Question

Why did you develop the Virtual Routine Trigger?

Answer

We have an irrigation system that is triggered by Alexa. Our daily routine runs at a given time and for a defined duration. Although this basically works fine, we quickly discovered an issue: The irrigation system will water the plants even if it is raining or when rain is forecast for the same day. So we started searching for a more flexible way to define routine triggers – a trigger that will start the irrigation system earlier if the temperature is higher, a trigger that will not start the irrigation system when it is raining etc.

And here we go! The Virtual Routine Trigger was conceived. With this Alexa skill we have a trigger at hand that can flexibly use any information available on the web or available through a web-service API.