I want to record a macro to setup my GPS apps without hitting multiple buttons. Anything out there to use?
Tasker in the marketplace can automate typical function (ie, power gps on/off when app launches) but it cannot record macros to manipulate the functions of a specific app. I've never heard of anything like that.
brettdwagner said:
Tasker in the marketplace can automate typical function (ie, power gps on/off when app launches) but it cannot record macros to manipulate the functions of a specific app. I've never heard of anything like that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was ready to buy tasker but wanted to wait until I heard something one way or another on this thread. Thanks for the heads up.
If you're on the fence about tasker there is a 7 day trial apk from the dev's website
http://tasker.dinglisch.net/
It's absolutely worth it in my opinion.
Check out this thread for instructions on how to lock the gtab when a case is closed.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1155144
Like a lot of people here I'm new to NFC. Other than Google Wallet (which I am not overly interested in at this point) I'd like to know what the capabilities of NFC are. I've seen a few android beam demonstrations and it seems like more of a novelty than of practical use.
I'd like to be able to use NFC to switch on bluetooth when in my car and to set my alarm when going to bed. Automation of simple tasks that I do every single day would be greatly beneficial.
Would I need a special app to do this? What kind of tags do I have to buy? Can I buy any tag and tell my phone what to do when I scan it? Do I have to program tags myself?
Thanks in advance to everyone who helps and I hope I'm not the only one who benefits from answers to these questions.
There's a thread here that discusses everything from where to get tags to how to program them using different apps. I posted some guides in there too.
To get you started:
Buy tags here, comes with an awesome NFC keyring.
Program the tags with this.
Use Tasker to make the above application more powerful.
If you need help with anything specific post in that thread and I'll help you out or PM me.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jwsoft.nfcactionlauncher&hl=en
Here's the app I use, it's fantastic. You can make simple tags, complicated ones, or even switches(a tag that does 2 different things).
For example, I have a switch configured for when i get to/leave work. It toggles wifi, Bluetooth, ring volume, ring tone, media volume, and notification tone, all in one tag, all in one touch. Watch the video in the link, it's pretty helpful too!
There is a mod in the EVO 4g LTE and HTC one x forums that let's you choose when NFC can be read.
Screen on and unlocked,
Screen on and locked, or
Screed off (obviously locked)
I modded the phone to read tags when the screen is on and even if the phone is still locked. Allowing it to read while the screen is off may be a security risk for some.
Anyway,
On my keychain:
Switcher:
WiFi off, Bluetooth on, volume up, brightness up, latitude check in, plays media player.
This is great because it automatically connects to my car Bluetooth headset and the HTC aux stereoclip so music starts playing through my car speakers wirelessly via swipe of the keychain.
Tap again to disable all these and check in again w latitude.
I also have a separate tag in my car low on the dash to enable GPS and open maps so I don't have to fiddle w my phone througg the settings and open the app drawer to open maps. Makes driving that much safer. Also, I don't always use GPS, so having a separate tag for it from my keychain saves battery by using it only when needed.
Trying to set up a tag to enable WiFi tether for root users and stick it to my laptop/pc for quick swiping and enabling. But that has been tricky as you either have to use tasker or a custom activity in NFC task launcher.
Can't think of any others relevant to my interests. I don't see the need in making 38583983 tags. I definitely use the ones in the car tho.
I may order a wristband and think up something creative for it. Assigning a "sync all" activity would rock for it as I keep auto-syncing on my phone off and only sync email and such when I see fit.
Sent from my EVO using XDA
Great info. I think I'll pick up a handful of tags.
1 - At work to set phone to vibrate, turn on Wi-Fi.
1 - In Car to turn on GPS, Bluetooth, Disable Wifi, Open Music App.
1 - At home that turns Alarm on before going to bed.
There are so many possibilities...I can't wait to get this going.
Racer Of All said:
To get you started:
Buy tags here, comes with an awesome NFC keyring.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, unfortunately they are all sold out. I was about to checkout with a kit from them a little while ago when stupid work distracted me and I forgot to come back to it. Really does look like a nice set.
I'm trying to NFC Launchit to start my music player app as soon as it sees the NFC tag. It works but its kinda annoying to have to keep pressing "open app" and play every time I set down the phone, is there any way to skip that notification and go straight into the app? Or is that even possible?
Edit: Using the Nokia NFC Writer app I at least got the music to play right off the bat, but i still have to hit that stupid "open app" button. Any ideas?
The confirmation is there for your own protection and to allow you an option to back out once you consider the danger of this technology. For example, suppose I make an NFC tag and stick them around town. The people like you come along whom have figured out how to disable the notification so your phone will do whatever my NFC tells it to do. Such as email all your contacts a virus that the NFC tag points to. Or maybe download a huge file of child porn and then send that to your contacts. You should get the point now why the confirmation is there and the danger of having the phone just carry out the NFC command.
Valid point dude, but at the same time you gotta think that some of the burden of keeping a phone safe is the owner's responsibility. Combined with the fact that NFC has a short range, unless I walk around town rubbing my phone up against every wall I can see, I think I might be safe turning the notifications off. I don't even put my phone on the table when I'm out and about for fear of my forgetfulness, and I keep the Tap + Send option off most of the time to save battery.
I'd rather take the chance if it means that I can just drop my phone on my wireless charger and have the tunes kick in. So that brings us back to the task at hand, figuring out how to get past the notifications. It looks like it might be a part of the OS so I guess its a futile effort but hey can't hurt to keep looking right?
a posible solution is make trust tags. This tag only work without confirmation in the phone that make it. The problem is windows phone not allow trusted tags
Other fault is a nfc tag can´t modify the wifi or bluetooth. I want a tag that switch the bluetooth on when i put the phone on it (in a car is very usefull). Windows phone not allow to change configuration of the phone.
RESUME: nfc tags is not usefull for me
So I just got some NFC tags and want to add one to my car dock. Just want to do basic stuff like turn on maps and bluetooth...easy enough. But how do I get them to turn off once I take the phone out of the dock. Seems, at first glance that there's no way for an exit profile.
I'm sure there's a way to do this with tasker or something but I've never been able to do much with that other than the super basic.
Can anyone give me some guidance as to how I can best accomplish this exit profile?
Thanks
finneginsfast said:
So I just got some NFC tags and want to add one to my car dock. Just want to do basic stuff like turn on maps and bluetooth...easy enough. But how do I get them to turn off once I take the phone out of the dock. Seems, at first glance that there's no way for an exit profile.
I'm sure there's a way to do this with tasker or something but I've never been able to do much with that other than the super basic.
Can anyone give me some guidance as to how I can best accomplish this exit profile?
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2122019
Hello,
I have recently bought a watch with Wear OS 2. I quite like it, but I am missing one nice feature from competition watches. I am blind. Apple watch and some other specialised devices can tell you time by certain vibration patterns. e.g. 5:30 am - 5 short vibrations, then pause, then 3 short vibrations... etc. I am thinking about creating something with Tasker, but this would require connection to the phone all the time.
Would someone take this as an interesting project? Or maybe would someone give me a helping hand in developing this? I am a programmer but never programmed for Android unfortunately.
what would be your preferred way of activating the vibration?
i'm thinking about an empty watchface which could, whenever it's activated either by gesture or button, start the time pattern.
also please let me know how exactly such a vibration pattern would best look like. (first hours then minutes, ok. what about 11:34 ? also seconds are not needed i guess?)
I might do a quick app
I really like this idea because the watchface would be sooo battery friendly
btw: any idea for a good name? I think I would go for "time feel watchface" if no one's got a better idea
if everything goes right, I will have a first test version by tomorrow
update: basic watchface running. gonna implement vibration pattern tomorrow.
need info:
-i assume it's no problem that the watchface is always black, this is to save as much battery as possible
-any symbol maybe for blindness i could use for the icon / watchface preview?
-should the vibration pattern start again if you touch the screen?
----I find this problematic because screen usually is only on for a few seconds, maybe i have to let it stay on as long as the pattern is running and it would go to standby immediatly after that... so i'm not quite sure how to handle this
-is a 24 hour mode needed or should it even be default?
Hi, thanks for your response. Yes this is aimed at blind people specifically, I am blind my self. Yes blind people use smart watches, mostly from Apple, but there are also some users of Android Wear OS.
wow I read your reply just now and it seems cool. I have a few points:
A watch face is an interesting idea, but for example I would prefer it to be just an app which even does not launch a screen, does the vibration and exits. I use information I have on my watch face, I use screenreader to read info about upcoming events, battery etc. You may ask why do I need this vibration way of telling time when I can read it from the watch face? Well it is more discrete and does not bother surroundings. I could assign a specific gesture in the screenreader which would launch the app and do vibrations.
Honestly, I am probably the only Wear OS user in Czech Republic and I have to get connected with other blind people to get their opinions.
I think 12 hour format should be OK so far.
so basically you just need an app that vibrates the time when launched?
for example 5:33 x x x x x pause x x x pause x x x?
then i need to rethink that. but that should be even easier
Yes, for me this would be enough. Ideally if the app would do it without displaying any window so that the screenreader does not read anything. Is that possible? I am sorry I did not clarify this at the begining.
As to how to do vibrations:
I imagine this schema:
1 - one short vibration
2 - two short vibrations
3 - three short vibrations,
4 - four short vibrations,
5 - one long vibration
6 - one long vibration, short pause, one short vibration
...
9 - one long viberation, short pause, four short vibrations
0 - long vibration, short pause, long vibration
e.g.
10:56 - short vibration, long pause, long vibration, short pause, long vibration, long pause, long vibration, long pause, long vibration, short pause, short vibration
here's a first prototype.
do you know how to install apk to your watch? you need to enable ADB and WiFi Debugging to install wireless over ADB
let me know what you think. is it too fast?
i know it's not perfect, for example you need to exit the app to relaunch the pattern. i can fix that - can i let the app run the pattern and immediately exit? so you wouldn't need to exit manually everytime
Hello, you are amazing! So fast! Thank you very much. I tried the app.I have few questions:
1. Vibrations are quite fast. Could you make it a bit slower? Let's say that the long pause among numbers could be 1 second?
2. Could you make it so that the app does not open any window? That after launching the icon everything happens in the background?
3. Will this work also on phones or only on watch?
Thank you so much. If you don't mind, I would like to spread the word about this among other Wear OS users.
1. sure. i actually use two different long pause durations: one between the digits and one between hours/minutes
---i need to do this because leading zeros are ignored. i could also do leading zeros so you always have 4 digits and pause can be constant, but imho that's not as efficient
2. In this new version the window exits after launch, I hope that's fine. also fixes not working on second launch and makes the app not stay in RAM.
3. This version is only for Wear OS, but I could copy it to an android app.
Of course you can spread this app however you like. when it's done I can attempt to publish it to the play store.
please check this new version. is it still too fast?
also 12 a.m. seems to be treated as "0". should i change this?
new version with fixed 12 a.m.
if you are fine with this state i'm going to finish it and publish it to play store
Wow thanks, this look very well. I still have a problem with the app creating a window. The problem is that when the window is created and closed again, the screenreader reacts to that - in this case after closing the app window it reads info about previously opened window or a watch face. That is a bit problematic as my idea was to not make any sound at all, so that one can check for the time discretely.
Would it be possible to not display any window at all? Maybe running as a service which would be waiting for the launcher icon to be pressed? I am not good at Android internals so maybe it is a stupid idea.
krecoun said:
Wow thanks, this look very well. I still have a problem with the app creating a window. The problem is that when the window is created and closed again, the screenreader reacts to that - in this case after closing the app window it reads info about previously opened window or a watch face. That is a bit problematic as my idea was to not make any sound at all, so that one can check for the time discretely.
Would it be possible to not display any window at all? Maybe running as a service which would be waiting for the launcher icon to be pressed? I am not good at Android internals so maybe it is a stupid idea.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
now I understand the problem. I need to look into this later. but I guess that's doable.
update: I tried to replicate your problem. I enabled talkback and started the app. only thing I can hear is a click when launching the app. is that what you are talking about? If so, I don't think that can be prevented as it's caused by the launch of the app.
-sorry, I didn't read correctly. so the problem is that it starts reading the previous app. that's a problem. I didn't find an easy way to fix this - as far as I read you cannot launch an app without starting an activity. at least not with an app. maybe i could make the watch sleep after launching? or you can find a solution with tasker or something similar
Hypothetic idea:
Let's say that the app would be running as a service after start. I don't know if this is possible in Wear OS.
1. After clicking the launcher icon, check if the service is already running.
2. If not, launch it. You can display even a window and close it, well while launching the service we probably won't avoid that but that's acceptable.
3. If yes, don't show anything but send some intend / activity / however it is called in Android to the running service which will do the vibration.
Is it doable?
the thing is afaik an app launch always needs to launch an activity.
if i'm wrong i hope someone corrects me
How about this?
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2704084/how-to-launch-an-activity-without-a-ui
krecoun said:
How about this?
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2704084/how-to-launch-an-activity-without-a-ui
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it says you can have an app that's a service only, which starts on boot an can receive intents. but how do you call it? you need to activate something. you could maybe do it as a compilation, but as I see it it's not possible by launching an app.
I see two easy solutions:
-let the app run in an empty window
or
-let the device go to standby after vibration
update: I looked into this a bit more. I guess my solutions would not work. an app can't send the device to sleep and if I show an activity the screenreader always reads the app name...
so I can't help you any further. maybe someone else can
Hi, sorry for looong delay. I must say that I am using your app quite successfully. Sometimes it talks but mostly it does not and vibrations work as expected. Great work. Maybe you could release this app into Playstore, some other blind people could benefit from that or make more suggestions.
krecoun said:
Hi, sorry for looong delay. I must say that I am using your app quite successfully. Sometimes it talks but mostly it does not and vibrations work as expected. Great work. Maybe you could release this app into Playstore, some other blind people could benefit from that or make more suggestions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your feedback, i'm glad you like it.
I find myself running it from time to time, just to see if I can feel the time
I'm gonna try to publish it when I find time. I'm currently starting work at a different project.
Just came across this thread. Very interesting project!
I, myself, am not blind, but I like the direction this is going! I am going to try it out!
Have you published this to the Play store as of yet? This could be good! ??
Yeh, this is a unique app concept for many!
sorry, for not responding in almost a year.
best would be to bake this function into the os, or make it activate by gesture... wouldn't this be awesome? telling time without ears and eyes, just by a movement...
I just remembered this app and thought i might finish it and add it to play store.
HOPEfully this weekend