Last year, Orion Labs released Onyx — a walkie-talkie that lets you chat with people all over the world. The round-button device clips onto your shirt or dress, and pairs via Bluetooth — through the Orion mobile app — with your iOS or Android smartphone.
By pushing and holding the Onyx, you can begin recording your message to send to your recipient, who will then hear it play back through the speakers on the device.
With the addition of IFTTT, Onyx now has far more capabilities than it used to. IFTTT’s free service allows you to connect all of your digital devices and services using its Applets. In combination with Orion, you can now compose voice services and workflows efficiently.
Available on IFTTT’s site, you’re able to link notifications to your Onyx from Gmail, Slack, SMS, Google Assistant, and more. With Gmail or or Google Calendar for example, you can receive voice alerts to your Onyx when you get an important email or have an event coming up.
With Slack, you can also post messages you say in your Orion group to Slack channel. But in order to use both IFTTT and Orion together, you will need to have accounts under both platforms.
Onyx can be used for home automation as well. By using Nest, you can receive a voice alert whenever someone is at your door. There’s also Amazon Alexa, where Onyx will alert you when your Alexa timer goes off in case you’re in another room.
Orion Labs showed Digital Trends a demonstration of how to add applets using IFTTT. While on the IFFT site, you’ll have the option to complete a trigger field pertaining to the app you choose — for the demo, we used Google Assistant.
We chose “say a simple phrase,” and typed in the phrase “Let’s get ice cream” so that every time we say those specific words, it will then send that phrase in a voice message to the specific group we assigned.
IFTTT works with over 540 apps, services, and devices which include Facebook, Dropbox, Fitbit, and more. If you’re looking to add more than the basic workflow apps, Onyx is compatible with any that are already available on IFTTT’s site.
