Turn the Nest Thermostat Into a Motion Sensor With IFTTT
The smart thermostat automatically adjusts the temperature in your home , but there is another interesting way to use it: as a motion detector. You just need a little help from IFTTT .
How-to Geek walks you through the process of setting up an IFTTT recipe for connecting a Nest thermostat to your phone so you can receive a text message or call when Nest detects movement.
First, you need to enable the HOME / AWAY ASSIST function from the Nest app so that when you are at home and the Nest detects your movement, it will automatically set you to HOME status. From there, just connect the Nest app to IFTTT.
Craig Lloyd of How-to Geek created an IFTTT recipe for you , but it’s pretty easy to do it yourself and then you can customize it. Just set up the IFTTT trigger to send text messages or call your phone when the Nest goes into HOME mode. If you receive a message and you are not at home, you may have been hacked. Or maybe your house is just haunted. Either way, you will know when something is wrong.
It could probably work with other smart devices that also use motion detection. You can browse through many IFTTT channels to see if your device is listed, then just follow the rest of the steps to set up the recipe. Lloyd describes them in detail at the link below.