How To: Use Wink with IFTTT

“If This Then That,” more commonly know as IFTTT, is a web service that connects all your favorite apps into one so they work better for you. “Recipes” are set up within IFTTT to trigger specific actions given a certain set of criteria. For example, you could create a Recipe that texts you the weather at the beginning of each day, or one that automatically saves every Instagram photo you post in a Dropbox folder. 

IFTTT also works wonders with the smart home. The Wink channel on IFTTT allows you to activate Wink Shortcuts through a variety of triggers, ranging from ESPN alerts to Google Calendar events. For example, using IFTTT, you can activate your smart home camera when your Google Calendar notifies you that it’s time to leave for vacation through a Wink Shortcut. 

Creating and utilizing the Wink channel within IFTTT is easy. Let’s follow along with the vacation example and start with how you sync with the IFTTT Wink channel:

Step 1: Download the IFTTT app and create an account (this can also be done via the web interface).

Step 2: Tap the “Recipe” button in the upper right corner. 

Step 3: Select the gear icon in the bottom right corner. 

Step 4: Select “Channels,” and you will see a menu with all of the compatible IFTTT channels. 

Step 5: Type in "Wink" and select “Wink Shortcuts.” 

Step 6: From this menu you can connect to the Wink Shortcuts channel within IFTTT. Once you press “Connect” you will be prompted to enter your Wink account email and password. When the connection is successful, the channel will display “Connected as ____”

Now let’s create the Recipe that triggers your Wink Shortcut to activate your smart home camera when the Google Calendar event "Vacation" starts. 

Step 1: Activate the Google Calendar channel within IFTTT.

Step 2: Select the gear icon in the bottom right corner.

Step 3: Tap the “Create a Recipe” button at the bottom of the screen.

Step 4: Select the “if +” sign and then tap the Google Calendar channel. You will want to select the event within your calendar that you want to have trigger the event. 

Step 5: Tap the “then +” sign and select the Wink Shortcuts channel. 

Step 6: Choose the “Vacation” Shortcut.

Step 7: Tap “Finish” and your Recipe is complete!

This is just one of many examples through which IFTTT + Wink Shortcuts can be used to further elevate what's possible in your smart home!

How To: Create a Wink Robot

Wink Robots are a simple way to automate your home to run on its own. With a few taps in the Wink app, you can program your products to work together automatically based on triggers, such as location or activity.

USING LOCATION TO TRIGGER ROBOTS:

Let's say you want your lights to automatically turn off when you leave the home:

• Step 1: From the home page of the Wink app, select "Robots" at the bottom of the screen.

• Step 2: Tap the "New Robot" button. Then, name your Robot (let’s call this one “Leaving Home”) and choose the desired trigger for the Robot. In this case, the trigger will be you leaving your home.

• Step 3: Under "If this Robot detects" select "Something" and then "My location." You now have the option to choose if the Robot will trigger upon arrival or departure from the location of your choosing. For this example you would select departure.

• Step 4: Under "Then:" press "Make this / something happen." Similar to when you set up Shortcuts, you will see a complete list of the products you’re using with Wink. Select the products you are interested in having the Robot trigger and choose their desired state. Here, you would select “All Lights” and set their state to “Off."

• Step 5: The "For longer than" option is an additional feature that is not required when creating a Robot but can be very useful. If you want your lights to turn off, but only if you’ve left home for 15 minutes or more, select "For longer than" and your desired timeframe. 

USING PRODUCT ACTIVITY TO TRIGGER ROBOTS:

In addition to location, you can also use your products to trigger Wink Robots. Following the example above, say you'd rather the lights automatically turn on once your front door is unlocked:

• Step 1: Go into your "Leaving Home" Robot in the Wink app.

• Step 2: Under "If this Robot detects:" select "Something," then "Front Door," and change the settings to "Unlock."

• Step 3: Click "Make this happen" and select all lights to the "On" state. 

Get notified when a Robot is triggered:

We all want to know what is going on in our homes, especially when something out of the ordinary occurs. You now have the option to receive a notification when a Robot is triggered. To do so, simply go into the "Make this happen" button within Robots and choose "Send a Notification" or "Send an Email" so you're always in the loop.

Wink Robots may not retrieve your mail or pour your coffee in the morning, but they can make some of life’s little inconveniences a bit more manageable. 

How To: Create a Wink Shortcut

Shortcuts are a great way to easily access and control a group of Wink-compatible devices. They can make a lot of things happen within your smart home instantaneously with a single tap in the Wink app. If you’re not familiar with Shortcuts, here’s a step-by-step guide on how you can set one up.

Say you’re about to fall asleep and want to make sure the living room lights are turned off without having to leave your bed. Here’s how to avoid the trip downstairs by creating a Shortcut:

• Step 1: For iOS users, select "Shortcuts" at the bottom of the home screen within the Wink app (top of the screen for Android users).

• Step 2: Tap the "New Shortcut" button.

• Step 3: Then, name your Shortcut (let’s call this one "Good Night") and choose the desired action such as turning off the living room lights. To change the icon, tap the "Choose Icon" button at the top and select a relevant image. 

• Step 4: Click "Make this Happen." You will then see a complete list of the products you’re using with Wink. Select the products you are interested in adding to the Shortcut and choose their desired state. For this example, select "All Lights" and set their state to "Off."

• Step 5: You’re all set! Just don’t forget to save your Shortcut by selecting "Done."

Adding additional products to existing Shortcuts:

If you want to add other products to your "Goodnight" Shortcut down the line, you can do so in a pinch. Say that in addition to your lights going off, you want to make sure your front door is locked and bedroom thermostat lowers:

• Step 1: Select the "Shortcuts" menu on the home screen of your Wink app.

• Step 2: Press and hold down on your "Good Night" Shortcut to add products to it.  

• Step 3: Select "Edit Good Night."

• Step 4: Select "Make this Happen" and add both your front door and bedroom thermostat, selecting the desired outcomes for each product. 

Access your Shortcuts even quicker with Widgets:

Widgets allow for almost immediate access to your Shortcuts. Android users have the Widget Bar, which can hold up to five different Shortcuts in one menu. You also have the ability to place a single Shortcut on any page of your device in the form of a Widget. 

iOS users have a Wink Shortcuts Widget where you can scroll through any active shortcut. This is located in your notification window and can be accessed even if your mobile device is locked. 

Creating a Shortcut is easy, fast, and with a wide variety of Wink-enabled products at your fingertips, the possibilities for home automation are endless. 

Smart Home Glossary

With the smart home comes terms, phrases or descriptions that you might not be familiar with. So, we wanted to define, in easy-to-understand terms, five of the more common smart home terms you might encounter.

1. Hub: A smart home hub translates different protocols into a unified language so that all your smart devices can work together.
2. Geofence: Geofencing uses the GPS, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth in your smartphone to create a virtual boundary around a real world location. It can then be used to trigger something in your smart home to happen - like your lights or air conditioner turning on - as soon as you (and your phone) enter or exit that boundary.
3. Pairing: Synonymously known as ‘provisioning’ or ‘learning mode,’ this is the process through which your smart devices establish a line of communication with your hub, so that you can monitor and control them through apps like Wink.
4. Platform: A smart home platform is like the foundation of your house or apartment building. It’s the underlying technology layer upon which different products from different brands are integrated together (usually with the help of a hub) and then controlled through a single app. We at Wink consider ourselves to be a smart home platform first and foremost.
5. Protocol: A protocol is a set of standards and rules - we like to think of them as languages - that smart devices use to communicate with one another. Among the more popular protocols are Z-Wave, ZigBee, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), and Wi-Fi.

Hope this helps! We’ll be adding to this list over time. If there are smart home terms you’d like to better understand, let us know in the comments section!

3 Ways to Use a Smart Garage Door Opener

A little known fact: we started out in a humble garage in the middle of Manhattan and have affectionately called our subsequent homes “the garage,” regardless of their location.

Some news: today, GoControl joins our ever growing ecosystem of Wink-compatible garage door openers, including Chamberlain.

With both of these in mind, we thought some helpful pointers were long overdue on how your garage door opener can be an integral part of your smart home:

• Connect them with outdoor lights: This can particularly useful if you have a detached garage. Set up a Robot in Wink that triggers the porch or patio lights to turn on as soon as the garage is opened and you’ll never trip down a dark walkway again.

• Let a friend or family member in when you're not home: Here again the ability to control your devices remotely can come in very handy. Need to give a neighbor access so they can pick up or drop off a tool midday? No problem. Kid forget their house key but you know the door between the garage and the house is unlocked? Voilà.

• Set up a Shortcut to make bedtime easier: If you have a garage, it’s a fair guess that your dwelling is on the larger side. Which means more lights to turn off, thermostats to adjust and doors to lock before you fall asleep (or questioning whether or not you completed everything while in bed). A great way to make the process easy is by setting up a Goodnight Shortcut in Wink so that you can shut down multiple products - including closing your garage door - in a pinch.

5 Ways to Make the Most of Your Smart Lights

We’ve seen that many Wink users start out on their smart home journey by installing a few smart light bulbs. With that in mind, we wanted to share five things you can try to get even more out of your bulbs (and make your life easier along the way):

Turn them off when you’re not home:

We’ve all had that “did I turn off the lights?” moment after we’ve left the house. Smart lights eliminate the guesswork. You can quickly check their status within the Wink app and turn them on or off accordingly to save energy and money.

Automatically dim lights at night for better sleep:

We live in an age where bright lights, television, computers and phone screens keep us up late into the night. By scheduling your smart lights (check out OSRAM LIGHTIFY) to slowly dim at night, you can simulate the natural rhythm of the sun to help your body gradually adjust to sleeping. Just a few taps in the Wink app enables your lighting to move from a bright white during the day to a softer yellow at night.

Have your lighting match your mood:

With tunable bulbs, like those from Philips HUE, you can customize the color of your home's lighting to enhance your environment. A full spectrum of color ensures your light is in line with what you're doing at home, whether that's cool blue for morning coffee in the kitchen or a vibrant yellow while reading on the couch.

Save time by using widgets on your phone:

Turning your Wink-compatible lights on and off can be done even faster when you create a Shortcut - consider a Goodnight Shortcut that turns everything off when you’re ready for bed - and enable widgets on your phone. From there, simply swipe down the notification center on your iPhone, or go to the home screen on your Android phone.

Connect lights with your other smart products:

Smart homes can be most beneficial when all of your products are working together. If you have multiple devices, consider setting up a Robot so that one action automatically triggers a series of others. For example, you could have your bedroom lights turn on if smoke is detected to help you wake up and leave the house safely.

Back to School - How the Smart Home Removes Some of the Stress

Between buying new school supplies, sorting out carpool logistics and coping with first-day jitters, back-to-school can be a stressful time to say the least!

While the lives of parents will soon become a lot more hectic, there are a number of ways to easily cut out some of the stress. And you won’t find them in the flashy activity tracker or newest ‘phablet,' but rather in your smart home. 

Here are a few ways how:

• Your child forgot their keys at home: Let’s face it, we’ve all done it once. This is where smart door locks - like the Schlage Touchscreen Deadbolt - can really work their magic. You can give your child a unique code they can use in place of a key and receive an alert when that code is used. And if your child forgets their code, no matter. A quick tap within the Wink app can unlock the front door no matter where you are. 
• You’re sick of returning to a tampered thermostat: Traditional thermostats with lots of buttons are an open invitation for children to make the temperature go haywire. Keep tabs on your home’s climate and schedule it to adjust right when school gets out with a smart thermostat like the Emerson Sensi. You can also get alerted if anyone tries to mess with it.
• You want to make sure everyone got home safe: Smart cameras - like Nest Cam - are a great way to quickly see what’s going on at home. Set one up in your living room or kitchen and connect it with Wink for real time monitoring no matter where you are. It’s a great way to get peace of mind that the kids got home safe and the pets haven’t run off into the wild. 
• Everyone is finally in bed, but is everything turned off?: Sure it’s dark in your bedroom, but what about the downstairs hallway? Was the TV turned off? Is the garage door still open? Create a ‘Good Night’ Shortcut in Wink to lock up the house and turn everything off with just one swipe.

A few simple steps with your smart home can go a long way in re-introducing some sanity to the start of the school year!

5 TIPS TO GET YOU STARTED ON YOUR NEW SMART HOME.

Ready to take the smart home for a spin but not sure where to start? Many have the misconception that the smart home is complicated, inaccessible, or unaffordable. But that’s not the case! Anyone with a smartphone and access to the Internet can have a comprehensive smart home for very little money and effort. While it still may seem a little daunting, we’re here to make the journey as streamlined and smooth as possible. If you’re just starting out, here are five helpful tips to consider:

1. Understand why you want to have a smart home

Is it to save money on energy? To manage home security when you’re away? To keep tabs on your family from afar? Taking the time to answer this question for yourself will go a long way in helping you select which products to purchase.

2. Don’t buy into a closed platform

Before diving in, check to make sure the platform you’re looking at works with a wide variety of products (locks, lights, garage door openers, etc.) from leading, trusted brands. This will enable you to more easily determine what works best for you and your lifestyle, while giving you far more opportunities to add to your smart home ecosystem over the years. Wink connects with hundreds of devices from scores of leading brands including Cree, Nest and Chamberlain.

3. Start small

People think you have to invest thousands of dollars and purchase tons of devices to have a comprehensive smart home. We strongly believe that you should start out with a few connected devices (or even just one), and add more over time. For example, a few smart light bulbs can be turned on from your phone for added security if you’re having a late night at work, or be programmed to turn off automatically when you’re ready for bed.

4. Select products from the brands you trust

You’d be surprised by the number of recognizable brands that are making smart home devices. From GE to Schlage to Philips, leaders in product categories are working together to make the smart home a reality. When building your own smart home, stick with the companies you know. It’s always best to have a trusted partner in crime in case you ever need to troubleshoot or ask questions!

5. Utilize triggers and automation

Most smart home platforms let you group multiple products together so they perform at once with a tap on your phone. Use it! Automation is one of the best perks of having a smart home. For example, if you’re going to bed, you could trigger your lights to go off, blinds to lower, and thermostat to adjust—all from your smartphone. How’s that for convenience?