Flic - Wireless Smart Button

Ever see the Satechi bluetooth buttons? Im wondering if these can be used with IFTTT?

They have to have their own IFTTT channel. I don’t think I’ve seen them there. But it’s easy to check the channel list. www.ifttt.com

Or use tasker on android?

So first test today with my service dog. Flic worked great! The single press is a much lighter touch than I expected, so it was easy for him. This gives us a lot of good options. :sunglasses::dog:

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I must of have missed something @JDRoberts. What are you having your service dog do?

My experience with Flic has been sporadic. I’m using it as a switch to control a couple of lamps. Using IFTTT i’m getting response times of anywhere from 3 seconds to 2 minutes. Hard for me to deal with anything beyond 5 seconds really.

I noticed one of the actions available in the Flic app is an HTTP request. Screenshot below. I imagine this may be a gateway to an ST integration. I also imagine that you’d be able to get quicker and more reliable results going this route over IFTTT.

My own coding knowledge doesn’t go beyond Apple Automator, so I’m a bit stuck here. Anyone want to take a closer look at this or at least let us know where to start?

I mostly use echo to control lights and other things that need to happen very quickly. The button is a backup plan for something, particularly if for whatever reason I want something done quietly. Or if the room is so noisy that echo can’t hear. Or if it’s one of those days when my own voice is very slurred, which happens sometimes.

Right now, the plan for the first button is just to turn the entertainment center on and off. So it doesn’t have to be as quick as a light would be. I’m getting a pretty consistent eight second response time from the flic via IFTTT which is just fine for this.

The yellow button on the left side of the entertainment center is a flic. I can push it with my knee from the wheelchair and the dog can push it with his nose. :sunglasses::dog:

I also plan to eventually have a flic that will activate an automatic door opener.

As far as the HTTP method, sure, that should work. That’s how Dave glass originally set up IBeacons/SmartThings integration.

@ultrazero

Instructions for getting Flic to send GET requests to SmartThings endpoints:

  • Install the REST Endpoint smartapp and authorize the devices you
    want to be controllable by Flic - taken from this tutorial

  • Copy a URL for either On,Off, or Toggle from the website that you are
    brought to after installing the smartapp.

  • Paste the URL into the Flic app, select “GET”, and Show Response > No

You will have to do this for each on/off command that you want to have a Flic send.

I’m still waiting for my Flic’s to be delivered, but I’ve tried this with a virtual Flic and it works fine.

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Excellent!! That works great. 1.5-2 seconds every time. I was going to spend the day learning how to write a smartapp, but looks like I don’t have to just yet. :wink:

Thanks for the tip @nelemansc!

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So in case anyone was looking for other buttons, take a look at these:

I installed these at both ends of my cabinets for my wife.

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This example is all well and good, but ideally I’d like to be able to install a similar application that would provide FULL REST endpoint functionality for all smartthings device types, not just switches.

Anybody have any thoughts on that?

Or can someone from SmartThings chime in on if you’re actively working with Flic to get support going?

Have you had a chance to look at the developer docs? Or the forum section of this community for developers? It might be of interest. For example:

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@JDRoberts, nice find. If i can pass the access token via a “get” command, then Flic would work… that’s what I was sturggling with, since their GET / PUT commands didn’t allow header parameters.

I’ll play with it now, awesome find!

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One thing that I’ve never seen documented and that helped me tremendously with Tasker is that you don’t have to use access tokens to call endpoints…

You can use basic authentication too I.e. username and password.

Obviously you wouldn’t give those details to a third party… But for flic integration… Sure!

Yea, I’ve failed pretty badly on this. Ideally I’d like to use Tasker, but I’m on iOS… anyone have any interest in writing a fully fledged REST API piece like was done in the example, but expose every type of smartthings endpoint?

Or anyone want to take this example further to try to get it to work without setting up another webserver?

Is there a rest api I could use for my Flic in order to have routines get triggered. I just got 4 flics and really want to have one by my bed for a goodnight / panic button. Ideas?

I hooked up a flic though IFTTT to ST. It is pretty neat.

As JD mentioned - if you are already using mounted tablets with Smart Tiles - it’s easy to tie your Flics to those tablet’s BT.

Looking forward to a more direct integration but for now this is great.

That’s how I’m going to have them connected, via a tablet. However I really want to trigger a goodnight routine. I know IFTTT doesn’t do that but if there’s a endpoint api that allowed me to trigger routines someone please let me know.

Just have IFTTT flip a virtual switch that triggers the routine. Easy. :sunglasses:

You can also do the same thing with the more complicated Alexa helper or rule machine if you want to start putting other kinds of conditional logic on it.

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I knew you would have the answer. @JDRoberts I forgot about those apps. I’ll check them out now.

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Are you using a on/off switch or monetary switch to trigger routines?