I think you're confusing things a little bit here.
1. We don't have support for IFTTT as such, we might do in the future though.
2. We're still working on the whole automation part and we expect to have the first parts ready before the end of next month.
3. The LCD UI is custom developed by us, but the SDK contains code that will allow for custom LCD apps. There are limitations as to what can be done on the LCD, but we'll keep improving things here.
4. As to what command is being used, it depends on how things are being initiated, we have our own software running on the Almond+ that communicates with the ZigBee and Z-Wave devices and it acts as a bridge between the two, as well as the various UI's, be it the mobile ones, the LCD UI, the local web UI or the cloud app. Some are done directly (LCD UI) while others use custom TCP commands as they require a lot less data to be sent. I don't have a full insight to how all this works, but we're doing everything in a very data efficient way, hence why we're avoiding using HTTP as it uses a fair bit more data.
The initial automation stuff will take place in the local web UI of the Almond+, as most of these things only need to be set up once anyhow. The longer term goal is to also have this on the cloud UI and possibly a more limited version of it through the mobile app.
We know there's still a lot of work to do, but once we get the initial version out, we'll work with our backers and customers to make it as good as possible, since our goal is to make it easy to use, but we also want to keep some advanced features in place for those that want that.
And this is really quite off topic now