IFTTT

IFTTT, which stands for "If This Then That," is one of the original and most accessible automation platforms, letting anyone connect their apps, services, and smart devices with simple conditional automations. The concept is beautifully straightforward: when something happens in one service (the "this"), automatically do something in another (the "that"). This simple idea lets people automate countless small tasks and connect the many disconnected services and devices in their digital lives, all without any coding or technical knowledge, which made IFTTT a pioneer in bringing automation to everyday users.

The platform offers a huge range of connections to popular apps, online services, and smart home devices, and lets users create or use ready-made automations — called applets — that link them together. For example, you might automatically save photos you're tagged in to cloud storage, get a notification when conditions change, log activity to a spreadsheet, or have your smart home devices respond to events. Its strength is breadth and simplicity: it connects to an enormous variety of consumer services and devices, and creating an automation is as easy as choosing a trigger and an action, making everyday automation genuinely accessible to everyone.

IFTTT is used by individuals who want to automate parts of their digital and connected lives, from social media and productivity to smart home and personal routines, without any technical skill. The value is accessible everyday automation: it lets ordinary people connect the disparate apps and devices they use and have them work together automatically, saving small bits of effort and creating useful, personalised behaviours across their digital life. Especially for connecting consumer apps and smart home devices, IFTTT's simplicity and breadth make it a uniquely approachable tool. By pioneering simple, conditional automation for everyone, IFTTT helped popularise the idea that you don't need to be a programmer to make your apps and devices work together intelligently, and it remains a friendly entry point into the world of automation.