Solved 3rd party integrations

[Bill Bosmeny]

At one point, I thought I saw that MYVR was going to (“coming soon”) support wifi remote keylocks to give renters access when their dates arrive. I no longer see that on the website.

Our property is located remotely, so I’d like to have lights automatically turned on in the evening for arrivals. I’m thinking of using Wemo or something similar for the lights. Since I doubt that MYVR will ever integrate directly with the exploding universe of automation options, does MYVR have any ability to integrate with a 3rd party generic solution like IFTTT or Zapier so we could then go in whatever direction we’d like?

IFTTT would even allow me to turn on the A/C on arrival day via NEST, for example…

[Tristan Brotherton]

Hey Bill,

We did indeed build a remote lock integration - it was paused as we decided to focus our resources on our AirBnB and Booking.com projects. That said, anyone could build a direct IFTTT or Zapier application via our developer portal: http://developer.myvr.com -
HOWEVER! You can also integrate with IFTTT and achieve all of your goals outlined right now!

Basically with the MyVR automated stay emails, you can use the IFTTT gmail trigger. So for example.

Setup an automated email with the subject “Turn lights on Tahoe Property”. Set it to go to a gmail account you have setup or managed. (not the renter)

Within IFTTT use the gmail “new email in inbox from search trigger”

Setup it up to find the automated email you just created. and set the IFTTT action to do whatever you want!

So to use this you could turn on your WeMo lights before the guests arrive, tun on the hot tub… etc etc!

[Jenny Oest]

OH MY - the possibilities!!!

[Bill Bosmeny]

Thanks, I’ll look into this direction this weekend!

[Tristan Brotherton]

Let me know what you come up with!

[Bill Bosmeny]

Tristan,

I took a hard look at this over the weekend, and you are right, you CAN use the automated emails send from MYVR to trigger stuff (thx). However, it turns out that this method, along with just IFTTT are not robust enough by themselves.

Here’s what I’m trying to do. On the day of arrival, I want the front lights on the property to come on at Sunset and stay on until 10 pm. We live in a remote area and it is often very dark when people arrive after hours. MYVR does send an email on arrival day, but that is sent at 12:01 am that morning. If I use IFTTT with this simple trigger, that means i’m turning on my outdoor lights at 12:01 am. That wastes a lot of energy - not good.

It turns out that we need 2 triggers - “arrival day” AND “sunset”. Right now, this cannot be done without some 3rd party to extend IFTTT to allow for multiple IF conditions. I’m testing one version right now, but it is overly complicated…

So, I will go back to my suggestion that MYVR do some direct integrations with IFTTT AND allow perhaps more flexibility on sending triggers…

[Tristan Brotherton]

Hey Bill,

You can set the time you want the emails to go out when you setup your emails.

You could either send a second email to turn off, or use another IFTTT trigger.

So you would:

Send an email on the reservation at 7pm (or whatever the sunset time is) -> IFTTT lights on
Send an email on the reservation at 10pm -> IFTTT lights off.

Let me know how you get on!

[Tristan Brotherton]

Also, not sure if you are aware but there is a IFTTT competitor called Zapier, that may also be able to do this: https://zapier.com/

[Bill Bosmeny]

Tristan, I had a look at that option, but in my interface, the option to set the “time of sending” is greyed-out… i.e. I cannot set a value in this field. Is this a “coming soon” feature?

[Tristan Brotherton]

Hi Bill,

To enable the time option, you’ll need to set the standard send options as follows:

[Bill Bosmeny]

Just to close up this thread, I am able to now:

Have MYVR send out emails as discussed, so each night a renter is using the house, starting with arrival day:

1. We turn on the outside lights at sunset. They turn off automatically at 10pm.
2. We offer a propane firepit for renter use, but wanted to restrict usage to keep noise down late at night. The system enables propane use at sunset, and turn off the propane to the firepit at 10pm.
3. We will eventually include our NEST thermostats to also turn on the A/C units prior to arrival, but we have until next Summer to figure that out.

This is pretty efficient - AND ups our game with the rental market. Thanks, MyVR!

[Tristan Brotherton]

Great news Bill! Very pleased that all worked out.