Add your own Wear notifications with IFTTT

There are now a range of apps available from IFTTT - IF This Then That.  In my opinion the original one is also the most useful, and that's IF (originally IFTTT).  This app lets you create powerful connections with one simple statement - if this then that.

Essentially you can link other applications, such as Facebook, Gmail, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. These are referred to as "channels".  There are also some generic channels that you can add, including date/time, phone (including SMS, calls, wifi, location, etc) and smart watch.

Once you've activated the channels which you are interested in and linked the related accounts, you can then start building "recipes".  These are rules that follow the "if this then that" pattern.

The "if this" part of the rule can be thought of as the trigger.  When this event occurs, the recipe will be run.  As far as your smart watch goes, there is only one trigger available - "Tap a button".  Once the recipe has been run, the "then that" part, which can be thought of as the action, will be completed.  For your smart watch, the only action is "Send a notification".  For now, let's focus on the later of these.

You can browse for and create new recipes either online, or in the app.  But let's take a look at the website.  You'll need to start by creating an account of course, or logging into the one you already have, and then clicking the Create a Recipe button...

Then you can click on the "this" link to select a trigger from one of the channels...

Only channels with triggers are displayed initially, and you can search for the one you're after, or select it from the list.  I think it would be better if it only showed you the channels that you've activated, but currently it shows all of them.  For the purposes of this demonstration, I'm going to select "Feed"...

Now I have chosen a channel, I get to choose which trigger from the ones available.  For me, I want to be notified about all new feed items, so I'm going to choose the one on the left.  However, you may want to apply some particular keywords, if there's something you're particularly interested in.

So the next step for this trigger is to enter the feed URL that you're interested in, and obviously I'm particularly interested in this blog (obviously!).  Then click "Create Trigger" to move on to the next part...

Now click "that" to select the channel for your action - I've searched for "android" to make it easier to find...

And click "Android Wear" to get a list of available actions, which as I've already said, there's only one...

So click "Send a notification" to move on...

You now get the option to specify how you want the notification to appear, both the text and the image.  You can use tags in order to pull in information from the feed item itself, or add your own hardcoded text.  Click "Create Action" when you're happy...

The final step is to add a "Recipe Title", and then you can finish off by clicking "Create Recipe".  Shortly this will sync to your phone as well, and then you should find that next time this blog is updated with a new post, your watch will light up to tell you!  

You can also view this recipe on the website, already created for you, and ready to add to your collection... Wear360 blog notifications on watch.

There's great flexibility here, with the ability to combine so many different channels and point them all at your watch.  Many apps on your phone will notify you already (such as Facebook, Twitter, Instragram, etc), but for everything else, there's  IF!

The biggest limitation at the moment is that you can only have one account linked per channel.  This means that if you've got multiple Gmail accounts, or multiple Twitter accounts (for example), then you have to choose which one you wish to use, you can't link them all.  Luckily this is something that IFTTT are working on for a future version...

Browse recipes with smart watch "tap a button" as the trigger
Browse recipes with smart watch "send a notification" as the action