AWS IoT button and IFTTT Webhooks channel

June 9, 2020

In the past, I have wished to order a pizza in the press of a button. But now, it’s very much possible with the assistance of cloud services. The AWS IoT Button seemed a great candidate for many IoT projects.

There are numerous use cases such as :

• Call or alert someone
• Open your garage door
• Remotely control your home appliances and many more …

I decided to give it a try. In this guide, I would like to show how I made the AWS IoT Button access the IFTTT’s Webhooks Channel and finally create a custom action (ordering a pizza, send SMS to your mobile or whatever :).

Let’s get started!

Things used in this project:

• Amazon Web Services AWS IoT Button
• Amazon Web Services AWS Lambda
• IFTTT Webhooks service
• Amazon Web Services AWS IoT

Set up an AWS account

• Create an AWS console account either as root or with a user that has enough access to configure and manage the IoT devices. .

• Complete “Getting Started” section: https://aws.amazon.com/iot/button

  1) In the Console services search bar -> Type “IoT Core” 2) In the side bar click on “Manage” and then “Create a single thing” 3) Leave blank for “Thing Type”, “Thing Group”.

  4) Just follow the steps as directed :)

  5) The last confirmation page should show the “endpoint subdomain” and “endpoint region” information. They tell your button where to send its information when you press it.

Connect the AWS IoT button to your wifi network

This excellent documentation covers all the necessary information to connect the AWS IoT button to your wifi network. https://aws.amazon.com/iotbutton/faq/

Set up the rule that will fire when the IoT button is pressed

So far so good! Your button is configured and is able to send a message to AWS. Now, let’s configure a rule to fire on AWS when it receives a message from the button. We shall use AWS lambda (where our functions run and may run in parallel). Create a function in AWS lambda and choose “Use a bluprint”. Then search for “iot-button-email”. Finally set up the necessary information and run the script.

You should be able to see this in your email when you press your IoT button. Try it !

Debugging

Go to Monitoring tab -> click View logs in CloudWatch

Setting up IFTTT

1. Login to your IFTTT account and “connect” the Webhook Applet ( https://ifttt.com/maker_webhooks ) Once connected, take note of the key under which is the X’s in: “URL: https://maker.ifttt.com/use/XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX”
2. Create a recipe which can be triggered from the IoT button. The event name should be either SINGLE, DOUBLE or LONG. Finally, set any service for the that part of this IFTTT.

Note: The recipes labeled as “SINGLE” “DOUBLE” “LONG” are triggered by single, double or long > 1.5s pressing the AWS IoT Button.

Creating AWS Lambda for our IFTTT

1. Create a Lambda function using the same blueprint iot-button-email.
2. Copy the code provided below and paste into inline code editor.

Remember to change your private key here to your own key.

var https = require('https');

exports.handler = function(event, context) {

    var body='';
    var jsonObject = JSON.stringify(event);

    // the post options
    var optionspost = {
        host: 'maker.ifttt.com',
        path: '/trigger/' + event.clickType + '/with/key/[your private key here]',
        method: 'POST',
        headers: {
            'Content-Type': 'application/json',
        }
    };

    var reqPost = https.request(optionspost, function(res) {
        console.log("statusCode: ", res.statusCode);
        res.on('data', function (chunk) {
            body += chunk;
        });
        context.succeed('Thanks Marcus');
    });

    reqPost.write(jsonObject);
    reqPost.end();
};

I have configured the that portion of IFTTT to send me a message to my mobile device.

That’s it folks ! It is very easy to set up the AWS IoT button and IFTTT. You will be able to connect to any service within a click of a button. Enjoy creating interesting recipes for your button, the sky is your limit!