Creating Profiles for your Android Device using Tasker and AutoLocation

One of the first "smart" phones that I had was a Nokia running the Symbian platform. I started off with the Nokia N97, a touch screen slider phone with a full qwerty keyboard, in 2009 or 2010. Not long after, I graduated to a Nokia N8. By today's standards, but phones were really crude, but I enjoyed a lot of things about both. In particular, the cameras were very good and I like the fact that I could download maps of entire countries to use with Nokia Maps without a data connection.

Nokia N97 - I could fly typing on that keyboard.

Nokia N8 - A much smoother operating system than the N97, but I missed the keyboard.

I graduated from the N8 to my first Android phone - a Samsung Galaxy S2. I can remember being amazed at how much more advanced the operating system felt and, in particular, how many more apps were available for the phone. I gave the N97 to my father-in-law and I believe he still uses it to this day. The N8 was sold at a rock bottom price to a friend who promptly lost it a couple months later.

One of the things that I enjoyed the most was Symbian's ability to create special profiles depending on where you were. You could create a profile for home, work, night, car, etc. which allowed you to have different home screens and appropriate apps on those screens. If I remember right, they wouldn't change automatically, but it was nice to quickly change the look of your phone and bring up shortcuts or apps that you needed in the appropriate situation. With my Android phones - first the S2, then the Nexus 4 and now the Nexus 5 - I've tried to recreate that Symbian experience and kick it up a notch.

In doing this, I've tried a couple of programs from the Play Store like, Profile Scheduler, Profile Manager and MyProfiles. These apps all have their pros and cons and worked well enough - particularly Profile Scheduler which was my favorite of the three - but they weren't quite geeky enough for me. I also flashed CyanogenMod to the S2 and found out that you could create profiles using that operating system. Unfortunately, it seemed as if CyanogenMod was always in permanent beta with the S2 and while I gained the ability to create profiles and manage them using Tasker, I gave up too much stability within the rom to make it my daily driver. Since moving the Nexus line, I haven't felt the need to try CyanogenMod again. I always figured that I could re-create those types of profiles on stock Android using Tasker and automate them.

Here's what I've settled on after playing with this idea for awhile. I've created five different profiles which handle most of my needs - home, work, away, night and car. All of this is done with Tasker and Joao Dias' AutoLocation plugin. My profiles are really pretty basic. I use them to set sound volume, screen brightness and timeouts and whether or not I have enabled the wifi. I generally leave my bluetooth on all the time (as it's paired to my Pebble watch) and mobile data is generally enabled all the time as well.

Here's what you need:

Tasker (app)

AutoLocation (plugin)

The first thing you'll need to do, after you've installed the above, is open AutoLocation from your app drawer. Once in AutoLocation start the GeoFence monitor. (If you don't know what GeoFences are, read about the basics at Joao's website at this link.)

Then you'll need to create the appropriate GeoFences that you want by clicking on the Manage GeoFences button.

I created two geofences; one for home and one for work. You can create as many geofences as you need, one for the gym, golf course, etc. Where ever you want to create a specific profile. Simply click on the plus button and use the map to determine the location of your geofence.

You can use the slider at the bottom of the page to adjust the size of the fence. You can also use the +/- buttons to increase or decrease the scale of the map. Once you're satisfied with your fence, press the "accept geofence" button at the bottom of the map and give it an appropriate name.

Once you've created and named your fences, it's time to go into Tasker. I created a new project to store my profiles under. To do that, you need to unclick Beginner mode under the preferences. Then long press on the Home icon at bottom of the page and press the Add button on the menu that pops up. Give the new project a name and set an icon if you like (I've used the AutoLocation icon in mine to store all of the profiles I've created using that plugin.)

Let's start with the Home profile. In your new project, click on the plus button in the bottom right hand corner and create a new profile. As you can see below, I named mine "Home."