SmartThings Community

IFTTT delays/failures

(Chris) #1

Anyone else having really bad delays or recipes that don’t run with IFTTT lately? It’s usually pretty laggy for me, but catches up after 5-10 mins. I have 3 virtual switches each for my wife and I, one for presence, one to indicate if our phones are connected to our home wifi, and one to indicate if our phones are charging. The past few days, they either don’t update at all, or maybe only one of the three will update. I can log in to the IFTTT app and manually run the recipes and they still don’t show in the IFTTT action log or toggle the virtual switches in ST. Anyone experiencing the same, or have any tips? I’ll probably shoot an email to IFTTT support but wanted to check here also.

When I took this screenshot, both of us were home, both phones were charging, and both were connected to wifi.

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#2

Mine’s been the same as usual, a typical eight second lag, and I use it all the time so I would have noticed.

But it does seem like IFTTT lag varies a lot from house to house and they may have regional servers, I honestly don’t know.

I don’t see lag being reported on their Twitter feed, so it doesn’t look like it’s a widespread problem. You can contact their support and see what they say:

https://ifttt.com/support

(Jason "The Enabler" as deemed so by @Smart) #3

I don’t use IFTTT a whole lot… but the little I do it had been really bad the past couple of weeks.

I use it to turn on and off my phone Wi-Fi when I arrive and leave. This one has been so flakey I set up two recipes for each phone. One using life 360 and another using android presence.

The other use is when we are at the grocery store. It turns on a VS so when wet get home a routine runs, and only when we come home from the store. I originally had it set to fire when we left the store. That was bad. We usually got home before the recipe fired. I changed it to when we arrive at the store… still very flakey… there is almost a 30 minute delay most of the time.

(Marc) #4

I am noticing failures and delays too. It sure if its with just ST recipes though?

(Chris) #5

Just sent an email to support, will see what they say. I deleted and re-added the recipes and reconnected the ST channel from both my account and my wife’s accounts. Mine actually ran last night, although with a 30 min delay. My wife’s still are not running.

#6

A 30 minute delay is way outside of normal parameters. :disappointed_relieved: Have you checked to see if non-smartthings recipes have the same delay? If you have a Phillips hue bridge, it has its own IFTTT channel. Or a Logitech Harmony hub. Or any other device that might have its own channel. I would think if the problem is with IFT TT and a lot of people were experiencing and then it would show up on their Twitter feed.

(Chris) #7

I don’t have any non-ST recipes set up. The issue is with the recipes running late or not at all though. I’m able to look through the history and the time stamps in IFTTT and ST and they match pretty closely. Last night, for example, ST logged me as arriving at 10:49pm. The IFTTT recipe for entering an area didn’t run until 11:24pm, and the ST switch was turned on at the same time, so no delay between IFTTT and ST. This morning ST shows me leaving at 8:01, but the IFTTT recipe has not yet run almost 2 hours later. My phone is reporting presence correctly, otherwise ST wouldn’t be logging my arrivals and departures, but IFTTT is not picking it up for whatever reason.

#8

But there may be a delay between smartthings and IFTTT on the trigger side, rather than between IFTTT receiving the trigger and IFTTT running the recipe.

That’s why I suggested trying something other than SmartThings as the IF and seeing if that triggers a recipe any more quickly.

There’s a presence channel on IFTTT for both iOS and android, you could try that as the IF if you have one of those phones.

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(Marc) #9

FWIW, I just tested Alexa/Harmony recipe and it worked instantly. I then tested a ST-Rachio recipe and it worked instantly. I then tested an Alexa Trigger -> ST Recipe and it worked as well. I think all is well for me at least.

(Chris) #10

I’m not using SmartThings to trigger IFTTT, I’m using Android Location and Android Device channels in IFTTT as the “if this” to set virtual switches in ST as the “then this”.

Maybe it would help if I explain my setup more in depth. I’m going to focus just on my presence, but I have a duplicate of everything below set up for my wife as well.

To add some redundancy to help work around the intermittent mobile presence issues that I have seen using my phone as a presence sensor in SmartThings, and to make it easier to delete and re-add my phone if it stops reporting (which has happened twice in the 4 months I’ve had my hub), I created a virtual presence sensor (named Chris) to use as a trigger for my various routines, pistons, and push notifications. I am using the CoRE piston below to set the status of this virtual presence sensor. Two reasons for this: first, I can use several different inputs to set the status of this virtual presence sensor instead of just relying on ST phone presence only, and second, when I have to delete and re-add my phone as a presence sensor, I just have to remove and re-add it one place instead of 5+.

So…here’s the piston:

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Phone presence is self-explanatory.

For the Chris Presence IFTTT switch, I have two recipes in IFTTT that use Android Location channel to turn this switch on and off in ST, one for entering my home area, one for exiting.

For the Chris WiFi IFTTT switch, I have two recipes in IFTTT that use Android Device channel to turn this switch on and off in ST, one for when I connect to my home wifi network, and one for when I disconnect from my home wifi network.

The issue that I’m seeing is that the IFTTT recipes for Android Location and Android Device are not running correctly. When they do run, they turn the corresponding switches on and off almost immediately in SmartThings, so the connection between IFTTT and ST is fine. The problem is within IFTTT itself and the fact that the recipes don’t run or are severely delayed based on the IF portions of IFTTT’s own internal channels.

#11

Got it. In that case I would definitely check with IFTTT support. Let us know what they say.

(Chris) #12

I sent in a support request from my wife’s account since hers is worse than mine. I also deleted and reinstalled the app on my phone to see if that clears up the issues on my side, otherwise I’ll contact support from my account as well. Will keep you guys updated.

(Chris) #13

My location recipe took 7 hours to update last night, looks like the reinstall didn’t help.

(smth) #14

Did support IFTTT answer your question? What was the solution? I have the same problem, the air sensor should turn on the dimmer at the set level. I also have a few minutes delay …

(Chris) #15

I don’t remember exactly what they told me but they didn’t fix anything. I have quit using IFTTT presence for anything, it’s terrible.

I am using IFTTT Google Assistant triggers with web hook actions though and they come through almost immediately.

(smth) #16

You broke me down. I bought SmartThings due to integration of specific sensors and operation of the device that I create …

(Todd Basche) #17

I am struggling with presence as well. I am using iftt to detect when my phone and wifes phone connects to our home network or leave our home network.
Mine works well most of the time say 75% and my wifes phone same model and os, works about 50% of the time.
Any ideas or better methods
of detecting our phones are connected and disconnected from Our home network as a presence detection.?

#18

Have you had a chance to look at the presence FAQ yet? It covers a number of different methods that people are using.