I try to automate every repetitive task I meet, not only in Domotics, but this is where I have the most automated actions with conditions for only shooting at certain times… and the other day, the people of IFTTT published that I can now integrate different services with WhatsApp and that made my head explode with ideas, let me tell you a little better.
Introduction of the Problem
It’s actually that It really bothers me to have to do some repetitive actions over and over again. on my day to day or when some conditions are given. In the work it happens to me the same, imagine that I receive from time to time a document that I have to review and store in a specific shared folder… because what I think is to capture the event of receiving that document and that is automatically stored in a folder. It’s true I can’t automate the document review action, but at least I take off the administrative part of copying it between folders and so on.
In my work environment I have a thousand automations, usually made with Microsoft Power Automate as we use the Microsoft Office 365 suite in the work.
Replicated calendars
Another of the things that I have automated is the management of the calendar, since I have two calendars… on the one hand I have the corporate calendar of work where I have the chorropotohundred meetings I do every day and the tasks I have in half, and on the other hand I have iCloud’s private mine where I put my private events, reminders of family things and, of course, the Home consulting What I do with you.
What happened to me is that sometimes I had a home consulting or a dentist visit that I had correctly blocked on my calendar but was not on my corporate calendar, so Sometimes they put a meeting on that schedule and it was my turn to move the event.. What I was doing a season is copying the time slot between calendars, that is, if I had a home consulting from 17 to 18 in the afternoon, because that same slot copied it to me in the corporate calendar so that no one would put a meeting at that particular time.
It doesn’t have to say that I didn’t take long to automate this copy because, but every time I got a meeting at work, I had to go to my iCloud calendar and copy it… and the other way around, of course. A mess. What I did was integrate the iCloud calendar into the Outlook. (already, I know, I’m a fan of the Apple Mail app… but it’s been left behind in some things, not Apple intelligence or milk, and after a few months with Spark’s payment version, I realized that for a Microsoft-based working environment there’s nothing better than the Outlook). The thing is, after integrating the iCloud calendar into Outlook, creates a Power Automate rule for q
o when there is a new event in one of the calendars is copied in the other. In 10 or 15 minutes I forgot a task I had to repeat several times a day.
Automating training
Out of work I also have things automated with other services., not just my social media management I’m telling you now. For example, you know that I run out every morning., I’m training to run another year the Valencia Marathon now held in December. The thing is, in the morning I was running out with either Garmin or the Apple Watch and then I sent him the file that they generated my coach to review my progress and give me advice on how to deal with the next sessions of the week. It didn’t cost much, in a few seconds I was taking out the file using a
app called HealthFit in the case of the Apple Watch or the same Garmin export tool when I ran with the Fenix and sent it to my coach by WhatsApp… and then gave me your feedback and with that I adjusted the following sessions. Well… No need, there are some synchronization services this information between platforms, so my coach connects to the platform Finally and there you can review all the data from my training and change in the calendar the following outputs to fit my state of form… but I don’t have to worry about him anymore.
or that it’s my turn that day! When I get up and go down to the street, I just have to tell the clock that I want to run and he says, «Well, according to your coach, you get the following,» and in a completely unattended way I know what I have to do..
The social media is also all invented. I use the service of Sapier to share information and schedule some shipments. For example, I know that the blog articles have more readers on Tuesday morning. However, I publish the podcast on Thursday or Friday because they have more listening than I do on Tuesday, I imagine because we have more time to mess up during the end. Besides, I am very Friday and weekendsSo I’d post it these days anyway!
The point is, with Zapier I have automated that when a new article is published on the blog, a small extract is generated and published on Twitter or X with the link, also in Mastodon (this integration was not easy at all), in my Linkedin profile, in Compatible Domotics Telegram Group… and the same with the videos of
the «rel =» noopener «target =» _ blank «> Youtube. With Podcast I don’t do it because those of you who listen to the podcast are subscribed, so I don’t want to be canine to publish it everywhere either. Between Zapier and the famous platform IFTTT I have all these publishing and programming needs more than covered without moving a finger.
Well well well, with the ChatGPT API I already told you about when I told you that I was chatting with Jarvis through Home Assistant to ask him for things from House (you have this post in the blog and this podcast episode) I have made that When I post a new article on the blog, it translates it into English and leaves it ready for me in case I want to publish it in English. But it can also be done with the voice! You can record it in Spanish or pass the tea
I want the IA to translate and publish it in audio, either with an IA voice or with your own voice. There is a process of learning your voice where you read Quixote phrases and learn it. It’s true that it’s not your voice like, it sounds a little lifeless, it lacks passion… but still your brain flashes because you say ‘go, that’s me… but I don’t remember having said this ever’ and you have a weird conflict there between the brain neurons that are hearing you but they can’t place the memory. It’s all very crazy.
My God, with the piece of introduction I’m letting you go, it gives me the impression that now it’s gonna be super poor what I wanted to tell you! What a mess.
The solution?: IFTTT
I’m subscribed to IFTTT and I pay for the Pro plan. I think it’s very baratto, but I was listening a long time ago to Victor Correal, the founder of GuideDoc who is like the Netflix of documentaries… and Victor said he had several free IFTTT accounts to meet all his needs and be able to have more automations than allows for a single free plan. I mean, it’s true that Victor is Catalan and The hair is the hairBut I’m really telling you that IFTTT is so baratto, I pay less than €5 a month.
Well… IFTTT people posted a connector for WhatsApp the other day by which, through a bot, you can integrate other apps and events with WhatsApp to notify you. Yeah, well, I know you can integrate Home Assistant with a Telegram bot, I also had it active for a while, so instead of sending you push notifications through the Home Assistant app, you were reached as messages from a Telegram bot. It kept being a painter but little useful in my day-to-day as those same notifications already had them in the app Home Assistant. It can be comfortable if you use a lot of Telegram and you don’t want to have the Home Ass app
istant always open, I don’t know… there are people who use Telegram as a working tool and have there all their conversations and groups… but the truth is that in Spain people are more than WhatsApp. Telegram has a more limited use, usually for frikazos like us of a specific theme… not to mention Discord, that’s another story, but the resistance that people like my parents have to install Telegram or Discord is very high, while with WhatsApp they feel more familiar and use it for many things.
Too many notifications make a lot of noise
Let’s see, we don’t go crazy, either. many times it gives us for automating nonsense that is not necessary. Speaking to a co-worker this morning, I was wondering if could receive in WhatsApp the prediction of time… and I’ll see, can be… but I think it’s a little bit of a shit… to see that message you’re gonna take the phone or the smartwatch and there’s the time prediction. ‘And yet, If what you want is not to get wet if it’s gonna rain, you can do more fun things like that if you dur
before the day will rain, that the lights in the bathroom when you enter in the morning to wash your teeth will light in blue tones And so you know you have to take an umbrella. I had that automation for a while. but The interesting thing is, it’s unattended. You don’t have to look at time or read a message from WhatsApp.
But by taking away the obvious, We can for example receive a message from WhatsApp when someone plays the doorbell where we have an Ring Intercom. Well… we can’t really and this is something that’s fucked me up a lot. The Ring Intercom is not published on the web of Ring.com which is where the IFTTT connector is connected. There you can see other Ring devices you have… but the Intercom’s not yet. I already complained yesterday to the people of Ring and the people of IFTTT for publishing enga
Nosa. But on the other hand… What do we want this for? Yeah, well, my wife’s gonna get a message from WhatsApp if someone hits the doorbell of the portal… but she’s not gonna be able to interact with that person or open the portal, it’s a simple notification. It doesn’t give me anything.
The same connector allows some things that can be more interesting. It integrates with Sonos and his family of speakers, so We can start playback on our Songs speakers from WhatsApp. Pse, come on, we accept ship as an aquatic animal. It integrates with iRobot, so We can turn on the Roomba from a WhatsApp message… if my vacuum cleaner is not compatible with HomeKit, it may be interesting, but I
my case I have an automation for the vacuum cleaner to be launched under certain conditions and also, when it’s over, he sends me a notification with the map of what he has aspired.
There’s another integration that can be interesting if you don’t have Home Assistant and it’s that you can get a message from WhatsApp when someone from your family or group of friends enters a specific geographical area. To do this you have to have the IFTTT app installed on the mobile and with access to the location, of course. But well, If you want to keep your son from getting caught naked at home because he’s out of school soon, it can be useful..
Anyway, as you can see, the limit is back in the imagination… but you don’t have to go crazy with notifications either with IFTTT and WhatsApp, or from the Home Assistant app, or from wherever they are because we’re going to saturate and we’re not going to listen to them. I I’d rather the house act alone. Let the lights turn on when it’s dark only if there’s someone at home. Let the boiler turn on when the house is too cold, or if I’m going to my apartment in Valencia, the water heater plug will turn on so I can shower when I get there. All that unattended and without the need for env
I’ll be notified unless something fails., don’t pass us like Homer in the Simpsons chapter that’s ringing an alarm at the nuclear power plant where he works and Homer says screaming ‘It’s all right. ‘
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