We had originally pointed out that IFTTT had announced the plans to add subscribable pro accounts to their platform. The new account level opens up new potential within the IFTTT platform that allows you to expand your applets to essentially perform multi-task scenes, as well as the ability to include queries and conditional logic, as well as other things into the mix that can advance the ways you could make use of it.
Then they pointed out that this move would also affect the millions of users that have already been making use of their free service, in a move to force more users towards the new subscription-based model. The idea was to limit the use of their normal service of being able to customize an applet between two services (if you couldn’t find it already available within a search). It was a simple feature that allows you to make IFTTT usable to your own needs. You used to be able to create unlimited applets between the various 3rd party services they support, however, with this new move of theirs, it will be crushed to a meer three. Anything beyond “three” that you have created will be lost with the new transition if you don’t upgrade to a pro account.
Today is the last day for this conversion to either give in to the paid subscription model or lose most of the saved applets you have created.
This was a very gutsy move that we predicted would lose them a lot of users. Three custom applets just doesn’t give you much to work with, thus casting a spotlight on the majority of their users, forcing them to make a choice. We even took a poll to see what everyone thought of it and if they’d be willing to move and the answer was a very strong no. Unless you are using it for business or for vital needs within your smart home that was incredibly important to you and not available anywhere else, there are plenty of alternative options you could use to accomplish many of the same things.
You could make use of hubs like Samsung Smartthings to accomplish an incredibly wide range of user-friendly tasks across your home. You can expand further by using HTTP post requests to other services or within the Smartthings hub itself to create additional flexibility with third-party services. For tech-savvy users, you could go beyond this by using something like Huginn, hosted on a server at home (or online) to go crazy with your automation, creating data, combing/consuming data, data delivery methods, and more (essentially building your own personal IFTTT solution).
So you have plenty of options out there. So this is the moment of truth to see which path you choose. Resistance isn’t futile. Join or run, make your choice!
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1 Comment
You can count me out. Three? After the first notice they sent about this I took a look to see what they were talking about and was like, how petty can they be? Great way to force your hand at something. Thankfully there are a bit if pre-made applets to choose from. But….how many of those were created by someone that doesn’t have a pro account? Does that mean that they will be vanish too? Talking about another good service that provided something great “to the people” shooting itself in the foot and reducing itself to another corporate puppet to milk you with.