IFTTT very slow to trigger

Technical Questions
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#1

I’ve been using IFTTT to “integrate” Sense devices into my Hubitat home automation hub. Basically, what I can do, is create a virtual switch, like for the washer, and when Sense sees the washer turn on, I turn on the virtual switch. When Sence sees the washer turn off, it turns off the virtual switch. If the virtual switch has been off for 10 minutes, I send a notification to mine and my wife’s phones saying the washer has finished. I do the same with the dryer and dishwasher. I’ve got another one that turns off the air purifier if the TV turns on (both of these devices are connected to an HS300). I have a few more but I think you get the idea of what I’m using this integration for.

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However, I noticed that starting probably about 2 or 3 weeks ago (maybe longer ago, but this is when I noticed) that the Air Purifier was not turning off when I turned the TV on. It was normally taking about 20 seconds to run (from the time that Sense saw the TV come on to the time that the purifier turned off) which I was completely fine with. I’m not expecting real time. So I started trying to figure out what was going on. I eventually figured out that all my rules in IFTTT for Sense say “This Applet usually runs within an hour” and formally I believe it said within a minute.

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Here are a couple of screenshots from the activity log. This morning I turned the TV on at 7:15am but the rule didn’t trigger until 7:27am. So a delay of 12 minutes.

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Here, the TV turned on at 8:02pm but the rule didn’t trigger until 8:27pm. So a delay of 25 minutes.

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According to this IFTTT knowledge base article, “The frequency in which Applets run is largely dependent on the service(s) you’re using. If an Applet isn’t running as quickly as you expect it, we encourage you to check with the service owner. Most service owners have tools available to them to help them figure out if their IFTTT integration can run a bit faster.”

1 Like
#2

I use IFTTT for a few things, but I’ve come to realize that IFTTT alerts are just horribly slow. I mean, I had a webhook connected to IFTTT, and from the time it fired, the notification would take anywhere from 30s to 15min.

I ended up going to Pushover.net and paying them for their lifetime service (it’s actually pretty cheap).

#3

I don’t need a notification to my phone each time a device turns on and off though. I need my Hubitat hub to know information.

#4

I can confirm that we’ve made no IFTTT changes on our end. Do you by chance have any logged events from times when you thought it was faster? We’ll dig a bit deeper on our end to see what might be happening. I would encourage anyone else experiencing new slowdowns to report to Support.

In my own personal use of IFTTT with various services, I concur with @Edison517 that it can be slow sometimes.

#5

Unfortunately not. In the IFTTT activity log, if you go back more than about 2 days, the “more details” button disappears. So I can see the time the rule actually ran, but no the time it was triggered since that appears in the more details section.

In my own personal use of IFTTT with various services, I concur with @Edison517 that it can be slow sometimes.

In my experience, it depends on what you’re using it for. I have some IFTTT rules that trigger off Google Calendar events. Those typically are delayed by about 30 minutes. I suspect that’s how often Google allows IFTTT to poll the calendar. I have another rule that uses WebHooks. So when my Hubitat notices a particular thing, it sends a small JSON directly to a special IFTTT URL and the IFTTT rule triggers immediately. So rules that rely on polling will probably have a delay.

Does IFTTT just poll my Sense data every X minutes to see if a device has turned on/off or does Sense send all my device on/offs to IFTTT?

#6

A bit of both actually. IFTTT will occasionally poll Sense, but we also ping them when new events happen.

I just did some IFTTT tests on my end (send an email when a device turns on and turn on a Hue bulb when a device turns on) and didn’t have any serious delays. Both took under 2 minutes the few times I tested. I don’t have Hubitat so I cannot directly replicate your issue. We’ll see what else we can learn.

I’m definitely curious if others are seeing long delays like this.

#7

I’m curious then if IFTTT is maybe rate limiting me from Sense now or something. There’s definitely something weird going on. We did diaper laundry today (which takes about 2hr in the washer) and I noticed that all the turn on events were sent all at once exactly 1 hour apart.

The applet that triggers the virtual switch on triggered 17 times at 10:10pm tonight. There’s so many of them I can’t even see the more details for half. But the first one I can see, it says it changed at 9:15pm, and the last one at 9:24pm, which is about the time the washer finished. The applet triggered 24 times at 9:10pm. I can’t see the more details for any of these. It triggered 6 times at 8:10. We started the laundry a little before 8.

So it’s like it is queuing up all the on events and running the IFTTT applet only once per hour.