The future of Push2Run - Google integration with IFTTT will be changing

[RobLatour]

According to this article, Google integration with IFTTT will be changing:

https://9to5google.com/2022/08/02/googl ... ant-ifttt/

and for those of you using Push2Run, on the face of it, it doesn't look good at all.

I now have an e-mail into IFTTT to see what can be done to salvage things as the change described in the link above is scheduled to take place at the end of the month.

I will keep you informed as best I can via updates to this post.

[aurelbdx]

Hi Rob,
I learned that yesterday, this is very bad news
I use Push2run everyday, i can't live without it anymore
I hope Google will change its mind!
Amen

[RobLatour]

As of August 5th

No reply yet from IFTTT.

Also, I have upvoted and added a comment on this Google's support forum thread:
https://support.google.com/assistant/th ... tion?hl=en

The comment added was as follows:

This change will effectively knock out virtually everything that people are doing with Push2Run (which is a freeware program I wrote that allows people to control their Windows computer via their Google Home/mini/nest etc.). Push2Run is being actively used by literally thousands of people. If you are reading this Google, please reconsider this change!

I would personally appreciate it if you would upvote the topic at the link above, also adding your own comments if you wish, to help save Push2Run!

[Crossley]

Well this completely sucks.

I've tried to figure out a way of maintainingPush2Run after losing the IFTTT text ingredient element, and basically I can't think of anything that makes much sense. Building your own app with all PC commands and inputs, then integrating that into IFTTT, was the best I could think of, bu of course that seems like quite the odyssey for something I assume Google may crack down on again in the future.

Really sorry about this Rob. Your excellent work deserves better than this.

[RobLatour]

As an update, I heard back from IFTTT who confirmed the change is based on Google dropping support for how IFTTT gets triggers with variables in them from Google.

I provided some rough estimates of how many users I thought would be impacted by this, so that number could be shared with Google. Unfortunately, I don't have an exact number but it appears to be in the order of several 1,000s. IFTTT may be able to get more accurate numbers out of the daily transactions, but because individual users can set up their own triggers, in various languages, it would be almost impossible to get exact numbers.

[TerryHiggins]

To say that you deserve better Rob, is a gross understatement...........I have had the benefit of your Genius for quite some time now and will truly miss this if something is not done..........How can we help? Anything? ............


Terry Higgins

[LimaLoring]

While this does suck, brute-forcing communication between Google Assistant and the computer is still POSSIBLE, but requires setting up an IFTTT applet for every action we want the computer to be able to make. So, for example, I would need to set up 10 applets to change my computer volume in 10% increments. It's annoying, but better than nothing. I'm not sure how P2R works for its communication, but please don't pull a Google on us and make P2R unsuable

[RobLatour]

Hi LimaLoring,

This is what I explained to IFTTT, and why the approach of one applet per command is not really practical:

Right now, how it works, in the simplest example is a user says "Ok Google, tell my computer to $" with Push2Run triggering on the keywords "tell my computer to" and Push2Run parsing and processing based on the $

Having that said, while the list of things that Push2Run can be set up to do for a user is finite, creating an IFTTT applet for each would be impractical in the best case and impossible in the worse case. Let me explain, ...

Right now, in most cases setup requires only one IFTTT applet for all processing, with its trigger being "tell my computer to $".

In the future, if the variable text is eliminated, here is an example of where eight applets would be needed to cover only one of many scenarios I myself use, the opening and the closing my garage door:

tell my computer to open the garage door
tell my computer to open up the garage door
tell my computer to open the garage
tell my computer to open up the garage
tell my computer to close the garage door
tell my computer to close up the garage door
tell my computer to close the garage
tell my computer to close up the garage

However, Push2Run also supports wildcards in the command as not all the words may be known ahead of time

For example, tell my computer to play 99 red balloons
where "99 red balloons" are keywords that can be found within the filename of a mp3 file on the users hard drive, where this could be just one mp3 out of 100s if not 1000s.

Another example,
tell my computer to browse for pictures of kittens

It gets even more complicated, as currently Push2Run supports 'joining' words ...
tell my computer to play 99 red balloons and browse for pictures of kittens.

So as you can see, the permutations and combinations can be extensive for some use cases and endless for others.

Of note, in a less simple case, if you have more than one computer. This is supported by having multiple IFTTT applets such as:
"tell my office computer to $".
"tell my basement server to $"

So supporting multiple computers without variable text would multiply the problem even further.

However, I like your example of setting the volume better than the one I gave above in relation to my garage door.

Currently, you can change the volume on your computer using the one "tell my computer to $" IFTTT applet, and one Push2Run card that listens for "* its volume $" and "* its volume to $".

However, in the future to provide the functionality to support "change its volume to x", "set its volume to x", or "make its volume x" with or without the word "percent" at the end of the phrase, while your Push2Run card would not need to change you would now need 606 IFTTT applets.

Regarding your comment:

please don't pull a Google on us and make P2R unsuable

just to be clear, I will do what I can do, but if Google drops variable text as far as I am concerned Push2Run will have lost much of its viability for everyone, myself very much included.

[Crossley]

I support whatever decision you make Rob and whatever happens I wanna say thanks for making my house and office run so much smoother the past two years.

I think I'll do the enforced tedium method that was kindly cited above. I know it's a step backwards but my hope is, if Google really does ruin variable inputs, that P2R lives on even in a dormant state rather than go away completely.

[Crossley]

While this does suck, brute-forcing communication between Google Assistant and the computer is still POSSIBLE, but requires setting up an IFTTT applet for every action we want the computer to be able to make. So, for example, I would need to set up 10 applets to change my computer volume in 10% increments. It's annoying, but better than nothing. I'm not sure how P2R works for its communication, but please don't pull a Google on us and make P2R unsuable

Honestly, as someone who maintains lots of IoT devices and IFTTT/smarthome services, this definitely isn't the most tedious process I've gone through