Important Notice

Since September 2023, LinkTap is no longer compatible with Google Home or Google Assistant due to the discontinuation of one of Google’s services. Currently, Google Home has limited functionality for smart water timers, supporting only two commands: “Hey Google, start watering” and “Hey Google, stop watering.” Additionally, a system bug on Google’s platform prevents users from specifying watering duration.

We recommend using Alexa, which offers a much broader range of commands and enhanced compatibility with our products.

The steps below integrate Google Home with LinkTap using IFTTT, zero code approach. We create an IFTTT applet and use the Google Assistant IFTTT trigger to trigger our applet when a phrase is spoken to Goolge Home. We then add a WebHooks action to our IFTTT applet to execute the HTTP POST to the LinkTap API. We can create a bunch of applets setup with different trigger phrases and different actions, e.g. an applet triggers on “Water the rose garden for 4 minutes” sends a HTTP POST to turn on the Tap. Another applet with the trigger phrase “Stop watering the rose garden” sends the HTTP POST to turn off the tap. For multiple taplinkers, a set of applets can be created for each taplinker.

Login to IFTTT and got to My Applets then select the New Applet button.

To configure the applet with the Google Assistant trigger click on the “+ this”.

Search for Google and click the Google Assistant.

Click “Say a phrase with a number” to start configuring the Google Assistant Trigger.

Configure the “What do you want to say” as per below, e.g. "Water the rose garden for # minutes". "#" in the phrase is a placeholder for watering duration. This is the phrase you will say after “Hey Google” to trigger the applet. Also configure the response below. That is just a nice ack message Google Home will verbally respond with once the applet is triggered. Then click Create Trigger.

Now click “+ that” to add the action for our new IFTTT applet.

Search for WebHooks. WebHooks is the IFTTT action that lets us send a HTTP GET, POST, DELETE, PUT, etc.

Click “Make a web request” to configure the action.

As per the information on the API page, we now configure the HTTP POST to the LinkTap API. See below paying attention to the formatting of the Body, also the content type needs to be set to application/json. Remember to use YOUR LinkTap account username, apiKey, gateway ID and taplinker ID in the Body. Also please pay attention to double quotation marks used in the Body; don't copy it from MS Word document. To add "{{NumberField}}" in the Body click Add ingredient button and select NumberField. More optional parameters can be added into the Body. Please refer the activateInstantMode API on the API page. Once done select “Create action”.

Done! You’re now ready to test the applet by saying “Hey Google” or “Okay Google” which are the default trigger phrases for the Google Home device. Then say “Water the rose garden for 8 minutes” and the applet above should trigger. When the applet triggers Google Home will say back “rose garden is being watered”, then immediately run the WebHooks action to call the LinkTap API and turn the taps on the water the garden.