hey Google turn on studio lights getting things set up for the shoot hey guys
it's Steve and today I'm going to show you how to automate your studio lights
using a combination of IFTTT, Stringify, Google Home and some smart switches. So here we go
so first of all anything I talk about in this video is going to be linked down in
the description if you want to check that out and also there may be easier
ways actually there are easier ways to go about doing this I did it with two
different switches and I didn't have a smart home hub and they didn't have
direct compatibility with Google home so I had to find a way around that you can
make this easier by using the same type of switches and/or getting one of those
smart home hubs I didn't want to spend any additional money on that so this is
a way to do that on the cheap and is using IFTTT and stringify alright so
what are IFTTT and stringify these are both services that link into other
services and hardware vendors that let you take an action and cause a reaction
IFTTT stands for if this then that so it's a basically basic program and
there's one if statement one then statement so there's an action one
action that causes one reaction stringify on the other hand you can have
one action with modifiers and then you can take multiple reactions on that so
that one we request causes multiple actions you can trigger multiple devices
multiple services the problem with stringify is that it works with the
iHome switch but it doesn't work directly with the Wemo switch so I
needed a way to kind of marry these together and that's what I'm going to
show you today all right so this is a little complicated so one to give an
explanation here so we're trying to give a command and to turn on the lights and
then the lights are going to go on so turn on the lights the lights go on so
we have IFTTT and we can link that up to our Google home right and we can tell it
turn on the lights and then it's going to turn a light on
good easy right problem is we don't have a light we have two lights so we can't
really do that we can do something similar with stringify and we can link
that to our Google home as well and then we can tell it turn on the lights and
then in the flow of stringify we can tell it to turn on the I home and turn
on the Wemo now the problem with that method is
stringify works with the iHome does not work directly with the Wemo switch can't
do that either so what are we going to do we're going
to do a little hybrid we are gonna take this connection from IFTTT hooked to our
Google home and we're going to call stringify that lets you have two
conditions so that's going to be our new that so if we call this on Google home
then we're going to call this project on stringify now we know that stringify
doesn't work with Wemo but it works with iHome so we can't call that directly so
what are we going to do we are going to call back to IFTTT because I have TTT
does work with both I home and Wemo so we're gonna do that and then we're gonna
make one turn on the I home and one turn on the Wemo and we're good to go we are
golden at that point all right so here's our hybrid we're gonna use IFTTT
connected to Google home the results of that are gonna call out to stringify
these are if this then that the string of Phi is gonna say when IFTTT calls me
I'm gonna trigger these back to IFTTT and trigger these other flows one is
going to turn on the i/o home switch and one is going to turn on the Wemo switch
and now I'm going to show you how to do that and we're going to start in
stringify so the workflows in and stringify are called flows now before we
can start editing a flow we got to make sure that we have the IFTTT connector
and anything that is a trigger or an action in stringify is known as a thing
so if you don't already have the IFTTT you just hit the plus up here and you go
and search this is a long list of things that it works with you find IFTTT in
there BAM you tap on it it adds it you're good to go and then we can go
back here and start editing our flow so go into flows and as you can see I have
an office lights on and studio lights off we need to flows
because one command is going to turn everything off and then one command is
going to turn everything on so obviously you're not going to have these in here
so just go ahead and create a new flow it's gonna walk you through this alright
so we're in our first flow and flows basically consists of triggers and
actions so first thing we need is a trigger we're gonna hit this plus and
we're going to select the IFTTT because remember we're going to be calling into
the string of five flow from IFTTT we're just going to drag that up to one of the
available circles drop it and you can see this gear pop up we need to go into
the gear and this is going to be our trigger so we need to make sure trigger
is selected and we click on configure and it's going to grab this ID we need
to make sure that we remember that ID you can always come back into stringify
if you forget it later and tap on the action and it'll show you what the ID is
but we're going to need that when we set it up in IFTTT so that is our trigger so
now we need the actions and we're just going to drag this across to one of the
other available slots let it go and remember with this string of fire
we're going to be calling out to IFTTT again so we drop that it comes up with
the gear again and this is going to be our first action so this is going to
call on the IFTTT side to either turn on the I home or the Wemo switch in this
case we need to make sure action selected and then click on the
configuration thing and it gives you the ID so we'll need to know that ID as well
now that's going to turn on either the Wemo or the I home so now we just drag
the next one over to do the other switch we're going to select IFTTT again it
comes up of the gear select that make sure action selected run an IFTTT applet
it's going to get the ID and we're gonna save it and that's all we need for the
string of five flow where you got IFTTT is going to be calling in we're going to
be calling out to two different flows now the only thing we have left to do is
to tap the menu here and enable that flow successfully enabled we can close
out and now we are done in stringify don't forget that's going to be one two
either turn on or off the lights you need to create the other one to do the
opposite so let's go into ifttt now alright so here we are an IFTTT we're
going to go into applets all right now before we can add an
applet we need to add some services so let's look at our diagram here so we're
going to need a few different services because we are going to connect to
Google home all from IFTTT we're going to connect to our Google assistant we're
going to connect to stringify we're going to connect to I home and we're
going to connect to Wemo so we need to add those four services Google assistant
stringify I home and Wemo and the way you add services is really easy you just
go into the services tab and this you can do all this on the website too
unlike string of I and I homes right there all you do is you tap on it you go
into the gear set it up for your account and then you come back and you find the
next thing you know like stringify once you get those four created then you're
ready to create your applet now creating these applets is really easy you just
got to keep the flow in mind so we are going to have three applets for each of
these right so we're gonna have and when I say each of these I mean for turning
on the lights and turning off the lights so one of them we're going to issue a
command from Google home to say turn on the lights it's going to call up the
stringify and then back to IFTTT to connect to
iHome and Wemo to turn on the lights and then the next one turn off the lights
we're going to have that same flow for the off so we're going to need 1 2 3 4
on and 1 2 3 4 off with stringify sitting in the middle there so let's go
ahead and create those create a new applet again really simple if this we
need to create through this first and in this case this is the one that we're
going to be issuing the command from Google home so we need to connect to our
Google assistant and we can say a simple phrase there's a bunch of options this
is one we're going to use so I already have one that says turn on studio lights
so I'm just gonna call this set up studio and then this is
pretty cool because then you can have the Google assistant respond to that
command and you can do a custom response let's say okay and then you create your
trigger so that's the if this right that's the this then we have to do the
VAT so this when the Google command comes in we're going to call out to
stringify so let's do that we're gonna add stringify now and we're gonna run a
string of five flow now it's connecting because we already connected this to our
account it's connecting to the flows and if you notice it has a bunch of IDs here
right so this is where those IDs come in this is our test flow and if we look at
this trigger FTR Y so this is how we ensure that we're calling the correct
flow so the test ID first part is the flow name the second part is the trigger
so this is the one we want so we're going to create that action and that's
it so if we say setup studio then it's
going to call out to stringify and run this flow now right now it's not going
to do anything because we didn't tell it what these two actions are gonna do and
that's the part we're going to do now and now we're ready to create our two
applets to turn on the lights so we are gonna go in and create a new applet and
now this time this is going to be where we have stringify calling back to IFTTT
so the trigger here that this is going to be stringify so then we have the same
setup here we have our test flow that we created and we have those two IDs so it
doesn't really matter which one you use but those two IDs correspond to the IDs
that are in the actions that we did previously so we can just select one
now we're going to create that trigger and then that we're gonna add it to our
Wemo switch turn it on and I only have one of these switches if you had
multiple switches that would show them here I'm going to create that action all
right so there we go so now we have our first action and that
was for the Wemo switch so looking back again we have the one you know we have
this branch we have the Google home it's going to call out to stringify then it's
gonna call back to IFTTT and set up the turn on the Wemo now we have to create
this branch which is just the matter of creating that other applet alright so we
have our three trigger setup this is just to turn on the lights again so if
we look at this we have the one for the google assistants so when we call out to
our Google home and say set up the studio it's going to run this and then
it's going to trigger our action in this flow in stringify
and then once that's triggered it's going to call out to those two IFTTT
applets and coming back here which are these two the one for the Wemo switch
and the one for the i home and it's going to trigger that and turn those
lights on so to turn it off we need to do the same thing we set up our command
so we could say you know like turn off studio and then we set up the two flows
the same way except instead of turning the light on we're gonna turn it off and
that is all you need for method one of this setup alright guys so that's all
there is to it now it's I know it sounds a little bit complicated in this
tutorial but I promise you once you get in there and start doing it it's really
not as bad as it seems and you can use these techniques for other things that
IFTTT and stringify support not just the home automation stuff but I hope you
guys found this useful and informative if you did give it a thumbs up and
consider subscribing if you haven't subscribed already I do tutorials like
this as well as technical reviews and pretty much anything tech related so if
you like that kind of stuff please subscribe and come see me on Twitter
Instagram and Facebook I love meeting new people on there and chatting with
them as well and I will see you in the next video