IFTTT applets can be really powerful in automating your home, but sometimes you want them to run only during a certain time of day. Yes, you could enable and disable the applet throughout the day, but that seems to defeat the purpose of automation. Using SEQUEmatic, you can limit the time that your IFTTT applet runs so it only triggers during a certain timeframe or perhaps only at night or during the day. Read on to learn how.

The sequence itself is quite straightforward, and to help get you started you can import this shared sequence into your SEQUEmatic account. Here’s a screenshot of what it looks like.

Breaking this down, here’s what the sequence does:

• First, it’s triggered by an IFTTT webhook call. Take note of the URL provided here as you will need this when setting up your IFTTT applet.
• Then, it checks if the time is between 6pm and 10pm on any day of the week. You could modify this to a particular day, and also any time during that day. Or, maybe you want it to run only after dark or if it’s during daylight.
• If this condition is met, then it makes a call back to IFTTT to trigger your device. You even have the option of adding multiple steps here so that more than one device can fire.

Let’s go through what is required in IFTTT to make this work. In this example, I want my Philips Hue lights to turn on when I arrive home but only between 6pm and 10pm.

The IFTTT trigger

To trigger the sequence, I need to create an IFTTT applet which is triggered by location and then uses the webhook service to run my SEQUEmatic sequence.

In the IF THIS component, select the location service and set the location you need to enter.

In the THEN THAT component you select the webhook service and populate the URL field with the URL provided in the trigger step of your SEQUEmatic sequence. Apart from the URL, you can leave the other settings with their default values.

That’s all there is to the IFTTT trigger applet. You can view the full applet here.

The IFTTT applet to control your devices

The final piece you need in IFTTT is an applet which will control your device. SEQUEmatic will trigger this applet if the time conditions are met.

In the IF THIS component, select the webhook service to receive a webhook request. The event name should match the name provided in your SEQUEmatic sequence. In this example it was named trigger_device.

In the THEN THAT component, select whatever service you want to run. In my example I want my Philips Hue lights to be turned on as you can see in the screenshot below.

And that is all you need. Your applet here might look quite different depending on which service you trigger, however if you’d like to look at the full applet you can find it here.

Wrap-up

In summary, what you’ve now created is:

• An IFTTT applet to trigger a SEQUEmatic sequence when a particular event occurs (eg entering an area)
• A SEQEUmatic sequence which checks the time of day
• Another IFTTT applet which is triggered by SEQUEmatic if the time conditions are met

Hopefully this has been helpful in getting you started, and you can now modify and expand on this set up for your own scenario.

As always, if you have any questions post in the Q&A forum, leave a message in the comments below or contact me directly. Also, if you’ve found this helpful share your use case in the comments!