How to: Use Wink Without Opening the Wink App

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It’s late, you’ve just come home from grocery shopping, and your hands are full. Fumbling once you’re through the front door to find the light switch is a hassle. So is searching for your phone before you get out of the car. Luckily, there are a number of ways you can leverage the power of Wink to make everyday tasks in the home a little bit easier to carry out without even opening the Wink app: 

IFTTT

IFTTT (If This, Then That) is a web service that lets you turn many different products and apps - from Instagram and Dropbox, to Google Calendar and Jawbone - into triggers (IFTTT calls them Recipes) for other actions. IFTTT is a great way to expand the depth of your smart home. For example, you could set up an IFTTT Recipe that turns off the lights, locks the door, and adjusts the thermostat when you’re in bed and set your Jawbone UP to sleep mode. Read more about how to use Wink + IFTTT here.

Wink Robots

Robots can be created within the Wink app to make your connected products and even your location a trigger for other actions to take place (similar to IFTTT). You could set one up that triggers the downstairs lights to turn on whenever the sensor on your front door detects it’s being opened, or another that shuts the garage door, locks the door, and shuts off all the lights after you pull out of the driveway every morning. Read more about how to create a Wink Robot here. 

Wink Schedules

With a Schedule, connected products can be set to turn off products at a desired time, or at Sunrise/Sunset. Particularly handy if you’re someone who often works late into the night, but want to create the illusion that someone is home by having the lights turn on. Read more about how to create a Wink Schedule here.

Amazon Alexa

The Amazon Alexa voice assistant allows you to put many of the automations mentioned above into action, with a simple voice command. You can ask Alexa to turn on/off or dim a Wink-compatible lighting product, or adjust the temperature of a Wink-enabled Nest Thermostat. You can take this a step further by creating a Shortcut within the Wink app (Shortcuts let you control multiple connected products with one tap), activate the Wink Shortcut and Alexa channels within IFTTT, and create The Recipe: “If Alexa is triggered, then activate Wink Shortcut.” 

How To: Create a Wink Robot

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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.