IFTTT’s recipe library of internet-of-things triggers just got an interesting new ingredient. Family tracking app Life360 is integrating with IFTTT letting users coordinate actions based on the movement and location of a family, not just individuals. IFTTT already has recipes in place letting you link your movements to specific events, but Life360 is designed to keep track of an entire family’s location, not just an individual’s.
If all your family members have left the house, then automatically turn the lights off. Such conditional home obedience is one of the projected benefits of a new integration between family app Life360 and IFTTT, the “if this-then that” provider. Those conditional statements — called “Recipes” by IFTTT — are “triggered” by conditions that result in “Actions.” The company enables users to click icons that create conditional statements between platform APIs. If I come home, then show a color loop on my family’s smartphones. In software, if/then statements have long been common regulators of what to do when certain conditions are met, and IFTTT’s vision is to make services easily conditional for non-programmers.
