
Ask HN: What do you use tools like IFTTT or Zapier for? - thewarpaint
Also, what integrations do you wish you could use?
======
bluehatbrit
About six months ago I came across Huginn [1] for the third or fourth time and
finally decided to give it a shot. I've absolutely loved it so far! The docs
aren't always great for each agent, but I've never struggled for too long
before figuring it out. I'm currently using it for:

* Scraping HN search for new appearances of projects I work on, and immedietely alerting me via email.

* Checking the frontpage of HN for topics I'm interested in, and adding it into my daily digest email.

* Pulling in Commit Strip and XKCD comics when they're posted and adding them to my daily digest email.

* Sending me a notification in the morning if it's going to rain.

* Giving me and my friends the cheapest flight price for a group holiday we're planning. It scans google flights daily so we can watch it tick down over time and decide when to buy.

* Sending me notifications if there's a significant drop in the currency for the country we're going to so I can purchase some at the best price.

* Adding the names of people who RSVP to my wedding into my daily digest email so I can keep a pulse on the final guest list.

Hopefully I'll get a few more ideas from this thread as well!

[1] Huginn -
[https://github.com/huginn/huginn](https://github.com/huginn/huginn)

~~~
thewarpaint
Great tip, will definitely check it out!

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OhSoHumble
I have a Zapier hook that filters donation projects from donorschoose.org
(food related needs from low-income schools) and sends it to my email address.

Example:

Title: Yummy Yummy in Our Tummies

School: Jeanne Meadows Elementary School

City: San Jose

State: California (North)

Cost to complete: 248.48

Link: [https://www.donorschoose.org/project/yummy-yummy-in-our-
tumm...](https://www.donorschoose.org/project/yummy-yummy-in-our-
tummies/4599016/?utm_source=api&utm_medium=feed&utm_content=bodylink&utm_campaign=DONORSCHOOSE)

Description: I teach at a Title I school in East San Jose. A majority of my
students are first-generation Americans with hardworking immigrant parents.
Seventy percent of the students at my school are

~~~
anw
Thank you very much for bringing this site to my (and other HN'ers) attention.

It looks like your comment got cut off mid-sentence. I would like to read more
about what you were talking about. (And apologies if it didn't get cut off and
it was just an issue of my reading skills not fully kicking in :))

~~~
OhSoHumble
Oh, sorry! That was a cut off description from the example email I get sent.

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omneity
I use IFTTT with a project of mine[0] to track hotel and flight prices in a
spreadsheet and get suggestions on places to go.

[0]: [https://monitoro.xyz](https://monitoro.xyz)

~~~
casperc
I like that. Could you tell more? Which site/api are you using to monitor the
prices? Feel free to plug your site!

~~~
omneity
Thanks!

I have a few destinations I'm interested in and some others that I take
regularly. I'm watching the respective airlines' own websites for specific
searches, and gather the prices in a spreadsheet that I review every time I
feel wanderlust.

Regarding the integration with IFTTT, I wrote about it here:
[https://blog.monitoro.xyz/post/190023685811/monitor-
website-...](https://blog.monitoro.xyz/post/190023685811/monitor-website-
changes-ifttt)

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beamatronic
When I had the original Pebble, I set up an IFTTT notification when the
outside temp got above 80 to remind me to go outside and enjoy it.

~~~
mc3
I'd do that but make it below 80

~~~
rocketpastsix
Between 65 and 80.

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rvz
I always pick Zapier for automation these days, even for production-level
projects. Before that I once searched across several other alternatives and
came across Tray.io for my project but they seemed to be very expensive and
also had less integrations compared to the likes of Zapier, with no free
trial.

I'm not sure why anyone would choose them over Zapier for the prices they were
offering but perhaps that's the reason why I wasn't surprised why many
developers and businesses keep choosing either Zapier or IFTTT.

------
sneak
I forget if it was IFTTT or something else I set up that downloads any YouTube
videos I like/upvote into a cloud sync directory for me.

I may write some custom code to extend this to just youtube-dl anything that
appears in my youtube history and store it on my NAS.

I’ll probably self-host huginn and have it periodically put downloaded things
(eg offline maps, torrented music via rss) into a syncthing directory (that
syncs to all my workstations).

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dirktheman
I use Zapier to automatically invest monthly savings (our bank has an API and
Zapier integration). Didn't come up with this myself, but here's how it works:

[https://medium.com/@petervandoorn92/how-i-automated-
investin...](https://medium.com/@petervandoorn92/how-i-automated-investing-
through-bunq-zapier-degiro-and-a-bit-of-node-js-8f61ea21cbf3)

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krembo
Pro tip - We moved most of our automated processes (business and peronal ones)
from Zapier to Integromat which is not only more powerful but also more
generous in its free tier.

[https://www.integromat.com/](https://www.integromat.com/)

~~~
tucaz
I don’t often comment recommending companies but Integromat is awesome. Their
support is also fantastic.

The only thing I don’t like much is that there is no easy way to export stuff
you insert in their databases.

------
davchana
I don't use Zapier because of money. I use IFTTT to:

* Keep a spreadsheet of my written tweets.

* Keep a spreadsheet of my liked tweets.

* Used to download Instagram photos liked by me, but Instagram API broke it.

* Keep a text file of my hn, reddit comments, in two separate files.

~~~
dublin
Yeah, you _can_ use Zapier for that, but you haven't mentioned anything that
couldn't be done just as easily with curl and a shell script... I don't have
anything against Zapier, in fact I have a good friend (a dietician) who build
a bunch of Zaps to semi-automate her business, a good call for someone who has
zero interest in coding. It just seems to me that anyone reading HN might find
it easier to _not_ use Zapier or IFTT...

~~~
davchana
Well, for me, it was never curl or shell vs Zapier or IFTTT. Only time I have
used curl is few years ago in PHP while fetching some external link or page.
The closest to shell script is my bunch of .bat files or even less number of
.vba files I used very few times in life. I never touched linux or *nix if you
don't count using Control Panel on PHP Hostings & using Android.

Also, the Ask HN was what do you use these for, not what do you use these for
which can't be done by shell?

> anyone reading HN might find it easier to not use Zapier or IFTT.

Well,there you go, I find IFTTT easier than shell or curl because of all GUI &
inter-connectivity. Although last two years I go to Google Apps Script first
for anything related.

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pid_0
Company uses it to sync client jiras to our internal jira so PMs and the like
don't need multiple logins.

I personally do not use either. The less tech and notifications in my life the
better.

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darkhorn
If Donal Trump tweets something that has word "Turkey" then I immediatly get
notified. If it is something negative I sell my Turkish Liras and buy Euro.

~~~
mc3
Watch out for that Thanksgiving or Christmas false alert!

~~~
darkhorn
Yeah, I have panicked for a moment that day.

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randomsearch
Working around silly proprietary features. Eg watching for changes to Alexa’s
shopping list and copying the item to a list in a proper todo app.

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m-p-3
I use it to get notified for specific keywords in some RSS feeds, and I get
notified over Facebook Messenger when my alarm system is enabled / disabled
(no control of it through Messenger)

I also use it to trigger IFTTT from some local system events via webhooks and
curl (ie: my server finished downloading something)

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nirav72
I use IFTTT to log various events on my home automation ecosystem to Google
sheets. For example , each member in my household has their own unlock code
for the zwave doorlock. So when any one of us unlocks the door, it will note
the person's name and time the door was unlocked.

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BjoernKW
Automating business processes such as archiving incoming invoices or sharing
blog posts on LinkedIn.

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chris_st
I use Zapier to watch the Twitter feed of a conference I go to (NationJS).
They announce stuff there first, and update their website much later. Oh, and
it only happens twice a year, so I find out about it when it happens, without
having to go to twitter.

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hactually
Have been using Jogly and sometimes Zapier to notify us of actions happening
with payloads being posted or form submissions across our sites - pretty
simple use cases and have both x-www-form-urlencoded and JSON coming in to
same endpoints.

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chovy
I'm building a competing product over at
[https://puump.com](https://puump.com) which can post RSS feeds (automation is
still in the works, so its manual for now)

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pkalinowski
Business processes which are repeatable, time consuming and not possible to do
with native integrations between tools (or when native integrations just don't
exist)

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needcaffeine
I watch some running race registration sites with Zapier and when it tells me
that they are open I go register immediately so I can have a low bib number.

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jazzido
I use Zapier (free plan) to post to the Facebook page associated to my side
project.

I tried to do that through FB's Graph API and failed miserably. Too much red
tape

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futhey
I've used Zapier to prototype a few APIs (Webhook -> Service), and IFTTT for
presence detection (Using Wyze cameras as presence sensors).

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gadders
I only use IFTTT for one, dull use case - take documents from my favourite RSS
feeds and add them to Pocket to read later.

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konradkpl
I've used IFTTT to make a backup of my internet activity, especially images
shared across social media profiles.

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mc3
Is IFTTT the new Excel ala "if people are using an Excel sheet, turn it into a
SaaS"?

~~~
thewarpaint
IFTTT is already a SaaS, not sure exactly what you mean.

~~~
mc3
IFTTT is indeed a SaaS but I would also classify it as a general purpose tool
like Excel. A jack of all trades. Definitely a master of none. Would you use
IFTTT or Pingdom to check your site is up?

If people are setting up IFTTT for business critical things, then potentially
there is scope for a dedicated SaaS to some of those things.

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_samjarman
I use it to control my LIFX bulb from Twitch chat and from my stream deck.
[https://www.samjarman.co.nz/blog/lifx-
twitch](https://www.samjarman.co.nz/blog/lifx-twitch). No programming required
but a technical brain helped :)

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billconan
when a bug is created on GitHub, create a trello card

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anamexis
I use it to publish the RSS feed of my blog to Twitter.

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bllguo
I use ifttt for monitoring reddit hobby aftermarkets

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napolux
I post into various telegram channels using IFTTT

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girishso
I built
[http://pagepoller.r14.railsrumble.com](http://pagepoller.r14.railsrumble.com)
it scrapes web pages and emails if some specific part changes. I use it to get
top HN story, xkcd and when free books are available on packtpub.

