability to use to bring about this high level of automation in his home. Strangely enough, he made all this possible without writing any kind of code. He just invested in some hardware items, linked them up and made use of the IFTTT service available on the web so that the gadgets could communicate with each other.
A Sneak Peek into Internet Services
Most of the services made possible by the IFTTT are for use on the Internet only. For instance, you can automatically save snaps you get onto in Facebook in your Dropbox folder. This is very handy indeed. IFTTT used with Gmail becomes a seriously powerful tool.
You can do other cool and trendy things like uploading only certain photos on Flickr. Although Siri works with only the default apps of Apple, you can integrate Siri with the apps you use on IFTTT.
Connecting Real World Devices
You may not find these applications available on the net amazing enough, since you may take the Internet for granted as most people do. However, the fact that IFTTT services can hook up your everyday home devices and make them perform remarkable tasks like preparing your coffee without your needing to step into the kitchen is amazing indeed!
The services can link many of your home gadgets like Belkin WeMo devices used for sensing motion, home lighting system made available by Phillips and a variety of equipment to suit your specific needs.
What exactly is IFTTT?
If This, Then That implies a cause and effect relationship. If a situation triggers an event, a certain result occurs. Say for example, if the stock price of a certain product rises above a specific mark, the stock market will send you a Google alert. Here the rising of the stock above a particular value is the trigger or the cause and the alert sent to you by the market is the effect or the result.
Linden Tibbets and his brother Alexander, the brains behind IFTTT conceived of the project in terms of how people react to ordinary objects in the home and the office like doorknobs and cell phones. Often, people use these objects in ways the designer did not intend. For instance, you may use your phone as a paperweight because you can judge from its looks that it is heavier than a sheet of paper. Tibbets and his brother have extended this idea into the digital world so that IFTTT allows individuals to use Internet applications in modes the developers of the packages did not expect.
