Automatically Topping Up My Phone
By using a combination of Todoist, IFTTT, and SMS, I top up my phone every 28 days with the touch of a button. Here’s how it works.
I am on the Three mobile network here in Ireland and I have a prepay SIM card. I get the following perks if I top up every 28 days:
All You Can Eat Data
Unlimited Music Free
Free EU Data, Free Texts & Three to Three Callson Three Prepay when you top up by €20
Why every 28 days?
“All you can eat Data is available at no additional charge for prepay customers who top up by €20 every 28 days” — source
By topping up my phone by €20 every 28 days, I ensure I don’t fall into Three’s ridiculous out of bundle rates. Out of bundle, Three will charge €1.01 per MB of data.
Automation
Here is my lazy way of topping-up my phone every 28 days:
Top-up By Text
Three allows subscribers to top up via SMS using a registered credit card. Once you register a card online you simply text TOPUP, followed by the amount, followed by the last 4 digits of your registered card number to 50100. An example is ‘TOPUP 20 1234’.
Every 28 Days
I use (and love) a todo list app called Todoist. If I must to do something its on my todo list. Topping-up every 28 days is something I must do, so if feels apt for this to to be a task on my todo list.
Luckily for me, Todoist supports todos that have recurring dates. I can set up a new task as follows:
When I complete this task, its due date will get updated and it will now be due 28 days into the future. Simple. I will also give this task a unique label of ‘ifttt_topup’ so I can identify it later.
If This Then That (IFTTT)
IFTTT is a free web-based service that allows users to create a chain of simple conditional statements using different connected online services. If <trigger> then do <action>.
The <trigger> can be anything from a Tweet by Donald Trump, to a like on your latest Instagram, to the weather forecast for tomorrow.
An <action> is the thing that you want to when a trigger is triggered. This can be a share on Facebook, the turning on of a light, or the making of a cup of coffee. There are endless possibilities.
IFTTT groups these <triggers> and <actions> into Channels. A Channel is simply a service. Some examples are the Instagram Channel, the Spotify Channel, and the Weather Underground Channel.
Piecing It All Together
If my todo gets complete, send an SMS to Three
I now need to create a new IFTTT Applet. My applet will consist of the ‘New completed task with label’ <trigger> from the Todoist Channel and the ‘Send an SMS’ from the Android SMS Channel. It is now as simple as entering in the values into the appropriate fields.
After enabling the Applet, everything is good to go.
Topping-up my phone
When I check my todo list and see that there is a task of topping-up my phone, I simply complete my todo and I am topped up. I now no longer have to go and buy top-up and enter a code. Whats more, in 28 days time, I will get another todo and I will just have to complete that too. Simple.
