ifttt for smart home and home automation (energy management)

1Alexandre Rieupeyrout

Founded : December 2010

For the connected and smart home

San Francisco, CA


Quick reminder


Purpose of this analysis

Smart Home market is expected to skyrocket but some real brakes are slowing the market :

- Technology is difficult to understand for mass market - Often perceived as expensive - Not always a real interest in it : gadget image

But for the existing consumers and the expected buyers, the lack of interoperability is the most frustrating loophole :

“ MAKES MY STUFFS WORKS TOGETHER ! “

• Nest : hey Hue Philips, can you shine ? • Hue Philips : nope, not talking to you, I don’t know you !• Nest : shit ! Well, I’m going to warm up everything then ! But wait, we know each other, look, you’re on IFTTT as well ! • Hue Philips : oh you’re right, hey buddy, what can I do for you ?


IFTTT has now 63 connected home channels !

Among the 63 channels, below are those we chose to highlight :


See how best selling smart home solutions are used :

Nest use case :


Nest popular recipes :

They want to :

These features are missing in the Nest product datasheet so far but thanks to IFTTT, users can increase the level of smart home integration of their smart thermostat.

Be alerted Keep a track of their data

Link their thermostat to smart lights

Use geofencing features


Voice control is becoming more and more trending

Thanks to Amazon Alexa but also Ubi, IFTTT users can control their smart home with voice command :


Smart home for energy management with IFTTT

Several energy management systems are integrated into IFTTT;

Now let’s check the most used “recipes” to identify the needs in energy management system that are missing into the smart home systems here :

-Geofencing-Dedicated alerts and notifications-Link between various brands and smart home solutions -Calendar and data tracks


Geofencing

• When it comes to smart thermostat, the ability to turn on/off the thermostat based on the position of the user is a feature that matters for many users

• Ecobee, ThermoSmart, Honeywell, Nest and Wattio are offering smart thermostats but there is no geofencing feature : IFTTT is the solution


Alerts and notifications

• All the available smart thermostats don’t have the ability to notify and alert their users.

• IFTTT channels show us that this is demanded feature among the users


Link between different smart home solutions

• Interoperability is perfectly represented here when we consider different brands linked together thanks to IFTTT

• Some users increase the integration of their energy management systems with sensors, smartplugs, smoke detectors, smart lights ….


Energy management use case : Calendar and data tracks

• Even if scheduling and calendar features are represented in the smart thermostats, users like to have their google calendar with their smart device

• They are also interested in keeping a track of their datas; for instance with their google drive account


Conclusion

• Without a clear interoperability in many smart home solutions, IFTTT appears to be a good alternative to makes things work together, especially in energy management systems.

• There are also others emerging efforts to develop a widespread interoperability among brands / products and solutions :