[Root] Tasker Tutorial: Automate Your Device

If you're a root user, Tasker is definitely one of the apps you should be taking advantage of. Tasker is an app that in simple terms, tells your phone to automate certain things. This is extremely useful with infinite possibilities. Currently, I have Tasker profiles to turn my notifications off if my phone is in proximity to school WiFi, make notifications priority mode when my phone is face-down, turn auto-rotate on when in certain apps like YouTube or Gallery, auto-connect my VPN, and more.

Tasker is currently $2.99 on the Play Store, but it's quite a deal for what it does.

So you can see why Tasker is such a big deal for a phone of mine. It's gotten to the point where I'd consider it one of the best reasons to root your device. With Tasker, you can tell your device if "this" happens, then do "that."

I'm going to explain how to make your device silent when in proximity to a certain WiFi network. Once you open Tasker, hit the + button on the bottom-right corner. Select "State" > "Net" > "WiFi Near." You should be met with a screen to edit this state. This is the "this" action, meaning that Tasker is waiting for this to happen before it preforms the next action. In the text field called SSID, put the exact name of the WiFi network you wish to be silent around. If you want to put multiple WiFi networks, separate them with a forward-slash. ("School WiFi/Work WiFi") Once you're done with that, hit the back button. A screen should pop up with a "New Task" option. The task is the "that" action, meaning once "this" happens, the task will happen. Tap New Task, then name it "Mute." Click the + on the bottom, go to "Audio" > "Notification Volume" and set the level to zero. Go back, and do the same for alarm volume or media volume if you wish. Finally, if you're on Android 5.0 or above, add "Interrupt Mode" and change it to either "None" or "Priority" depending on how many notifications you want to get through. If you're on Lollipop you should be familiar with these settings. Lastly, go back to the profiles screen and hold down on the profile you made. Press the settings icon at the top and make sure the "Restore Settings" option is checked. This causes the changes you've made through the task to be reversed if you are no longer near that WiFi.

And you're done! Now that you've made one Tasker profile, it should be fairly easy to create more. Explore all the options for profiles and tasks and think about some things you do every day that could be automated. It takes a bit to set up and understand how to use it, but in the end it saves a lot of time and hassle.