How to turn your Elgato Stream Deck Mini into a smart home controller

The Elgato Stream Deck Mini is a smashing little device for game streaming and creating helpful macros when you want to employ social media in the middle of a stream. What you may not know is that the software used to make those customized buttons is pretty powerful and you can connect it to IFTTT, making it an almost magical portal to your smart home.

Products used in this guide

Easy peasy control: Elgato Stream Deck Mini ($83 at Amazon)

How to create an IFTTT applet

Go to IFTTT.com and sign up for an account if you don't have one.
In the right-hand corner click on your username and click on New Applet.
Click on the enormous blue +THIS on the screen.
Search for Webhooks in the search bar.
Click receive a spider web request to activate this action.
Give the event a title. In my case, it was to turn my fan off then I named it TurnFanOff. It won't use spaces, so use capitals or underscores to make it easier to see.
Click create trigger to cease the first half of the applet.
Next, click the giant +THAT on the screen.
Here y'all volition demand to search for the smart home service that connects to your production. This could be Nest, or Ring, or in my instance Smart Life — they make smart switches and plugs.
Connect to your smart home service using the username and password and give IFTTT access to it.
Choose the activity you lot want the service to perform. In my case information technology was turn off.
Choose the smart device that you desire the action to work with. In my case it was kitchen light, which is also my fan.
Click Finish to complete the applet.

How to connect the applet to the Stream Deck Mini

Now that the applet is made you'll demand to connect it to the Stream Deck Mini. That's why Webhooks is so important — it allows you to send an IFTTT request merely by going to a unique spider web address. This means that the Stream Deck Mini can be used to telephone call a web address which volition activate the applet. Here'southward how to connect them.

Go to https://ifttt.com/my_services
Search for Webhooks in the search bar.
Click on the Webhooks service when it appears.
in the top right manus corner click on Documentation to detect your unique URL.
Make full in the box with the trigger championship that yous fabricated before. In my case it was TurnFanOff.
Highlight the URL that is generated at the bottom, leaving out the Gyre command, and press Ctrl+C to copy it to your clipboard.
Open up your Stream Deck Software. If you lot oasis't already downloaded you lot can practice so hither.
Scroll through the list of commands on the right until you find the System Website control.
Click and drag the Website command into one of the button areas on the left.
Name the action in the championship box. In my case, information technology was Fan Off.
In the URL box printing Ctrl+V to paste the spider web address from earlier.
Make certain you check the access in the groundwork checkbox. If you don't, the Stream Deck volition open a new browser window every time you press the button.

And we are done

That'due south it! Now, someday you printing the button Stream Deck will ship Webhooks an address request, which will activate your smart device. It volition work anywhere too. Fifty-fifty if you take the Stream Deck to a hotel, it volition still activate that smart device.

If you want, you tin download or create an icon for your new button, but if you do effort to use transparent backgrounds or it volition expect weird.

This isn't the but thing IFTTT and Webhooks tin do either so feel complimentary to get in there and dig around for awesome ideas.

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Possibly you have been thinking most getting a Stream Deck but haven't felt it worthwhile. Well, I'm hoping this guide will show you the worth of this cool trivial gadget.