Expand Amazon Echo with IFTTT
As an Amazon Echo user, you’re always looking for ways to expand the device beyond its standard capabilities. Sure, there is the Amazon Alexa online skill store, where owners can download hundreds of Alexa skills, but what if you wanted to go beyond those skills? It’s time that all Alexa owners know of another choice – http://www.ifttt.com (which stands for “If This, Then That“).
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IFTTT gives a user the ability to expand not only Alexa, but other products by downloading “Recipes” for a particular device that does a certain task. These recipes are also for Android, iOS, and others.
There are two types of recipes: DO and IF.
The DO recipe runs with just a tap of a button on an Android or iOS device enabling one to assign a certain task to a button.
The IF recipe runs automatically in the background, creating a powerful connection between you and a device. For example, say you wanted to post a picture on Instagram and also save it to your Dropbox folder at the same time. IF THIS, THEN THAT.
Each IFTTT recipe for the Amazon Echo is an IF recipe. Which means that once an end user selects and download a recipe to your Echo device from an internet connected computer, that user can call (or invoke) the recipe by saying its own activation word (called Triggers). This helps the Echo – and you – know where the skill came from.
Go ahead and login to the IFTTT web site and create a free account. Once approved, you can search for only those IFTTT skills that will work with Alexa. I will use the “Find My Phone” tigger as an example.
Each Trigger for a device will be represented by its logo, so you’ll know what trigger is for what device. In this case, we only want to know the skills (triggers) for Alexa.
Each trigger will have a name, description, and an ADD button at the bottom of the page. Simply find a Tigger, go into it, and click add. Once that’s done (if this is one’s first time adding a trigger) the IFTTT web site will prompt the end user for permission to access their Alexa device. Just follow the screens.
After that, the trigger will upload the skill to the end users Alexa device. Depending on the type of trigger it is, it may need some additional information for it to work properly.
When the Trigger is enabled, the end user involks the newly installed trigger like this:
“Alexa, trigger find my phone.”
The skill will then call the number of the phone that you gave it so it’ll ring and you can find your phone.
There are thousands of triggers available for the Alexa device and more is being added daily.
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