Automatic’s driving assistant, which combines a small hardware device with a mobile application in order to track, analyze, and even potentially improve your driving capabilities, is getting a whole lot smarter today with new support for IFTTT technology. That’s the online service where you can create simple “recipes” to kick off specific actions after being triggered by an event of some kind. (The name refers to the “if this, then that” statement used to build those recipes.)
In Automatic’s case, the IFTTT integration means you’ll be able to create recipes that are triggered by actions involving your vehicle – for example, the ignition being turned on or off, the check engine light turning on or off, or a trip being completed. You can also specify that these items should only be triggered when you arrive in a particular geographic region.
After selecting one of these triggers as the starting event to track, you can then configure what action should come next. One suggested recipe, to give you an idea, is “text my significant other when I’m on my way home from work.”
You could do a number of other things, too, like automatically alert friends via social media (e.g. Facebook or Twitter) when you’re in town or in their neighborhood, track your business trips, or even connect IFTTT with your home automation system so you could switch on your lights and heater when you pull into your driveway.
Savvy parents could use the connectivity for monitoring their teen driver’s outings by alerting them to when the car is in use, and where it ended up.
Automatic says that other recipes will be available in the future, too, as they become available. Those and the ones launching today can be found here on the IFTTT profile page. Nifty.