IFTTT lets you automate a ton of your favorite web services. While IFTTT exists on iOS and Android, the developers have also released the DO Button app, which provides convenient shortcuts to a whole host of different tasks. Here’s how to set it up.
The DO Button is an extension from the developers of IFTTT that’s similar to what you’ll find in the IFTTT app, but instead of applying rules that work automatically in the background, the DO Button streamlines recipes into a single button press that can be mounted on the front page of the app, in your Notification Center, or right on the home screen on your Android device.
Though the options for the DO Button are still slightly limited compared to what you can do with IFTTT, the convenience of accessing the recipes from a single location can’t be overstated. Here’s how to set it up and use DO Buttons.
How to Set Up and Create DO Buttons
To start off, you’ll need to download the DO Button app from the App Store. It’s also available on Android devices, and both the setup process and creating buttons are actually identical on both platforms.
Once downloaded and installed, open up the app and swipe through the introduction.
You’ll then need to create an account if you don’t have an IFTTT account already, but if so, just tap on “Sign in”.
After you create an account or sign in, you’re all ready to go and can begin making DO Buttons of your own. To do this, start by tapping on “Add a Recipe” in the bottom-right corner.
Just to give you a quick example of what the DO Button can do, we’ll go ahead and create a quick and basic button for turning a Philips Hue light on and off. Tap on the “+” button.
Tap on the “Channels” tab on the right.
Scroll down and find the “Philips Hue” channel and select it.
Before you can continue, you may need to activate the Philips Hue channel if it isn’t already, which allows the DO Button app to communicate with Philips Hue. This process is nothing more than logging into your Philips Hue account and granting permission.
After that, you’ll be able to continue, and for whatever recipe you’re looking for, it might already be created in the list that you can scroll through. Otherwise, you’d tap on “Create a New Recipe”. Unsurprisingly, there’s a DO Button already created for what we want to do, so tap on “Toggle Hue lights On/Off”.
Under “Which lights?”, select the light(s) that you want to be able to quickly turn on and off. You can either select all your Hue lights or an individual light. Unfortunately, you can’t select a group of lights.
Tap on “Add” when you’ve selected the light(s).
The new DO Button will now appear on the home page of the DO Button app.
The Real Magic: DO Button Widgets
The DO Button app is pretty cool by itself, but what makes it even better (and perhaps what truly makes the app as good as it can be) is utilizing the DO Button widget, which gives you quick access to your DO Buttons without even opening the app.
On an iPhone or iPad, you can add a widget to the Notification Center. To do this, swipe down from the top of the screen to bring up the Notification Center. Go to the “Today” section if you aren’t there already.
Scroll down to the bottom and tap on “Edit”.
In the list, find “DO Button” and tap on the small green “+” icon next to it.
Scroll back up to the top and the widget will now be in the list of active widgets. You can hold down on the move icon to the right to change where you want the widget located. It’s default location will be at the bottom.
From there, the DO Button widget will be located in the Notification Center, you can activate your DO Buttons quickly and easily right there without even opening up the DO Button app itself.
The process is a bit different on Android, but it’s a much better implementation of widgets, since they go right on the home screen.
Start by holding down on the screen and then select “Widgets.”
Scroll down and select either one of the DO Button widgets by dragging and dropping it onto your home screen.
From there, you can tap on the widget to activate your DO Buttons. If you have multiple buttons, you can scroll through the widget to select one.
All the Thing You Can Do with the DO Button
The DO Button acts as a great intermediary between smart home applications like the Nest, WeMo switches, Philips Hue, and more. All of these apps are compatible with DO Buttons, which means that instead of frantically switching between ten different apps to get your lights dimmed out, your coffee maker turned off, and your security system activated as you’re scrambling out the door in the morning, you can just open up the DO Button app, and tap each button down the list.
Plugs with a WeMo Wi-Fi-enabled socket attached can turn any device in your home into a smart home staple, which can be configured to handle specific background tasks like saving security cameras from router disconnections, all the way down to sending a notification to remind you when it’s time to take out the litter box.
In the mood for a dance session? Just add the recipe for turning your Hue lights into “color rotation” mode, and in seconds your entire house will be the life of the party. What if you need a quick way to set your Nest Thermostat temperature on the fly? Use the DO Button and customize three different heating or cooling options to switch between throughout the day.
Productivity
But it’s not all a party all the time. The DO Button hub also has hundreds of different recipes programmed in to help you stay on task and in the zone at work, including help from a number of participating partners like Google Drive, and Microsoft Office, along with team management platforms Trello and Slack.
Some of the premade recipes automatically included with the default version of DO help out with tasks such as tracking your work hours with one touch in Google Drive, posting reminders into your work’s Slack chat channel, or creating a new note in your Evernote account
Scheduling is a breeze with the DO Button if you want to add a new Google Calendar event, tack on an extra to-do in your Evernote to-do list, or fill out a fresh Google Spreadsheet that could be used for everything from recording a shopping list to gathering a monthly invoice for independently contracted work.
Social Media
Handling social media through the DO Button was one of the first areas that users jumped on as soon as the app was released because when people have content they need to share, being able to do it fast and easy is the name of the game.
Some of the best iterations of the DO Button for social media sites include the option to immediately export photos from the phone right onto your Twitter page, post status updates on Facebook from the comfort of your own wrist, or publish a map of your current location to your Tumblr in a snap.
Bonus: Configure the DO Button with Your Apple Watch
Installing the DO Button on an Apple Watch is easy, but readers should note there are still a few caveats to this style of setup.
As of the most recent update, DO users are still griping to the developers of IFTTT that the Button is stuck with the choice to add only three shortcuts to their Watch at a time (out of the potential hundreds that can be hotlinked with the phone itself). For now, it remains unclear whether this issue is more the result of lazy code on the part of programmers that might be patched out later or an actual limitation of what the Watch is capable of itself.
That said, it’s still nice to have any buttons linked up at all, as the big, circular one-tap interface makes the most out of the Watch’s constrained screen real estate. Some of the most popular DO Button recipes don’t even really feel like they’re worth it unless you’ve got an Apple Watch attached (adjusting the Nest temperature in particular). The act of activating some of your phone’s more complicated processes through a tap on your wrist really is the stuff of the future, and although the Watch itself is still finding its legs with consumers, apps like DO Button will give the device a wider appeal to an audience which might still be on the fence.
The DO Button app is a sleek, simple way to take the hassle out of your iOS experience and round down any frayed edges of your app library that can waste more time than they save.
Although the widespread, mainstream applications of IFTTT aren’t as streamlined as they could be, the library is still growing, and growing fast. Plus, if you didn’t see the button you wanted here, you can always head over to our companion how-to article to learn how to write custom recipes of your very own today!
Images from IFTTT, Apple/iTunes