Automatic Launches IFTTT Channel to Offer More Ways to Connect with Your Car

Jeff Weisbein -

Today, Automatic, the company behind helping make drivers smarter, safer, and more fuel efficient is adding a whole new layer to the product: giving drivers the power to connect their cars to dozens of popular web services like Twitter, Facebook, and Dropbox.  The company has just launched the Automatic channel on IFTTT.

If you’re not familiar with IFTTT, then I would definitely recommend reading our article on IFTTT and the Internet of Things, but in short, IFTTT stands for “if this then that,” and it is a simple service that lets you create powerful connections between triggers and actions on the Internet, like automatically turning the lights on when you park by your house, or automatically letting your followers on Twitter/Facebook know when you publish a new story.  In fact, we use IFTTT in some instances to automatically share content across our social channels.

The Automatic channel on IFTTT offers several different “recipes,” and these recipes allow you to do various different things (some of them are very powerful and very cool).  Here’s a few examples:

  • Say “I’m on my way”: SMS your spouse/roommate when you’re on your way home from work.
  • Tell friends you’re in town, let’s meet: Alert nearby friends on social media (Facebook, Twitter) or SMS when you are back in town or in the neighborhood.
  • Track Business Trips: Automatically export trip data to a Google document for easy business tracking.
  • Create a Smarter Home: Works with other smart technologies in your home like Smart Lights, turning the outside lights on when you get close to home or opening the garage door when you pull into the driveway.

There are even recipes that include support for Google Glass, which is cool.

We haven’t had a chance to fully dive into and/or test all of the recipes, but we plan to soon and will definitely report back.