BMW Labs Widget and the IFTTT website

I had been using this since the first week of our i3 ownership (up to week three now!) to open our garage door as we approached home.

It has been working perfectly, however in the last few days the BMW Labs Widget doesn't seem to send location triggers. Other triggers seem to still work (ie. when x minutes away from a navigation destination) so it seems related to the location trigger.

When I check the Applet on IFTT.com it throws an error message: "We can't check your Applet right now", when previously it would say "Checked".

Does anyone else use this service (yes, I appreciate it is just a 'beta'...) and if so, are you having the same issues?

Thanks!

Just tried it out today and it worked perfectly. I don't have GarageIO, so instead I connected it to run a Stringify app which then opens my garage door via Insteon! Love it!

Thanks for the reply - I'd forgotten about my post.

After a while of receiving these errors when attempting to check the Applet, IFTTT simply disabled the Applet and notified me.

I deleted it and then created a new one and it started working again. It's all a bit odd.

I then created an Applet with a 'When leaving an area' trigger and again I receive the error when attempting to check the Applet, while my other Applets ('When enetering an area') work (and can be checked without an error).

I currently have triggers which turn on my garage lights and open the garage door as I approach. Apart from needing to load the BMW Widget on the Split Screen well in advance (I have set one of my programmable buttons to load it quickly), the system works brilliantly. I hope BMW continues it into the future.

nitramluap said:

I then created an Applet with a 'When leaving an area' trigger and again I receive the error when attempting to check the Applet, while my other Applets ('When enetering an area') work (and can be checked without an error).

I currently have triggers which turn on my garage lights and open the garage door as I approach. Apart from needing to load the BMW Widget on the Split Screen well in advance (I have set one of my programmable buttons to load it quickly), the system works brilliantly. I hope BMW continues it into the future.

Click to expand...

I tested triggers for both entering and leaving an area and it worked fine. I was hoping to have my garage door close once I leave the garage, but the BMW widget takes a bit too long to come up when you first start the car that I think it will be easier for me to just "press the button" to close the garage door.

Having the garage door open when I arrive home and having my lights turn on are nice! I too really enjoy the BMW Widget and hope they continue it into the future as well!

On a slight tangent, so forgive me!

i3's supplied in the USA are supplied with a 'garage opener' button - unlike in Europe, which don't. Can anyone supply a picture of it? Where is it? Do you lose one of the long row of buttons on the dash, or is it somewhere else?

Just curious!

We don't have it in Australia either but I believe it's located near the SOS & sunroof buttons.

The garage opener button on US cars is located on the bottom edge of the rear view mirror; there are actually three buttons in all and each can be programmed to execute a defined HomeLink function. See: http://www.homelink.com/home/welcome

I was in the neighbourhood! :lol:

Hi

Seems like you guys have got the IFTTT to work. I've dont have this feature on my BMW so I wonder if you could help me. I'm very curious to see how the data from a triplog looks like in Google Sheet, I'm thinking about this https://ifttt.com/applets/374495p-ke...drive-your-car

It would be great to see these data in Google Sheet or exported to Excel. Hope you can help

IFTTTest said:

Hi

Seems like you guys have got the IFTTT to work. I've dont have this feature on my BMW so I wonder if you could help me. I'm very curious to see how the data from a triplog looks like in Google Sheet, I'm thinking about this https://ifttt.com/applets/374495p-ke...drive-your-car

It would be great to see these data in Google Sheet or exported to Excel. Hope you can help

Click to expand...

OK, I tried this out to see how it works. In short, it seems pretty good.

The only issue is that you have to have the BMW Labs Widget open in split view for it to work and this takes a full 40 seconds to load to the point where it can send a trigger. If you're already driving, it will immediately send a 'Driving Started' trigger.

When parking, I didn't notice any 'Driving Ended' trigger being sent and from the look of the data that gets recorded, I don't think it sends any so you can probably safely close the BMW Labs Widget once it's sent the 'driving started' trigger.

The data in the spreadsheet looks good and it adds a line for each trip, appending it to a specified file. You can configure what data is recorded in the columns and you can customise the name and location of the spreadsheet file, and even use variables in the file names.

The default columns show all the available variables:
- Date & Time that the 'driving started' trigger was sent
- Direction of travel when trigger was sent
- Location (Lat & Long) where the trigger was sent
- Odometer reading at the start of the trip
- Range remaining at the start of the trip
- A Google Maps URL which puts a pin in the map where your trigger was sent

There doesn't appear to be any 'end' location data so if you wanted to record that information, you'd have to record at least two consecutive 'start' trips so you have the two start odometer readings. Another way around this would be to load up the BMW Labs Widget a second time, just before parking, and it will record a new 'start' (which is really an 'end') for trip calculations.

Anyway, it works! :-D