This is an overview guide to choosing a method for fixing your location with Tasker. At the end are some advanced power-saving strategies.
Method | Power Usage | Acc | Network | Wifi | BT |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
State: Cell Near | * | * | |||
State: BT Near | ** | ***** | Y | ||
State: Wifi Near | ** | ***** | Y | ||
Location: Net | ** | ** | Y | ||
Location: Net & Wifi | *** | */***** | Y | Y | |
Location: GPS | ***** | ***** | Y |
More stars mean higher power usage or higher accuracy (Acc).
When the display is off, frequency of checks is controlled by Prefs / Monitor / Display Off All Checks
.
If your profile keeps deactivating, go back to the Cell Near state and click the magnifying glass icon to check for cells you may have missed in your scan.
Monitor / General Monitoring / Use New Cell API
: if you're not seeing any cells at all when scanning on a modern device, try checking this
Monitor / Display Off Monitoring / Cell Workaround
: if things aren't working when the display is off
Monitor / Display Off Monitoring / Cell Wake Screen
: second possible workaround when the display is off
BT Near does regular bluetooth Scans and will activate when it recognizes a device you have configured is nearby. Note: you don't have to connect to the device, so it doesn't have to be a device you own.
Frequency of checks is controlled by Prefs / Monitor / BT Scan Seconds
(screen on) and Prefs / Monitor / Display Off All Checks
(screen off).
Check the BT Toggle box if you don't want bluetooth enabled all the time. It will then be toggled when Tasker needs to do a scan.
If your target device is a low-energy device, deselect Standard Devices to reduce energy usage. If you can pair with the target device, you can have a major reduction in power usage and scan times by not selecting Non-Paired Devices.
Prefs / Monitor / Display Off Monitoring / Motion Detection
: if available on your device, will need to be disabled if you wish to detect a nearby BT device that may move or turn off or on
Net location accuracy varies greatly. It's very important that you create a large radius around the spot you wish to detect.
Frequency of checks is controlled by Prefs / Monitor / Network Location Check
(screen on)
and Prefs / Monitor / Display Off All Checks
.
Net location can be assisted by nearby access points when Wifi is turned on (Google has a map of APs for many areas).
Turn Wifi off when not needed to conserve power e.g. use a Time context to turn wifi off at night.
Wifi Near does regular Wifi Scans and will activate when it recognizes an AP you have configured is nearby. Note: you don't have to connect to the AP. You could configure e.g. the neighbours AP if the signal is strong enough.
Frequency of checks is controlled by Prefs / Monitor / Wifi Scan Seconds
(screen on) and Prefs / Monitor / Display Off All Checks
(screen off).
Check the Wifi Toggle box if you don't want wifi on all the time. It will then be toggled when Tasker needs to do a scan. This isn't needed in
In Android 4.4+ if you select Scanning Always Available
in Advanced Wifi Settings and will save power.
Prefs / Monitor / Display Off Monitoring / Motion Detection
: if available on your device, will need to be disabled if you wish to detect an AP
that may turn off and on.
Frequency of GPS checks is controlled by Prefs / Monitor / GPS Check
(screen on)
and Prefs / Monitor / Display Off All Checks
. Higher frequencies mean
more battery usage but that location changes will be noticed more quickly.
When indoors, GPS will try a long time to get a signal, using a lot of battery. Adjust
it at Prefs / Monitor / GPS Timeout
. Make the
timeout as low as you can until you start losing effectiveness.
Prefs / Monitor / Display Off Monitoring / Motion Detection
: if available on your device, will need to be disabled if you wish to detect changes of location
on the order of a few meters.
Some devices have a low-power accelerometer that can be active while the rest of the device is sleeping.
For such devices, Tasker will not do location checks with the display off unless it detects that significant movement has taken place since the last check, resulting in lower power usage and faster response times when the device does eventually move.
This works because Location contexts assume you are in the same location until there is a fix which says otherwise.
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