On our most recent IoT Podcast episode, Dean called in to our IoT voicemail hotline with a question about Wyze bulbs. Specifically, Dean wants to have his Wyze bulbs and outlets automatically turn on at sunset.
That sounds easy, right? But there’s a problem: You can’t set up automation rules in the Wyze app by sunset or sunrise, the times of which change daily. Instead, you can only set these to occur at specific times.
All is not lost, however!
Wyze does have integration support with IFTTT which opens the door to a large number of potential automation rules. In this case, we found IFTTT recipes that tie Wyze devices with Weather Underground (WU) services.
Since WU can track the time of sunrise or sunset at your location, it can provide the automation trigger to turn Wyze devices on or off. Here’s one to control Wyze bulbs at sunset, for example, and another to control Wyze plugs.
These examples are set for action at sunset but could easily be changed to sunrise events. You will need to provide your location to WU in order for the dynamic times of sunrise and sunset to be calculated.
One other note: the free IFTTT plans allow for creating up to three recipes. Using more than that requires an upgrade to the IFTTT Pro plan for $3.40 a month. And since IFTTT is a cloud-based service, you may experience some latency. In this particular case, that’s unlikely to be a show-stopping issue though. It’s not a big deal if your lights don’t turn on until a minute or two after sunset.
There are other options, provided you have an Amazon Alexa or Google Home. Both of these platforms also support Wyze integration. You can, for instance, set up a sunrise or sunset trigger in the Amazon Alexa app to control any supported devices at that time. The same can be accomplished in the Google Home app by adding a new routine. Google added sunrise and sunset trigger events late last year so that you can have any or all smart devices turned on at the appropriate time.
Both of these alternatives are free, provided you own the appropriate hardware. If you do, there’s no extra cost so you don’t have to worry about paying a subscription such as IFTTT Pro.
To hear Dean’s question in full, as well as our discussion on the topic, tune in to the IoT Podcast below:
Hey Kevin, thanks for this. Apilio has native sunset/sunrise time conditions PLUS there’s an offset feature so you can set conditions like 20mins after sunset for example. Worth having a look plus there are free templates available to avoid having to pay the dreaded IFTTT Pro fee!
You don’t need to own an Echo device to use the free Alexa app, you just need to have a regular Amazon account.
This allows you to set up Alexa routines for any brand of devices on your Amazon account. It’s a good substitute for many basic IFTTT applets.