Fuel for Thought

I Love My Tasker

It’s a smartphone phone world, and the Tasker app unlocks the power of Android smartphones. Tasker was one of the first apps I played with when I bought my first smartphone a couple years ago. I never quite got the knack of it and let my interest in it slide. Rooting my phone rekindled my interest, so I dug out the owners manual again.

What does Tasker do? Tasker let’s the user set up groups of actions that they want their phone to execute under certain conditions. Think of any button you push or activity the phone does, and Tasker can do those actions automatically. Someone plugs in their headphones, opens their music player and sets the volume for comfortable listening. A user arranged profile in Tasker will automatically open the music player and set the volume when the phone senses that the headphones are plugged in. This is one of the most basic, common set of instructions found on video tutorials.

In the couple days I’ve been playing with the app, I’ve set up three profiles that replace special purpose apps that I needed for certain tasks. One set of instructions keeps my screen from locking each time I turn off the screen. Another set of instructions keeps the screen from going to sleep unless I tell it to. And the third profile switches my phone from my 4G connection to a specific WiFi connection when I arrive at a specific location. After uninstalling the specialty apps, my battery life has increased noticeably. My next battery saving profile will turn on my gps setting when a select group of apps that require gps are turned on. When I turn off the apps, gps will also automatically turn off. So no more idle time for the power hungry gps.

Tasker does not require rooting the phone, but a rooted phone gives Tasker access to a wider range of functions. It isn’t too confusing to get started, because there is a good set of instructions between Tasker’s website tutorials and You Tube videos by Tasker fans. It doesn’t require programming skill, but programming thought processes are helpful when figuring out efficient sets of instructions. Tasker is in the Google Play Store or can be found here for those who may want to study the app first.

eb