Tasker Profiles

[xiaosong]

Hi everyone,

I've just started to use Tasker a bit more and I was hoping we could start a Tasker thread here in the Galaxy Nexus forum to share which Tasker profiles we have set up and help each other out. I am only scratching the surface of this powerful program and I want to learn more about it. If people want, we could probably upload our profiles here for each other to use.

So far, I have two profiles set up under Tasker and two tasks set up that are triggered by NFC task launcher.
1) Switch to airplane mode with no cell service
When my phone has no service, it waits 2 mins and if I still have no service, it will switch my phone to airplane mode. It will then wait 30 mins and if airplane mode is on, it will switch it off so my phone can recheck for service.

2) Turn off pattern lock when connected to home wifi
This requires you to be rooted, have busybox and secure settings installed (both apps are free). Basically, when I am connected to my home wifi and have unlocked my phone using pattern lock for the first time, it will switch off the pattern lock requirement so I can just swipe to unlock. As soon as I leave my wifi network, it reenables the pattern lock.

3) Night mode task - launched with NFC tag on bedside table using NFC task launcher
Turns up alarm volume, turns notification light off, turns down ringer, turns off vibrate, turns on auto brightness and turns off display rotation

4) Day mode task - launched with NFC tag on counter
Turns on notification light, turns up ringer, turns on vibrate, turns off auto brightness, turns on display rotation

What other taskers profiles are people using? Please share. Thanks!

 

[hillwoman]

I use the time settings to change my volume settings when I am at work and when I leave.

When my phone hooks up to my car bluetooth, I have it send an automatic SMS to anybody who texts me while I'm in the car telling them that I am driving and will respond when I am done.

I have two responses to two different text messages, one to find my phone (it will play a song at the loudest setting) and the other will send me a map to where it is in case I ever loose it.

I have it set my wallpaper to something bright when the phone is on silent (I sometimes don't notice the little silent indicator in the menu bar).

I have it set to go to silent mode when I am in a certain type of meeting. It gets that from the way I name my calendar events.

When I was sick, I had it send me a pop up message with a special ringtone every five hours reminding me to take my antibiotic.

Oh and before the nexus when you could separate ringtones from notifications, I used to have it send an SMS to anybody who sent me a text after 11pm that stated I was sleeping and if it was an emergency to call. (Since the ringer was loud and the notifications were silent after 11pm)

 

[xiaosong]

I have it set to go to silent mode when I am in a certain type of meeting. It gets that from the way I name my calendar events.

Oh and before the nexus when you could separate ringtones from notifications, I used to have it send an SMS to anybody who sent me a text after 11pm that stated I was sleeping and if it was an emergency to call. (Since the ringer was loud and the notifications were silent after 11pm)

I like your ideas, especially these two.

How did you set it for the calendar events? Did you have to name your calendar events a certain way or can you set it by a specific google calendar?

I hope google decides to separate the notifications from the ringtones in the future. However, in the meantime, what my friend does is change his notifications to silent at night and then back to the regular ringtone in the morning. That is a decent workaround in the meantime.

 

[hillwoman]

For the silent calendar event. I have tasker look on my calendar (you can specify which calendar) for any event titled "SILENT_TITLE" and I always name the meetings I want to be silent to "SILENT_TITLE" I haven't tried, but I'm guessing that you could make any event on a certain calendar trigger a silent action. So in theory you could set up a separate calendar for just silent events.

It looks like you can pick certain variables as well such as location, description and availability. So those three items can trigger a silent event as well.

 

[joncat84]

I recently started using tasker and love it so far. I have a few simple profiles.

Wifi on, turns wifi on when i am at my house by using the cell towers around my house to know where i am.

Wifi off, opposite as above for when i leave my house.

Upside down vibrate, when i put my phone down flat with the screen down it puts my phone into vibrate mode and does a quick vibrate to let me know its enabled. This is great for meetings cause i can do it so quickly.

Silence sms, due to work i constantly get automatic texts from a specific number that gives me info that i dont need right away. This profile just silences that number when i recieve texts from it.

What i am trying to create but dont know if it can be done is have a profile take a front facing picture when someone guesses my pattern lock wrong. Does anybody know if its possible?

 

[mca312]

I'm using Tasker to simulate a car dock. When it reads the NFC tag, and has power it will launch either navigation or pandora (depending on orientation)

One to keep the screen on when plugged in at home (NFC tag)

When it detects my work wifi, turns off sound (I like the idea of from joncat84 to turn it upside down for vibrate mode too)

 

[turdbogls]

i only have a few.
turns wifi on and changes volume when i am at home.

turns on BT when i am at work and adjusts the volume.

headset plugged in, gives me a pop up of all my media apps

11pm it turns my brightness all the way down, silences all phone calls and notifications, alarm volume up

turns on GPS when i enter navigation, maps, places ect.

and thats it. it is a seriously powerful tool, that i have just started to scratch the surface with. hope to get into some more stuff once i have time to fiddle with it more.

 

[mr2nv]

I recently started using tasker and love it so far. I have a few simple profiles.

Upside down vibrate, when i put my phone down flat with the screen down it puts my phone into vibrate mode and does a quick vibrate to let me know its enabled. This is great for meetings cause i can do it so quickly.

How did you accomplish this? I would like to have the phone switch to speaker phone when on a call and putting the phone face down. I had this on the rezound and it was pretty cool.

How does the phone know the difference between putting it face down and putting it against your face?

 

[ScooberJake]

iturns on GPS when i enter navigation, maps, places ect.

Oh yeah, I need to set that one up. I hate having to do it manually but when I am bothered by it I am too busy to fix it.

Here are a few of mine:

Work
Contexts: Mon-Fri 7:00-19:00, Network location, Wifi Near
Settings: Silent, Wifi off, GPS off, Media silent, log arrival time in variable, notification (so I know work settings are effective)

Home
Contexts: Network location, Wifi Near
Settings: Wifi on, GPS off, Ringer max, vibrate on, Media volume 5, display timeout 3 mins

In Car
Contexts: Power any, NOT at home, NOT at work
Settings: Wifi off, GPS on, vibrate off, ringer max, speakerphone on, display timeout 3 mins, car mode on

Asleep
Contexts: 22:00-7:00, power any, NOT in car
Settings: silent

Text Wife for Pick Up (to let my wife know I am about to pick her up from work)
Contexts: GPS location, in car, M-F 16:00-19:00
Settings: auto text message

Text Received in Car
Contexts: in car, text received
Settings: auto response from Jake's Android with current speed and message that I will text back later

Similar stuff for Church (location and time based), weekly text reminder for group meeting at my house, etc. I use a lot of variable values not included here mostly just to flag when a state is active. Helps for setting other profiles and for debugging to know when Tasker is doing things.

My main problems so far are:

a) When I get in my car it usually takes about 10 minutes to register that I have left work. I have tried doing more frequent Wifi scans but it doesn't seem to register. I wonder if this has to do with the fact that I use a network location as well as wifi near. Perhaps it takes both to trigger the profile, but I have to lose both to exit the profile? Anyone know?

b) When Tasker does register that I am in car mode, the screen never times out, always stays on. In my car profile I set the screen timeout to 2 minutes, and I have the car mode app (3rd party, AFAIK there isn't a stock one in ICS?) set to not change screen timeout. Maybe I should just launch the car mode app instead of switching on car mode in Android settings? Or use NFC?

 

[joncat84]

How did you accomplish this? I would like to have the phone switch to speaker phone when on a call and putting the phone face down. I had this on the rezound and it was pretty cool.

How does the phone know the difference between putting it face down and putting it against your face?

Create a new profile and hit state, then sensor, then orientation face down. Then create your task for vibrating your phone and switching to silent. Im trying to create one for speakerphone but you can mess around with the above to get yours working. Mine and yours might interfere with eachother though.

Also when your phone is glass down its a different position then when youre on the phone. Most people are aware when they place the phone down on its glass so its great for rules.

 

[Nechasin]

how does tasked affect the battery life?

 

[Cigar-Junkie]

I had no idea tasker was this powerful, nice thread. This is an app worth looking into.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

 

[Bob61]

Depending on your needs you might also look at Llama. I looked at Tasker and was very powerful app, but a bit too much for me. Found Llama and it does just about all that I was looking for from Tasker and more straight forward UI in my opinion. It's also free/ donation ware. I also have it set to turn on/ off radios when not at home to mimic a Juice Defender.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

 

[bakerbert]

Found this at there website, it is a 7 day free trial.

Tasker for Android

I am going to download this and check it out, I am sure from the looks of this thread I will end up buying it. But at least you can check it out first.

 

[ScooberJake]

I had no idea tasker was this powerful, nice thread. This is an app worth looking into.

Depending on your needs you might also look at Llama.

Another alternative is Locale. I think Locale got some bad press because it was a little buggy and battery hungry when it first came out. But I used it for a couple of years on my OG and it is pretty good now. Does a lot of the same things as Tasker, but it is much simpler to use.

Tasker is extremely powerful, it does a lot more things that most people will ever need (including myself). If you just want to change settings based on time and/or location and/or plug-in state, the other options will work just fine.

The advantages to Tasker are:

a) More control over the simple location/time/battery state options. Tasker gives you some control over how often to check location, scan wifi, etc. If used improperly this can lead to poor battery life.

b) More detailed scenarios using variables. For instance, with most of these apps I can set the ringer to be loud when my wife calls (so I don't miss her call if I am in a noisy location), but with Tasker I could set it to ring loudly when my wife calls only when I am not at work. I don't know how to do that in Locale.

c) Auto features beyond just changing settings. My profile above of a text auto-reply based on if I am driving and including my current speed is one example.

d) Tons more options that I haven't dug into yet (file management, create your own widgets, create your own pop-up menus, etc.).

 

[SteelGator]

Another nice tasker function it sending automated texts. I have it set up to automatically fire off texts for birthdays and anniversaries. Much easier to sit down and do it at once instead of running the risk of getting busy and forgetting.

I use several of the other profiles mentioned also, especially a home profile to turn on wi-fi when I arrive home, and putting my phone on it's face to silence all notifications. I used this instead of the meeting profile that several have set up because I cannot get my Corp calendar on my phone.

 

[Vance14]

I think Tasker is exactly the type of app I like, but I can't seem to find a single use that would be helpful for me. I went through the list here:

Profiles - Tasker Wiki

and none of them seemed helpful for my use.

I am not worried about battery at all, and there are no regular occasions/places where I tend to use my phone differently. It is a bit frustrating since automation seems so cool.

 

[Sploinkin]

I think Tasker is exactly the type of app I like, but I can't seem to find a single use that would be helpful for me. I went through the list here:

Profiles - Tasker Wiki

and none of them seemed helpful for my use.

I am not worried about battery at all, and there are no regular occasions/places where I tend to use my phone differently. It is a bit frustrating since automation seems so cool.

Do you not want your phone to act differently when at home or work or in the car? I don't like having my ringer on at work and I use my phone for podcasts while driving so when I'm in the car I want it to turn media volume up to 80% and open up Doggcatcher.

I'm going to try this app so I can get rid of AudioManager and hopefully make my emails/texts go quiet at night (biggest oversight in ICS for sure!)

 

[mysterx]

This silly phone plays notifications/ringers through the external speaker even when headphones are connected. Ya, that's great fun in a quiet office environment. I get why Google did this, so that important calls would not be missed if your headphones are plugged in, but not in your ears. But a toggle option in the settings would be most appreciated. Thanks Google!

Anyway, I use Tasker to detect when headphones are plugged in and turn down the ringer/notification volumes. And Tasker allows me to re-play *most* audio events via the media stream (which does NOT play through the external speaker when headphones are connected). If Tasker had a 3rd party event for IM+, I'd be set. As it is, I have to settle for visual LED notificatoin for IM+ when headphones are connected. But all other sounds (K9 email notification, ringer, text msg, etc) play through the media stream when headphones are connected. Anyway, it's a hack, but it works for now.

-me

 

[ScooberJake]

I think Tasker is exactly the type of app I like, but I can't seem to find a single use that would be helpful for me. I went through the list here:

Profiles - Tasker Wiki

and none of them seemed helpful for my use.

I am not worried about battery at all, and there are no regular occasions/places where I tend to use my phone differently. It is a bit frustrating since automation seems so cool.

Interesting. Well, obviously if you don't need it, don't use it. But it seems strange to me. You don't mind being awaken in the night by a notification for a junk email? There aren't any times when you want your ringer silent (work, asleep, church) or extra loud (at home when phone may be in a different room, out and about when there are masking sounds like crowd noise or road noise)? Do you ever miss calls because you turned the ringer silent and then forgot to set it audible again?