Cortana

Cortana’s smart home powers grow with IFTTT, Honeywell, Ecobee support

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(Image: IDGNS)

19 February 2018

The key weakness of the Microsoft Cortana-powered Harman/Kardon Invoke smart speaker was that it just wasn’t a great smart home controller, lacking many of the services and IFTTT support of its rivals. That’s about to change following the annjouncement that Microsoft has added support for IFTTT, the conditional platform that triggers various connected services, to Cortana.

Those services have expanded, too: Cortana can now control products from Ecobee, Honeywell Lyric, Honeywell Total Connect Comfort, LIFX, TP-Link Kasa, and Geeni. (Last October, the Invoke was announced with support for Samsung SmartThings, Nest, Philips Hue, Wink, and Insteon.)

Because Cortana offers essentially the same capabilities across various platforms, that means the new smart home controls are available from the Invoke, but also from your Windows 10 PC or even the Cortana apps for Android and iOS. To enable them, you’ll need to open Cortana on Windows 10 or on your phone, click the Notebook, then open the Connected Home submenu. From there, you’ll need to add your smart home accounts to Cortana.

cortana and ifftt

A sampling of the Applets, or IFTTT recipes, that can be used with Cortana

To help you get started, Microsoft and IFTTT published a list of suggested recipes (also known as Applets) on a dedicated Cortana channel, which you can download and apply.

More importantly, IFTTT support also adds capabilities to Cortana that Microsoft hasn’t been able to provide. One of the weaknesses of Cortana has been the relatively small number of ‘skills,’ or third party services, that Cortana can interact with. IFTTT, a distinct platform, provides its own app interactions, widening Cortana’s reach.

IFFTT and expanded smart home support won’t bring Cortana up to par with Alexa or the ecosystem of Google Home-powered devices. But enabling a wider range of smart home controls and intelligence via your Windows PC or mobile phone is a necessary step.

IDG News Service

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