IFTTT Part 2 maker channel

In a previous story, which you can read by clicking here, I showed you how to automate all kinds of things on your phone and computer with IFTTT. And I told you that IFTTT has a special aid for makers/tinkerers/hackers called the Maker channel.



UPDATE:
 
IFTTT has evolved and looks now more as APP's on your phone. But do not be put off basically it is just the same. There is one change that is significant: the maker channel is now called Wehooks and the icon has changed into:

So everywhere in this story where the name Maker Channel is used change it into webhooks.

The Maker channel is intended to trigger all kinds of events with an IOT device. My favorite IOT device is the ESP8266. So let me show you how you can trigger all kinds of events with this wonderchip. In this case we are going to send a message to Twitter when the ESP has detected motion with a PIR. To say differently, if someone enters your room in your absence you will get a notification.

First step is to login and choose channels. Then scroll down to develloppers and choose the Maker Channel.

 
In the Maker Channel choose connect and fill in the form. I have blacked out my personal details but you get the drift.

The important part is the Makerkey. You will need this later when setting up the softawre in the ESP-8266.

Now choose for making a new channel

The first question is to choose a trigger channel. Fill the name Maker in.

Now choose for maker.

Choose the trigger you want to activate. There is only one choice for the maker channel "Receive a web request"

Give this event a name. Choose any name you like but make it significant and something easy to recognise. If you have many triggers activated it will be easy to locate if you need to make any changes. Click on "Create Trigger"

Now move on to the next section. The IF part is ready so we have to move to the "That" section.

IFTTT asks you for the Action Channel. Type twitter and the famous logo appears.

 
The twitter channel has all kinds of actions that it can perform. We just want it to post a message so choose the first item "Post tweet"

In this screen you can edit the text that will be tweeted to your account. You can change that text in anything you like. As you can see in the next screen I edited it for a more meaningfull text. On the right side you see a small blue flask.

Clicking the flask will give you an option to add a timestamp. This is something you should consider as the tweet will not only tell you that there was motion detected but also at what time that was.

 
In this last screen IFTTT shows you the complete recipe with the text that will be tweeted. Choose create and it is ready to being used.

So the next part is building the hardware being a PIR attached to the ESP-8266 and have it send a command to IFTTT when there is motion detected. And that's the story that Is following next time.

Till then
Have fun

Luc Volders