It works! It works great! Totally handsfree voice control.
I had briefly looked into IFTTT before, but dismissed it as an option because I thought it was too limited. As mentioned before, I love my ipad, but didn’t have any smartphone as physically they were too hard for me to use. (I’m quadriparetic with limited hand function.)
But @Will_Poirier brilliantly noticed that you can use one SMS message to IFTTT to trigger multiple SmartThings channel requests.
And with iOS 8 and handsfree Hey Siri I can now do everything handsfree. No custom code, just the simple IFTTT rules engine.
As for hardware and costs…if you already have an iPhone and unlimited text, this adds zero cost. 
I had messaging for my iPad 2, the one on my wheelchair, but no Siri.
Coincidentally, I got an ATT marketing letter this week. I think they’re trying to get rid of old inventory. Anyway, they offered an iPhone 5C on their Next plan plus a gen 1 cellular-enabled iPad mini for an additional $99.
My total additional costs will be about $20/month more than I’ve been paying now. (Again, if I had already had an iPhone with unlimited text, there would be no additional costs. The $20 is the installment purchase of the 5c.)
Had my techie helper over today, we got everything set up in about 10 minutes, works perfectly! Never had to touch the IDE.
Hands free voice control via Siri for anything that’s controllable via the IFTTT SmartThings channel.