10 essential IFTTT recipes for the Amazon Echo & Alexa
IFTTT is growing in both popularity and real-world use. Our previous article on the 10 best IFTTT recipes for your smart home sparked a lot of interest, so we decided to follow up with another article, focusing on one of the best smart home products on the market, the Amazon Echo and its adorable virtual assistant Alexa.
While the product itself has an impressive list of features, there's always room for improvement. This list of IFTTT recipes for the Amazon Echo is geared towards making the product even more practical and seamlessly integrated with other devices and web services.
From Samsung's SmartThings to Philips Hue, from finding your phone with Alexa to turning on your TV, we've gathered the 10 best IFTTT recipes for the Amazon Echo & Alexa.
1. Find your phone using Alexa
Just say "Alexa, trigger find my phone" and this IFTTT recipe will call your phone.
2. Use Alexa to set your temperature
This Amazon Echo / Amazon Alexa IFTTT recipe works by choosing a phrase and a desired temperature. When you say "Alexa, trigger + [your phrase]" your Nest Thermostat will set to the specified temperature.
2. Lock your front door with Alexa and SmartThings
If you've left your front door unlocked, you can simply tell Amazon's Alexa virtual assistant to lock it and SmartThings will handle the rest.
4. Alexa, send me my shopping list
Simply ask Alexa, "What's on my Shopping List?" to receive an email of your entire Shopping List.
5. Keep a Google spreadsheet of the songs you listen to on Echo
This Amazon Echo IFTTT recipe appends song name, artist name, album name and play time to a Google spreadsheet.
6. Add Amazon Echo To-Do to Google Calendar
Add To-do items from Amazon Echo to your Google Calendar as a "quick add event." This IFTTT recipe lets you choose your calendar during setup.
7. Add Amazon Echo shopping list to your iOS Reminders
This IFTTT recipe adds your Amazon Echo shopping list to your iOS Reminders as well. Should you decide to use this recipe, it's important to fill out the name of an iOS Reminders list you've created. An example would be to create and iOS Reminders list called "Shopping".
8. Alexa change light color
If an item is added to your Amazon Echo To Do List, all your Philips Hue lights will change.
9. Alexa, trigger my Harmony
Say "Alexa, trigger my harmony" to start any activity on your Logitech Harmony remote.
10. Toggle all lights on or off by asking Alexa
This Amazon Echo IFTTT recipe works by asking Alexa what's on your To Do List, which instead toggles all your Philips Hue lights on/off.
Recipe images courtesy of IFTTT | Featured image courtesy of Amazon