Apilio is awesome! I used it with Wyze to create a simple security system.

[phill...@gmail.com]

Just had to come in here to say how grateful I am this service exists! Tonight was really my first venture into IFTTT. I'd always assumed, based on how people talked about it, that it was capable of complex workflows. Turns out, not so much... but luckily apilio gave me what I was looking for.

In case it would benefit anyone looking to do the same thing, I'll give a quick rundown of my security setup. I'm using the Wyze sensors, which are dirt cheap: https://www.wyze.com/wyze-sense/ (you need the camera as well).

Right now I'm just using the contact sensors (not the motion one). By default, all they will do is send you a notification on your phone when they are open/closed/left open. Not terribly useful, and very likely to get super annoying if you leave those notifications on.

Instead now I have an apilio boolean for "alarm_active". An IFTTT applet sets this to true every night, and false again every morning. When either door is opened, I run a logic block on apilio that checks if the alarm_active boolean is true, and if so, I trigger another IFTTT action to call my phone (which is a lot more useful than a simple notification).

I also have alexa and google assistant commands to enable/disable the alarm, as well as to check the status I'm not sure.

Anyways, I'm pretty pumped that this service allowed me to use these sensors in a way that's actually beneficial to me. Happy to answer any questions you all might have about my setup

[Philipp]

Cool stuff - thanks for sharing!

[hambrick03]

I am new to using Apilio, but I've had Wyze and IFTTT for over a year. Can you share how you set up this action step by step? I would like to eventually set up a light to turn on when a sensor opens.

[phill...@gmail.com]

Ok so since it sounds like your questions are mostly about Apilio, I'll focus on what I did there. My setup has gotten a little more complex since this posting (I also have it keeping track of when my wife and I are both away from home, which will automatically enable the alarm), but to keep it simple I'll just discuss how I got the scheduled alarm working.

On apilio, I created a boolean variable: "alarm_scheduled"

I have two IFTTT applets that control enabling (setting this variable to true) and disabling (setting it false) the alarm. So at 11PM one applet sends a web request that looks like

https://apilio.herokuapp.com/boolean_variables/alarm_scheduled/set_true/with_key/yourpersonalkeygoeshere

Then in the morning, a similar applet sends a web request to set the variable false (same url as above but replace "set_true" with "set_false". So that takes care of the scheduling.

Then to actually utilize this, I have another applet for my front door wyze sensor. When this sensor becomes "open", it does a web request to my apilio logic block.

The logic block will check the "alarm_scheduled" boolean, and if it is "true", it will send a web request to IFTTT, otherwise it will do nothing. So in this case you create a new applet where the "if" is a webhook. IFTTT will give you a url that you can then add to your apilio logic block. When that webhook is triggered by apilio (ie. when the front door is opened AND the alarm is scheduled), IFTTT will call my phone.

Hope that's helpful, let me know if I can clarify anything further for you.

[thequietman44]

I have a similar setup, but I track several conditions in their own variables (whether my wife or I am home, whether it's night time, whether it's the weekend), then I have a boolean "alarm_disabled" that's manually triggered with a Google Assistant voice command that lets me override the normally scheduled behavior. For example, if both my wife and I are not home, the alarm is active. If it's night time (midnight to 7am) the alarm is active whether or not either/both of us are home. If it's the weekend and I'm not home but my wife is, the alarm is active. The alarm logicblock is triggered when any associated condition changes, and my Wyze contact/motion sensors are all assigned to individual variables/conditions so I can fine tune the behavior.

@hambrick03, I have a very simple setup for the light in my shed that turns on the lights when the motion sensor detects motion and turns them off 1 minute after motion is clear. It only triggers if it's also between sunset and sunrise. I use a Wyze motion sensor with a cheap smart outlet (Smart Life compatible) connected to a shop light, so it should work for just about any kind of light/outlet. There's about a 5 second delay due to IFTTT/Apilio though, so keep that in mind for expectations. If you're invested in the Wyze products they are releasing a smart bulb this month that will apparently have native integration with their motion/contact sensors and much quicker response times, so keep that in mind if you're looking for a quick and easy solution.

[phill...@gmail.com]

Wow yeah, that sounds almost exactly like my full setup @thequietman44 (I wanted to give a simplified version to serve as an intro to apilio). I also found that using a string variable for my master override "alarm_status" worked best. So three states: "enabled" (I'll get a call every time the door is opened), "disabled" (under no circumstances will I get a call), and empty string "" (this is basically the auto setting, ie. use the other variables to determine whether or not to trigger the alarm).

The complex conditional stuff for the logic block was by far the hardest part... Mine currently looks like this:

OR(alarm_status_enabled,AND(OR(AND(peter_is_away,stepha_is_away),alarm_is_scheduled),alarm_status_not_disabled))

Seems a little silly/redundant that you have to define conditionals in addition to the variables, but oh well.

Hoping to incorporate some smart bulbs soon (I preordered the Wyze bulbs since they seemed pretty affordable and figured they'd go well with the rest of my system).

[hambrick03]

This is what I have in apilio

[hambrick03]

These are the IFTTT applets I have