Poor Man's IFTTT (or Zapier) support

[ih8gates]

This is by no means perfect, but it gave me a duck-tape solution for having IFTTT support. This requires that you have Gmail or a mail server that allows "plus addressing". Plus addressing lets you append text to your address: for instance "scott+arlodriveway@gmail.com". Gmail would deliver this to "scott@gmail.com".

In Gmail, you can set up filters based on the incoming email address, taking advantage of whatever's after the +. With these filters, you can assign tags. I have nested tags in Gmail for my Arlos. For example:

Arlo

> Front Porch

>> Day

>> Night

> Driveway

>> Day

>> Night

In my Arlo settings, I've created modes for day and night that are switched via the schedule mode. The email notifications for these modes use plus addressing (scott+arlodrivewayday@gmail.com / scott+arlofrontporchnight@gmail.com). Build Gmail filters looking for these "to" addresses and assign the tags you've created.

This, alone, helps you organize incoming email alerts (I recommend having the notifications "skip the inbox" too).

In IFTTT, the Gmail channel lets you trigger on Gmail's tags. Use / to denote the nested tags (so the tags would be: Arlo/Front Porch/Day , etc)

Then you can trigger anything that IFTT supports (Pushover/Pushbullet if you want more control over push nofitications, HUE or Wemo if you wanna do somethign with your lights). You could even use Maker chanel (https://ifttt.com/maker) to have notifications trigger your own custom code

Note - this will be a bit slow, so turning on a light immediately based on motion - that's not going to happen. 

Enjoy.

[JamesC]

ih8gates,

Great write-up, thanks for sharing!

JamesC

[JamesC]

We are excited to let the community know that IFTTT integration has been announced! For more information, take a look here: Introducing IFTTT Integration
 
JamesC