Cooking with Rachio and IFTTT

HI DAN

Our Channel

The world as we know it is changing at an incredibly rapid pace. What you are about to read will probably blow your mind, it did mine!

Imagine connecting hundreds of disparate applications and devices together like email, twitter, motion sensors, irrigation controllers, calendars, location services, etc. Any one of these is a powerful tool, but what if they could be seamlessly integrated together? That is where "If This Then That", or IFTTT comes in and provides the glue.

IFTTT enables anyone to create and share "Recipes" that follow the statement: "if this then that". A recipe consists of a trigger (the this part of a recipe) and an action (the that part of a recipe). An example recipe would be "if the temperature drops below freezing then stop any watering schedules". The combinations of recipes that can be built are endless, only limited by your imagination and ever growing list of useful channels (IFTTT building blocks which include triggers and actions).

Some fun recipes using the Iro include:

• If a motion sensor in your garden detects movement (pesky deer or children) then turn a zone on.
• Building your own Google spreadsheet to track all schedules and durations
• Some municipalities have very complex watering restrictions. These could easily be put onto a Google Calendar which triggers watering schedules to run at very specific times and dates.
• If freezing temperatures are detected, pulse zones to keep water flowing and stop from freezing.

As you can see, only your imagination limits the number of recipes that can be created.

Let's get in the kitchen and build our own recipe! The ingredients call for a pinch of Google Calendar and a dash of Iro goodness. Let's pretend we live where the watering restrictions are every 1st and 3rd Tuesday of the month. This can easily be setup on a Google calendar and integrated with the Iro using IFTTT.

First step is to register for an account on IFTTT and create a recipe. Next, use the Google Calendar channel to add a trigger that will fire when any event with the keyword 'Iro Main Schedule' starts.

Create a recipe!

Google Calendar trigger

Now add an Iro action to run the watering time 'Main Schedule'. After the action has been added review the final recipe, hope we didn't use the wrong ingredients!

Iro start watering time action

Review the recipe

Notice the 'Iro Main Schedule' at the bottom of the calendar. Once the event starts, the watering schedule starts.

Google Calendar event

Google Calendar event started watering time

I hope now you can see the amazing things that can be built through integrating applications and devices. We look forward to seeing all the great mash ups and recipes that are created using the Iro!