Best Android automation app?

[Winston Marmaduke III]

I've been using Llama for a while now and was wondering what everyone else here prefers? Llama, Trigger, Tasker? Which do you prefer and why?

 

[core2slow]

I think tasker is the most robust in terms of functionality. I have over 20 profiles and I can't see myself using another smartphone without it. Don't know if the other two apps you mentioned can do this but I can set up priority bluetooth audio profile where tasker will disconnect from my smartwatch and sync up with my car's bluetooth when I leave to & from work and will rejoin with the watch when I get home. That alone is worth the price.

 

[Winston Marmaduke III]

I have heard Tasker is the best, but most complicated, really requiring you to dig into low level settings.

I have an LG 750 Bluetooth headset that has a bug in the firmware that disables the microphone when there is a WiFi connection. So I downloaded Llama and set it to disable WiFi while I'm in a call, and re-enable after I hang up to workaround this problem.

I also use Agent to silence my phone and send an auto-message while driving. I guess I could learn the nitty gritty of Tasker to replace both these apps?

 

[core2slow]

I have heard Tasker is the best, but most complicated, really requiring you to dig into low level settings.

I have an LG 750 Bluetooth headset that has a bug in the firmware that disables the microphone when there is a WiFi connection. So I downloaded Llama and set it to disable WiFi while I'm in a call, and re-enable after I hang up to workaround this problem.

I also use Agent to silence my phone and send an auto-message while driving. I guess I could learn the nitty gritty of Tasker to replace both these apps?

The two things you mentioned arent complicated to achieve in tasker, like at all, and I could visualize the steps in doing so in 5 seconds (create task for wifi toggling, create profile for call ring, link task, add exit task, etc). Just because it's robust doesn't mean that it's complicated, but like any apps, start out with the basics like silent ringer, toggle bt/wifi, set app rotation, etc then work your way up by linking time of day, day of the week, etc. The fun really starts after you root your phone and install secure settings.

 

[Adam595]

I use tasker but it's the only automation app I've used very much. Automagic is another one that might be worth looking into. I did check it out briefly and it has a very different UI from tasker. It seems a little more user friendly because it has a catalogue of profiles that you can use straight away and it uses flow diagrams to show the user how everything is connected (i.e. actions and conditions). I read on a forum that tasker plugins work with it and I also noticed a "screen on" action which tasker lacks.

I still use tasker because I'm used to it and because it's a lot more popular, so forums are a more useful resource for it. Oh and I don't know if Automagic can create tasker style "scenes" either.

tangent: I'm just starting to learn regex for the "variable search and replace" action, for editing the html that I pull from a website. What I'm planning to do is, when the profile is active and I copy a url, tasker detects that I've copied a url and downloads the html from that url and deletes the stuff I don't want with regex and then "says to file" what's left and that creates an TTS audio file that plays automatically, with media controls for play/pause etc. I can do all that now, though I need to fine tune my regex, except "say to file" has a limit on size which is the real problem. It will save the url as a text file as well and back it up to a cloud service automatically, using a plugin that works well. I could just use pocket but I wanted to learn tasker and so far this little profile has taught me quite a bit. /tangent

Sorry, that was all pointless really, but I recommend tasker because there is quite a lot of info around on how to use it.

edit: but if you just want to do more basic stuff then automagic and it's catalogue might be worth checking out.

edit, before I said "variable split" but I meant "variable search and replace". I've changed it.

 

[Winston Marmaduke III]

Good point on support and forums. I hadn't considered that. Even if Tasker is a bit more in depth and harder to set up, lots of forum support should easily make up for that.

 

[Adam595]

As a newish tasker user myself I have 3 tips which might be useful if you choose to learn tasker a little more indepth than just the basics.

1. If you want to create certain sort of trigger e.g. in my profile when the system clipboard (know as %CLIP) changes and doesn't equal my variable anymore, something triggers. The "wait until" action doesn't work for this and so if I did:

"wait until" %CLIP "doesn't equal" %MyVar

It won't work. It needs to be something like:

(A1) "wait 500ms"
(A2) goto action 1 if %CLIP "equals" %MyVar
(A3)...

Basically it's a little loop that checks the clipboard every half a second to see if %CLIP equals my variable. When it does, it goes back to action 1, when it doesn't it moves on to the next action (a3).

2. If you want another task to run the task I just described (lets call it "little loop") and you want it to continue on with it's own task after having run "little loop" it won't, it will just stop and wait until "little loop" has finnished.You have to change %priority to %PACTIVE in the "perform task" action to ensure that they run at the same time.

3. Lets say you create a scene with a "textedit" box and you want the "textedit" box to save the data you put into it. You have to save the data in a variable, but how? This is done by setting an action for the "textedit" box in"text changed" , "set variable" to "%new_val"; now when data is entered into the "textedit" box on your scene, tasker will create a variable to store the data in.

None of that will make sense for now but trust me, it's good info to have for later if you really start to get into tasker

edit:FYI the reason I used a loop for the 1st tip and didn't just use "if %CLIP doesn't equal %MyVar" is because I wasn't finding it reliable but maybe that's just me. It's still useful though, since "wait until" doesn't work how someone might expect.