Hi All - see the below instructions for executing simple SmartThings commands using Siri. The solution involves sending a text to an IFTTT phone number which acts as a trigger to turn on or off devices via SmartThings. You can setup a contact called ‘home’ and then send a message to ‘home’ (use command ‘Tell Home’) with the proper tag to trigger the event. I’d love feedback on the approach. I would rather use more natural language like ‘Tell Home to turn on the kitchen lights’ rather than ‘Tell home hashtag kitchen underscore lights’. Regardless, the approach below executes simple ST actions with use of Siri alone, which is pretty cool.
BASIC SETUP
- Setup an IFTTT account
- Add the Smarthings channel to IFTTT - make sure to provide access to any devices that you want to control
- Add the SMS channel to IFTTT and get your IFTTT phone number
- Add a new entry to your contacts with first name “Home” and using your IFTTT number as the MOBILE number
CREATE IFTTT RECIPE
- In IFTTT go to recipes (the bowl icon) and select the + to add a new recipe
- Click the + (start here) icon, select the search icon, and find SMS (not Android)
- Select ‘send IFTTT an SMS tagged’
- Enter the tag or keyword to trigger the event - note it must be a single word. Do NOT include the hashtag symbol before the word. For this example, use 'light and click next
- Click on the next + (after ‘then’), select the search icon, and find SmartThings
- Click on the + by Switch On and select the device you would like to turn on with the phrase ‘light’
- Click continue, turn off the ‘receive notifications’ option, and click finish
EXECUTE VOICE COMMAND VIA SIRI
- Activate Siri with your home button and say “tell home hashtag light”. Siri will ask for confirmation and just say ‘yes’
- Your lamp should turn on within about 2 seconds
NOTES
- Since IFTTT only uses hashtags as triggers, you must speak the word ‘hashtag’ before the actual tag itself
- Hashtags must be a single word, so consider using underscores. For example, to get ‘#lamp_off’ say “hashtag lamp underscore off”
- You can only turn on or off a single device with each IFTTT recipe but you can have multiple recipes with the same tag/trigger - for example, I have 4 lights that turn on using the tag “on” - so I created 4 IFTTT recipes, each with the SMS tag of ‘on’ and each turning on a different light. So, when I say “tell home hashtag on”, it turns on those 4 lights simultaneously.
- For some unknown reason, certain tags simply DO NOT WORK. For example, the word ‘lamp’ doesn’t work, but ‘light’ does. Go figure.
I hope this helps others that are trying to solve the same problem I was, without buying more hardware or services.
Will Poirier