Our Head of Community Success is a proud parent to two year old twins. As you can imagine, meal times in their household can get a little hectic. To make sure that the family dog, Maddy, gets her meals on time, they decided to put their automation skills and smart home technology to use.
Here’s Maddy, patiently waiting for her next meal.
The Applets
Each morning and evening at pre-set times, a TP-Link kasa turns on a switch that powers a small light. Once Maddy has been fed, they use a custom Amazon Alexa phrase to trigger an Applet.
The Alexa phrase triggers an Applet that turns off the TP-Link kasa switch and updates a Google Sheet to change a cell to “fed”.
There is a third Applet that runs 30 minutes after Maddy’s regular mealtimes. This Applet checks the value of the Google Sheet to determine if the cell reads “fed” or “not fed”. If Maddy has not been fed and the cell reads “not fed”, a final Applet will trigger a Phone call directly to Maddy’s owner’s phone.
Around mid-day, a separate Applet resets the value of the Google Sheet cell so that it is ready to go for Maddy’s next meal time.
Custom phrase Applet and tracking
Phone call reminder
As a reminder before you leave the house for work, this Applet will query the value of your Fed/Not fed cell in the Google Sheet. If the value remains Not Fed by 9 am, you will receive a phone call letting you know it’s time to feed your pet!
Applet to reset your cell value
This Applet acts as a reset between mealtimes so it's ready to go before the following run.
How it works
Our Head of Community Success has two versions of these Applets, for both of Maddy’s daytime and night time meals. These Applets work thanks to our Pro and Pro+ features, including queries, filter code, and multiple actions.
You can enable these Applets yourself, or convert them to your own Applets and edit them to suit your pet’s schedule using Pro+ (you can try it free here).
Try it yourself
You could use this Applet to track your plant watering schedule, your pet's daily walk schedule, or even track habits that you are trying to start.
If you use this Applet, let us know how it went! You can reach us on Twitter @IFTTT.
Want to make this Applet your own? Start your free Pro+ trial today.
