Citizens of Louisville, Kentucky just got a way to make their smart homes even smarter, thanks to IFTTT and the local city government. According to an announcement from Mayor Greg Fischer, the city has launched its own IFTTT channel that can tie public air quality data directly to smart home devices and other connected gadgets. With the city’s home-baked applets, residents can get push notifications for days when the air quality reaches a certain level or, if it gets particularly bad, the air quality can actually be displayed in the colors of a Philips Hue connected lightbulb.
The IFTTT partnership is part of Louisville Metro’s Smart City efforts, which hopes to make more data and services freely available to residents. “We’re focused on bringing data and technology to citizens where they live, making it intuitive, accessible, inclusive and equitable,” the city’s chief of innovation Grace Simrall said in a statement. While the program is launching with only the air quality data for now, the city plans to roll out additional feeds of municipal data on the Smart Louisville channel soon. And, of course, residents don’t need an entire smart home setup to take advantage of the partnership — there are also options to send air quality alerts via text message or even download a log file to Google Drive.
