Google Home: How to control WeMo devices through IFTTT

A little box or tube in your living room that you tell to do things seems like magic. With Google Home, there are literally hundreds of things that you can make do what they're designed to do by connecting things together with the IFTTT service.
Some of those are from Belkin and marketed under the WeMo brand (opens in new tab). The list of WeMo products with IFTTT support includes their appliances like a coffee maker, humidifier, and slow cooker as well as wired-in devices like switches and receptacles. And since Google Assistant is also well supported, you can play matchmaker and hook them up to do some awesome stuff.
Getting started
You'll need to connect Google Assistant to IFTTT to make any of these applets work. Don't worry, we've got you covered.
How to connect Google Home and IFTTT to do amazing things
Above, you'll find a complete walkthrough of getting things up and running so your Google Home will be able to control all sorts of automated home products and services using your voice. It's easy and cool, so give it a shot!
Once you have Google Assistant connected to IFTTT, you'll want to make sure all your WeMo devices work correctly with the WeMo app from Google Play. You have to have the app set up with a WeMo account and have the devices you want to control connected through it before you can tie the service to IFTTT. There are other apps on Google Play you can use to control your WeMo products, but to connect them to IFTTT you have to use the official one.
Download WeMo for Android from Google Play (opens in new tab)
Once you have everything up and running individually — an IFTTT account and the accompanying app, Google Assistant connected to IFTTT and the WeMo app controlling your WeMo devices, you're ready to hook them all together and start telling it what to do. That's easy!
- Open the Settings in the WeMo app.
- Find the entry that says Connect to IFTTT and tap it.
- Tap the green button that says Connect.
Pick which type of WeMo device you want to connect and log in to the IFTTT web page that opens. You just connected your WeMo device(s) to IFTTT and can make an applet. Repeat this step for all the WeMo device types you want to connect — since they have different options they are on different channels. Don't worry, it makes sense once you start making applets. Even your mom can do this.
Now let's take a look at how you make an applet that lets Google Home turn your lights on and off by using a WeMo Light Switch (opens in new tab) when you tell it to. The process is simple and the IFTTT app (or the website if you want to do it from a computer) walks you through it all. Here's what you'll be doing.
Tap the + sign in the IFTTT app to create a new applet. You'll need to start by creating a trigger. All IFTTT applets need a trigger that tells them when to run, and since we want to use Google Home to trigger our light switch, we need to choose Google Assistant as our trigger. Find it on the applets page (you can use search) and tell it to use a simple phrase to trigger an action. We'll start by making it turn our switch off since your light is probably already on.
Look at the first image above. If you have a phone with a lower resolution (or are using a tablet), the screen will look a little different but the important bits are the same. You just type in the words you're going to say when you want the switch to turn off. You can (and should) set a couple different ways of saying things so it feels more natural when you're doing it, but you don't have to use more than one. Once you like what you entered, type in what you want Google Home to say when it recognized the command and start doing its thing. Tap the checkmark to save the trigger and you can set what action you want to happen.
You can make and edit all kinds of applets right from your phone with the easy to use IFTTT app, or you can visit the IFTTT website to make them.
Here you'll choose the WeMo Light Switch channel for our action. Search for it and tap it the same way you did with Assistant for the trigger. From the list choose the Turn Off button. The second picture above is the screen you'll see when you tap it. There's only one simple setting here — choose which switch you want to turn off. After you've done that, tap the checkmark and choose to finish and save.
Test it! Based on what I entered in my example, I can say: "OK Google. Turn off the office lights" and Google Home tells me, "OK. I'm turning off the office lights," and off they go! You'll want to say the phrase you entered and Google Home will tell you what you entered. And you don't have to be so formal. "Office lights off, yo!" will work and you can make Google respond with something like, "I got you, fam" and everything still works. You are tying the phrase to the action in IFTTT when you enter it in the applet maker.
Making an applet to turn the lights back on is exactly the same, except you choose the Turn On action for what to do when triggered.
Other WeMo devices work the same way. Tell Google Home to do something, and make the WeMo device do it through IFTTT. Some WeMo devices can also act as a trigger, so when you use Google Home to trigger them they will trigger another action once they are finished. I do just this with Google Home, IFTTT, a WeMo light switch and a WeMo coffee maker. "OK, Google turn my light" makes my bedroom light come on. When my bedroom light comes on, my kitchen light comes on. When my kitchen light comes on, my coffee maker starts up and makes me some go-go juice.
Mornings are like magic here in Electric Jerryland. You can do the same things (or even cooler things) in your own house!
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Jerry is an amateur woodworker and struggling shade tree mechanic. There's nothing he can't take apart, but many things he can't reassemble. You'll find him writing and speaking his loud opinion on Android Central and occasionally on Twitter.
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Hey @Jerry. I'm still trying to figure out Ecobee3 with Google Assistant to set a desired temp, as opposed to a predetermined temp. Right now, IFTTT channel for ecobee3 only lets me choose a temp, it doesn't accept a random temp given on the command. for example: i've successfully created an applet to accepts "it's getting cold in here" and then ecobee3 sets temp to 73 for 1 hour. but i want to say "set temp to ##" (## equals desired temp i want at that time.) it doesn't seem to work like nest where you can do it that way. please help. thanks in advance.
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This should work (set the trigger as a simple phrase with a text ingredient). The Assistant channel will accept a command with a variable (the $ is what they use for a variable) and pass it to Ecobee as a standard command. If that doesn;t work, we;ll keep trying :)
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Thanks, @Jerry, for getting back to me with this. I'll definitely give it a try. I've been utilizing the # variable, give a phrase with a #. When that didn't work, I honestly wasn't sure how to use or phrase the "text ingredient". Obviously, i'm new to IFTTT and ecobee3 isn't popular as Nest, yet. I'm determined to get it right though. I'll let you know how this turns out.
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It must be the way the ecobee channel is setup. If i knew how to attach pics to this comment, i'd show you a screenshot. I tried to recreate the ecobee channel below. Do you have nest? does this look like the nest channel? Set hold for X hours
This Action will set the thermostat into a hold with the specified temperature for the specified number of hours. (Field 1)
Thermostat Name
(Dropdown list here with my ecobee listed)
Select which thermostat will execute the hold. (Field 2)
Desired Temperature
(Dropdown list here with odd numbers only between 65 and 79)
The temperature to set the hold to. (Field 3)
Number of Hours
(Dropdown list here with numbers between 1 and 24)
The number of hours to hold for SAVE (button) -
OK, I talked to someone with an Ecobee and Home. There is no IFTTT action to set temp to X. His advice was to switch to the Echo because it natively supports Ecobee. The Echo will do almost as many things through IFTTT as Google Home will and has more native services. If Google Home/Assistant takes off and can do things the Echo can't in the future — and you want those things — you can use both later (Echo can trigger Google Home). Or buy a Nest if you're determined to keep using Google Home. Not what you wanted to hear, I know. But its solid advice that makes your stuff work the way you want it to work. However (dontcha just love the howevers) You can set a comfort profile on your Ecobee with a small range (let's say 71-74) and triggering a comfort profile with IFTTT is simple. So if you set several comfort profiles you can trigger them instead of a specific temp. From what I can tell, Ecobee was designed to be excellent inside its own ecosystem/Homekit, which means some things aren't going to be "generic" enough to work with other equipment. It would take a pretty major firmware update to change this, so it's not likely to happen.
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Jerry, you're a solid dude, you know that? I appreciate the extra help and research because I wasn't able to find someone else with knowledge and both devices. It is a bummer though. I had high hopes because commands like set desired temperature are in the list of apple homekit commands on the ecobee site. Example below. Generally, 1 degree higher is enough to knock the chill out of the air. We try to keep it around 71 and 73 all year long already. For now I'll just use the phone app. Example off apple homekit command
“Set my thermostat to 20 degrees” – to set your thermostat to 20 degrees. The ecobee thermostat is smart enough to know whether you have Celsius or Fahrenheit as your preferred temperature unit of measurement." -
That's pretty much how the Nest works with Google Home without IFTTT. Stuff not working with other stuff is quickly going to become a bigger problem now that more people are buying smart things.
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Thanks Jerry for another informative article and directions.
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I want it to work with Lutron Caseta
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https://ifttt.com/lutron_caseta_wireless It will work the same way. I don't have any Caseta equipment. I had Serena shades on my living room front window but my daughter took them (kids! lol) and this was before Google home was released. Try setting it up. If you hit any snags, post a screenshot somewhere and link it here in the comments and we'll sort it out.
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Hello, i tried the instructions above to turn my lights off via IFTT and Google Home and having problems. I currently run other applets through Google Assistant but this one i can not get to work.. I currently use an iPhone running google assistant through Allo... Like i said i'm running other applets through google assistant and google home so i'm not sure why i am having so much trouble with this one. Any help would be appreciated. My light switch is Wemo brand.
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I also have 3 wemo lights setup and have ifft setup as described in this article. Im using the google home and it only works sometimes maybe 30% of the time.
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Hi All, I properly set up the triggers and everything in IFTTT to have google assistant turn on/off my wemo light switch but when I go to test it and say the command i entered "Turn off the outdoor lights", google assistant just launches a web search for "Turn off the outdoor lights". Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
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Also, do i need to be using a Pixel or Home for this to work?