How to Create a Custom IFTTT Applet
In the last month or so, I ended up picking up a Philips Hue White and Color Ambiance A19 Starter Kit (3rd Gen) to pair with my Google Home. It was my first experience with smart lighting, and I was very impressed by the whole experience. I’ll be posting a full review of that at a later time.
More immediately, I wanted to give a quick tutorial on how to create your own custom IFTTT applet, with this example being specific to setting your lights to one of the predefined Philips Hue scenes. The Philips HUE app comes with several scenes that you can set your lights to, but you are not able to set these scenes from Google Home out of the box. In order to set your scenes using Google Home voice commands, you need to use one of the existing applets available from IFTTT or create your own, which is what we are going to do.
In case you are not familiar with it, IFTTT is short for IF This, Then That. The specific service we are using here is IFTTT.com, which is a free platform that lets you create applets following If this, then that logic for any of the hundreds of services they partner with.
Our first step is to go to IFTTT and create an account if you don’t already have one. Once that is complete, or if you already have one, go ahead and log in.
After logging in, we are going to click the “My Applets” link at the top of the page. If you have already created some applets before, you will see them listed.
For this tutorial, you will want to click the “New Applet” button on the right side of the page above the list of applets. This will start a new applet. It will display the text “if this then that” with the word “this” colored blue. You will click on the blue “this” text to select your trigger.
Once you click on the “this” link, it will show you a list of all available services. You can filter this list by searching for “google assistant” or simply scroll down until you find it.
Once you locate Google Assistant, go ahead and click on it. If you have not previously linked your Google Assistant account to IFTTT, it will ask you to do so. Simply select the “Connect” button and a new window will pop up asking which google account you would like to link. Make sure it is one that your Google Home is connected to.
Once that is complete or if you have previously linked your account, you will be asked to select a Google Assistant trigger. These are specific trigger types for Google Assistant that can accept simple phrases (which is what we will be using), or can even be set up to accept number and text variables to pass along to other services. For this tutorial, go ahead and select “Say a simple phrase”.
The next screen will ask you to define your trigger. For the “What do you want to say?” field, we will put in “Set dining room to savanna sunset”. This assumes you have a room set up in your Google Home called “Dining Room”. If you set up a different room in Google Home, go ahead and use that room name here instead. You can also set multiple ways to trigger this action if you want using the optional “another way” fields. In the “What do you want the Assistant to say in response?” field, you can put whatever you would like your Google Home to say when you use the trigger phrase(s). For this example, I used “Setting dining room scene to Savanna Sunset”. You can also choose the trigger language if needed. Once you have all the fields completed, click “Create Trigger” at the bottom.
You will now be taken to a page with the text “if this then that” again with the word “that” colored blue this time. Go ahead and click on “that” to select what will happen after the trigger is called.
You will be taken to a page that will ask you to choose an action service. This looks very similar to the “this” screen which asks you to choose a trigger service. Go ahead and type “philips hue” in the search bar at the top or scroll down the page until you find Philip’s Hue. Click on the Philip’s Hue button.
If you have not previously linked your Philip’s Hue account, you will need to do so. Click the “Connect” button to open a new window to link your existing Philip’s Hue account or create a new one if necessary. You can sign in with a Google account or with an email and password. If you have already created a Hue account with that Google account or email address, it will ask if you want to grant permission to IFTTT. If you need to create a new account, it will prompt you to do so and then ask if you want to grant permission. Go ahead and click the “Yes” button to continue.
Now that you have given IFTTT access to your Philip’s Hue account, it will display a list of actions you can perform via your Hue account. In this case, we will choose the “Set a scene in a room” action. Notice you can also turn lights on and off, change colors or even blink lights.
Once you select the action, it will show you a page which lets you choose the scene and for which room. A scene will be selected by default, but to make sure it is the correct one, click on the down arrow icon to the right of the scene name under the “Which scene?” label. This will populate all the scenes available for each of the rooms set up in your Philip’s Hue app. Please not that this may be different from the room set ups in your Google Home as they are set up separately. Go ahead and select “–Dining Room Savanna sunset”, or choose the correct scene from whatever room name you selected.
After you select the correct scene from the correct room, go ahead and click the “Create action” button. This will take you to a screen where you can review the task and rename it if desired. You can also select if you want to be notified every time this applet runs. Once you are satisfied with your settings, click “Finish”. You will now see the applet card for the new applet you created. It will be turned on by default, but you can select to turn it off if needed. You can also modify the applet by selecting the gear icon on the top right of the applet card.
You have now created you own custom IFTTT applet to let you control your Philip’s Hue scenes from your Google Home! Go ahead and test it out by saying “Ok Google, set dining room to savanna sunset”.
Now that all the correct accounts are linked, you are only a few steps away from creating rules to set scenes, blink lights, and even set random colors using IFTTT applets.