Windows 10: Cortana now works with more smart home providers and IFTTT

Brink · Feb 15, 2018

Cortana expands home automation skills, making it easier for you to control your smart home devices while on the go.

Cortana helps make your life easier by making it easy to control your smart home devices from afar. Rush out of the house and forget to turn off the lights? No problem, just pull out your phone, open the Cortana app and say, “Hey Cortana, turn off the lights,” and she’ll take care of it for you.

Last October we announced you could use Cortana to manage your smart devices through Samsung SmartThings, Nest, Philips Hue, Wink, and Insteon. Today, we are pleased to announce that you can use Cortana to control your favorite smart home devices from ecobee, Honeywell Lyric, Honeywell Total Connect Comfort, LIFX, TP-Link Kasa, and Geeni. You can control these devices using Cortana on Windows 10, iPhone, Android, and the Harman Kardon Invoke speaker.

Want to come home to a warm house from a long day at work? Just tap Cortana on your PC and say “Hey Cortana, set the living room thermostat to 72 degrees” to control your ecobee, Honeywell Lyric, or Honeywell Total Connect Comfort thermostat. With vivid colors from your LIFX Wi-Fi connected light bulbs, you can set the mood just right for movie night.

With the slim smart plugs by TP-Link, you’ll never have to worry again about leaving the house and forgetting to turn off something like a space heater or straightening iron. Just say, “Hey Cortana, turn off the space heater.”

Geeni’s smart bulbs and power products work with Cortana, and its smart surge protector even lets you name and control each outlet separately or in groups with Cortana. For example, if you have several lamps in your living room, plug them into your Geeni surge protector and say, “Hey Cortana, turn off the living room lamps”, and Cortana will turn off all the outlets named “living room lamp”.

To set up your connected home with Cortana, open Cortana on Windows 10 or go to the Cortana app on your phone, click Notebook, then click Connected Home. From there, you can connect your favorite smart home accounts and control your devices from anywhere you use Cortana.*

Cortana now works with hundreds of services on IFTTT

We are also excited to share that starting today, Cortana works with IFTTT! IFTTT is a free platform that helps you connect your apps and services together. IFTTT works with 600 services from providers in a variety of areas. You could add items to your shopping list on Trello, post a tweet, open your Link shades, extend tumble time on your GE Dryer and log your weight on Fitbit among many other things. There’s a whole world of possibilities with Cortana on IFTTT.

Using IFTTT, you will be able to customize your experience by creating your own phrases to use with services on IFTTT. For example, you could turn your lights off by saying, “Hey Cortana, let there be light” or put money towards that next concert trip on Qapital by saying, “Hey Cortana, penny for my thoughts.” Use triggers and responses on IFTTT to make Cortana your truly personal assistant.

You can also use Applets on IFTTT with Cortana to trigger multiple actions with one phrase. So if you are watching a movie at home, you can say “Hey Cortana, movie time” and she’ll turn down your Hue lights, Harmony TV turned on, and your Nest Thermostat set to the right temperature.

Cortana is always available to help you on Windows 10, Android, iPhone, and Harman Kardon Invoke devices. Set up your Cortana Applets on the Cortana channel on IFTTT!

*Additional requirements may apply per device.
Click to expand...

Source: Hey Cortana, turn up the heat; Cortana now works with more smart home providers and IFTTT - Windows Experience Blog

:)

gary_dps · Feb 15, 2018

Cortana is useless.

I use all of the assistants and I agree with Francis that Cortana is the worst. Luckily it can be disabled. Although you could argue that it's already pretty disabled because it's so badly implemented! LOL!

Alexa is really good and I love the way it integrates so well with smart home gadgets, IFTTT, and accessing music.

Cortana feels like it's at least 5 years out of date. Give up on it Microsoft, or licence Alexa or Google's assistant.

texasRay · Feb 15, 2018

Cortana connect with SmartThings not working

After hearing about the new IFTTT functionality that Cortana had acquired lat week, I decided to try adding Samsung Smarthome via the Cortana Connected home interface. To my surprise, it seems to work now!

I'm not sure how much she can do, as she says I don't have any devices she can control, but this seems like progress.

Windows 10: Cortana now works with more smart home providers and IFTTT

Cortana now works with more smart home providers and IFTTT

Cortana now works with more smart home providers and IFTTT

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