In case you’re not familiar, IFTTT stands for “If This Then That.” It’s a web-based surface that lets you chain together various services with conditional statements, hence the name. The results, called applets, let you create powerful functionality.
IFTTT may be a web-based service, but it’s available for Android, and it integrates with smart home services. This puts a host of functionality literally in the palm of your hand. You can create your own applets, but we’ve put together a list of some of the best pre-existing examples for Android.
Turn Hue Lights on with Your Alarm
If you use your Android device for your morning wakeup routine, this is a great IFTTT applet for you. Of course, this assumes that you have a few Philips Hue lights in your home.
When your alarm goes off, this sends a notification to IFTTT, which then turns your Hue lights on for you. If you’ve ever stumbled in the dark after waking up early, this IFTTT recipe will keep it from happening again.
You can find this Applet on the IFTTT website.
Automatically Turn Your Android Device’s Wi-Fi On and Off
Keeping Wi-Fi turned on can cause your battery to drain faster. When you’re at home, this is worth it, especially if you use Wi-Fi calling. While you’re out and about, however, it’s likely needlessly draining your precious battery life.
There is a pair of IFTTT applets that can help with this. The first automatically turns off Wi-Fi when you leave your home to help save power. You can always manually enable Wi-Fi when you’re at a coffee shop or other Wi-Fi location, but this way you don’t have to remember to disable it.
If you don’t turn Wi-Fi back on when you get home, you could be wasting data usage on your cellular plan. That’s where another Applet that automatically enables Wi-Fi when you arrive home can come in handy.
Automatically Mute Your Phone at Work
Nobody wants to be the person at work whose obnoxious ringtone interrupts a quiet meeting. Fortunately, there are two IFTTT Applets that can help you with this.
Both of these come from a user simply named “jeff.” The first of the two automatically mutes your phone when you arrive at work. The second unmutes your phone when you arrive home.
As with settings applied by any IFTTT applet, you can unmute your phone manually whenever you prefer.
Automatically Send a Message When You Leave Work
Do you want to let your significant other know when you’re on the way home? This can be especially important if you don’t always leave work at the same time. Fortunately, an IFTTT applet can make sure you never forget to send that text message again.
The Applet is called Send a message from your Android phone when you leave work and does exactly what it says it does.
Automatically Log Your Phone Calls
Do you have separate phones for personal and work use and want to know how much time you spend on work-related phone calls? What if you just want to know how much time you spend on the phone with certain people?
Either way, this Applet can help. Install it, and it will log every phone call you make to a Google spreadsheet. It only records calls you place, not those you receive, but it can still give you a useful metric for recording all sorts of data related to phone calls.
Find Your Lost Phone
For the final option, we’re going to look at something nobody ever wants to deal with: a lost phone. This IFTTT applet can help with that.
Install this Applet, and all you need to do is text “lostphone” to the number of the phone you lost. The applet will then turn the ringer volume to 100 percent. Then just call the number, and your phone will ring as loud as it can.
Other Ways to Automate Your Android Device
Using the above options or your own IFTTT applets, you can automate quite a bit. That said, IFTTT isn’t the only automation tool available for your Android device. Android itself even has some great automation options built in.
For a closer look, check out our guide to native Android settings that can help automate your daily tasks.
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