Nowadays, all your daily activities on your phone like checking the weather or checking if you payed your rent get repetitive sometimes. Eventually that just makes people bored, while those applications were invented to take that kind of work out of your hands. This is where “If This, Then That” (IFTTT) comes in: an application where users can link certain actions to other smart devices to automate all sorts of things to make life a lot easier.
Around eight years ago, IFTTT started with a website and three years later they released a mobile application (Ifttt.com, 2018). In recent years, this has changed a lot. Currently you can connect all your “services” so that tasks are automatically completed (Ovadia, 2018). There are many different ways you can connect all your services and the resulting combinations are called “Applets”. For example:
- If you add a new task to Alexa, the task will also be put in Reminders on iOS
- When it begins to rain, your Philips HUE lighting system colours to blue.
One week ago (11-09-2018), Sonos announced that its devices and services are now available on the IFTTT application (Nu.nl, 2018). With support from IFTTT, users can link their Sonos speakers to other smart services. Besides, smartphone functions such as location data also can be used: your Sonos speaker can start playing automatically when you return home, or a playlist can start when you switch your Philips HUE lights to a special position (Ifttt.com, 2018).
Obviously, this app is one of the most helpful Internet of Things applications nowadays and it makes your life a lot easier through its features and there is no doubt that other services would also like to incorporate IFTTT Applets into their own apps. Therefore, using this app could really help to make the first steps toward a completely automated future.
Now that you know about this, what do you think the impact of automation will be on our future society?
References
Ifttt.com. IFTTT Sonos. Retrieved from: https://ifttt.com/sonos
Ifttt.com. IFTTT Blog. Retrieved from: https://ifttt.com/blog#show-all&1
Nu.nl (2018, September 11). Sonos krijgt itegratie automatiserings app IFTTT. Retrieved from:
www.nu.nl/tech/5457587/sonos-krijgt-integratie-automatiserings-app-ifttt.html
Ovadia, S (2014, November 10). Automate the Internet with “If This Then That” (IFTTT).
Hi Elsemieke,
Very interesting blog! I agree with your point of view that automation will play an important role in the future. People are continuously looking for ways to simplify their lives and, as you say, take boring, repetitive work out of their hands. I do wonder, however, what this automation innovation does for people’s privacy. IFTTT, as I understand it, is some sort of intermediary connecting different applications and ‘Internet-of-Things’ devices; this requires extensive access to one’s personal data, such as the GPS location of one’s mobile phone in the example that you mention. The next step in this development of automation would be, in my humble opinion, to ensure data security and make users aware of the sharing of data required for this kind of automation service provided by IFTTT. The one question remaining is, why would people willingly share so much data in times where data protection is oftentimes not guaranteed?